At the end of the session, Reverend McDuff would spread his arms beseechingly toward Heaven and shout, “Amen, Lord, Amen!” Yani realized that this was an important part of the magic ritual and he enjoyed shouting and raising his arms to Heaven. This was repeated everyday for weeks.
___
The missionary had been told that the best way to make Christians out of pagans was to allow them to ask questions on their own when they were ready. Early in his training Yani asked, “Where Witman come from?”
McDuff considered his answer. Using his best Pidgin phrasing and shared vocabulary, he explained the Creation as it appears in Genesis. He concluded with: “Witman and Blackfella both come from Adam-and-Eve-Fella. We are all brothers. We are all Adam-and-Eve-Fella.”
This single source for all men did not sit well with Yani’s knowledge of totems. There were Crocodile-fellas, and Shark-fellas, and even Bird-fellas. Everyone knew what animal his lineage was derived from, and they were not to eat the flesh of their totem. If they were Adam-and-Eve fellas, this meant no one could eat the flesh of other human beings. It struck him as an odd notion. He was sure the natives from Christ’s Despair and his own Chase Island must not be Adam-and-Eve-Fellas. He was afraid his Big Man Duff had gotten that part of the story wrong.
The next day he asked, “Where God live?”
McDuff’s answer: “He lives in Heaven with the angels and our loved ones who have died.”
“Where is Heaven?”
“In the sky.”
After that, Yani frequently strained his eyes trying to see Heaven in the night skies. It was a better explanation than Ooma’s who said that the stars were the fires of tribes who lived on far away islands. Now he knew the fires were those tended by the ancestors of the Witman.
That accounted for the Witman’s ancestors all right, but he had a bigger question, “Where Blackfella go when he die?” he asked.
“If they believe in the teachings of Jesus Christ, they go to Heaven,” McDuff explained.
Not entirely understanding the entry requirements, Yani assumed all his people’s ancestors were also in Heaven. All his gods on Chase Island lived in trees, bushes, rocks, gourds and drums. He liked the idea of a god who lived in the sky better.
“What dead fella do there?”
“They praise and glorify God.”
“What is praise and glorify?”
McDuff was growing tired of this line of inquiry. The questions were getting harder. “They sing hymns of praise and give prayers of thanksgiving.” That was as far as the minister wished to pursue the conversation for the time being.
___
Yani made friends with some of the locals who had been acquainted with the previous missionaries. They confirmed that dead islanders were in Heaven, according to the other Churchfellas. They talked about it at length as Yani sat around the fire with them, drinking kava. He developed his own ideas. He was sure that the ancestors spent their time making knives, iron hatchets, and machetes.
He was also sure they spent a lot of time putting meat and vegetables in tinkens. There was clearly no way an island man could make a tinken. A man could cut a tree down and make wooden planks. He could cut a piece of wood and nail it to other pieces and make a bench. But where could anyone find a piece of metal except in Heaven? A mere man could not kill and cut up a pig into small pieces, cook it, and put it in a tinken. The ancestors could do this with magic in Heaven with no trouble, and send the tinkens to God’s followers among the Witmen.
As he cut wood and nailed nails, he thought about it continually. God gave the ancestors His magic to enable them to make tinkens. Therefore, he reasoned, if one could find metal only in Heaven to make tin cans, certainly nothing short of divine intervention could produce a steel saw, knife, a hammer or an ax head. He was pretty sure that the ancestors who were in Heaven were too busy making things to spend much time singing and praying.
He came to a conclusion. He was obliged to become a Christian, considering all the trouble they were going through up in Heaven.
The division of labor was clear. Dr. McDuff planned how he wanted to build his church and Yani did the physical work. But to him it was not work. Yani’s greatest contribution came from his knowledge of local building techniques and materials. The minister was far from being an architect, but common sense made the mission church grow rapidly.
Finally, the basics of the church were completed to Dr. McDuff’s satisfaction. It was built along the same lines as the haus tambaran, the spirit house of the male cult, not because of any similarity of function, but because there was just so much a limited imagination could do with palm trees, thatched reeds, and simple tools.
The most curious thing they found when they marked off the boundaries for the church walls were beer bottles buried upside down and in straight lines. Later, Thompson was able to explain the phenomenon. When the Germans started the coconut plantation many years before, this was the site of one of the wives’ flower gardens. As they emptied the beer bottles, they made a decorative border with them.
The minister told his Churchboy that they needed to get word out to the people. Both men and women were welcome at the new church. So, Yani went to the village and mentioned that his Big Man was going to have a feast at his new church. At that time he would tell the residents of Christ’s Despair about his God who promised many good things for his followers.
However, the idea did not arouse much enthusiasm among the people. They had seen other Churchfellas hold what they called “prayer meetings,” all of which proved to be dull and uneventful. One of the village elders said, “He has no pigs. How can he have a feast without killing pigs?”
Picking up the thread another added, “He has no garden. How can he make pudding for the people? He doesn’t even raise taro.”
Yani stood and retied his gingham headband to gain their attention. “Big Man Duff’s God does not need pigs. He does not need a garden. All his food is made in Heaven. His God sends him tinkens full of food. He has powerful magic. He knows many chants and formulas for speaking to his God. Those who follow Big Man Duff’s God will get tinkens and cloth and tools when they prove they are worthy.”
The next morning was Sunday, and all were invited to attend. That was the end of the publicity. Conversation returned to local gossip and the demands being made by the plantation manager.
___
The Reverend Doctor Moses McDuff realized that Christmas was only about a week away. The first service should be a Christmas service — what better opportunity to “begin at the beginning.” His logic was simple: if the natives were childlike in their understanding of things, then they should be introduced to Christianity the same way children were back home. He would use a Sunday School Christmas story approach.
His own favorite Christmas Carol when he was a child was “Away In A Manger.” This reduces the story of Jesus to its basics, he thought. If I can tell the story of how God was born as a child to human parents, then they will understand how he loves them.
It was all very simple. He would even sing the carol. Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast, he reminded himself. He wrote down the words as he recalled them.
When he told his Churchboy what he planned he realized that Yani had never heard the words before. The American translated them from English to Pidgin, but Yani still had no idea what they meant or how to translate them into Booga-booga. McDuff, for his part, just assumed the flow of ideas was natural.
Minister and Churchboy arose earlier than usual on the big day. To the Chase Islander’s surprise, the clergyman put on a white satin gown over his usual clothes and white collar. He had a less ornate, but similar, robe for his Churchboy to wear. Much to Yani’s surprise he also was given a clean shirt, much like the first one with the “Massachusetts Youth For Christ Conference” embroidered on the back, but this one had blue lettering and was dated 1936. In place of khaki shorts, he was given blue ones.
Yani’s smile lit his whole face. The
villagers would be overwhelmed when they saw the clothes he would wear at the first church service. McDuff helped him change into his new outfit and looked with pride on his Churchboy in full regalia. His very dark skin stood out in sharp contrast to the white vestments.
“Well, Yani, what do you think of your new clothes?” McDuff asked. He looked over the minister and then himself. A frown crossed his face. His eyes were on the ground. “Yani not have shoes like Big Man. I can have shoes?”
McDuff rummaged through one of the clothes boxes and came up with a rather worn-out pair of size 12, brown and white saddle shoes. That they were without shoelaces did not matter to Yani. He put them on his feet and reveled in the sensation they produced. Feeling his feet enclosed in leather for the first time in his life, he knew these were special and sacred. He would only wear them to church. Nothing else justified such finery.
A few young women were the first to arrive at the new church site, and hung back at the edge of the clearing. Yani’s palm wood and foliage altar was impressive. They were curious, but did not want to be the only ones to declare so.
Reverend McDuff had heard that the unofficial measurement of the success of missionaries on South Sea Islands could be measured by the kind of muumuus the native women wore. The closer the hemline was to the ground, the more influential the Christian missionary had been. The ultimate was a muumuu that trailed in the dust, and whose sleeves reached to the wrists. The women of Christ’s Despair wore only a sort of G-string made of woven pig leather.
Although they were practically naked, McDuff did not find them sexually stimulating, only shameful and embarrassing. He was aghast.
“They can’t come to church naked,” he whispered to Yani.
“Naked ?”
“With no clothes on.”
Why not?” asked Yani.
“God doesn’t like it. That’s why. They need to cover themselves before they can enter a holy place. This is no longer part of the jungle. This is the dwelling place of God.”
The only part of the explanation Yani really understood was that God didn’t like it. That was good enough for him. After all, he had received special clothing to participate in the ceremony; it followed that the others should do likewise.
He picked up and carried the cardboard carton from which his shoes had recently emerged. In black crayon, the words “Clothes for Mission” proclaimed the contents. He walked directly up to the girls and pulled out the first piece of clothing his hand touched. He handed it brusquely to the first girl, then did the same for the second. “You put on and come in church. Not wear clothes taboo in church.”
They giggled and examined the clothes they had just been handed. They quickly figured out how to wear them. One wore a lady’s pink rayon slip and the other a print housedress that was supposed to button down the front over her protruding pregnant belly. However, the buttons were taken for ornaments, their function not even imagined. Thus attired, they entered the holy church tent and sat on one of the palm log benches Yani had nailed together.
When the male would-be churchgoers saw what the girls had received for coming to the church, they clamored around Yani for garments of their own. In spite of himself, Reverend McDuff could not help being amused. Neither Yani nor the other islanders recognized the distinction between male and female clothes, or that there were different sizes. It was a problem best left for another day.
At the very bottom of the box Yani found a treasure he could not believe — a pair of sunglasses with only one earpiece. He had seen the Patrol Officers and the plantation manager wearing them, and could not believe his luck. From then on, he wore them constantly during the daylight hours.
___
There had been no rehearsal. As soon as the natives appeared to be settled down, Reverend McDuff began the service with an a cappella solo:
“Away in a manger, no crib for his bed,
The little Lord Jesus lay down His sweet head.
The stars in the Heavens look down where he lay;
The little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay.”
He then turned to Yani and said, “Yani, would you please translate that into Booga-booga?”
Yani tried to remember what the minister had told him the words meant, and after a few moments he took as stab at it. “On an island far from this, God took off his head and put it down where the animals eat. Lights we see in sky at night are eyes of God. He have Sheepy-sheep watch what Blackfella do.”
The Churchboy indicated that he had done his best, and the minister could proceed.
McDuff sang the second verse:
“The cattle are lowing, the Baby awakes,
But little Lord Jesus, no crying He makes.
I love thee, Lord Jesus; look down from the sky
and stay by my cradle ‘til morning is nigh.”
Yani warmed to his task, and said, “Big Man Duff is reciting the magic formula for calling God. He is not ready to tell us what those words are. He is asking God to give us tinkens, and steel knives, and cloth. You must sit still and listen to his magic words. If you leave, you will get no gifts.”
For the next twenty minutes McDuff explained the Christmas story in installments, and Yani delivered variations of the same message: “Stay put, be quiet and you will receive tinkens full of food.”
Actually, the members of the new congregation saw nothing unusual in this. It was pretty much the way their shamans had been calling on the gods for hundreds of years. It violated nothing in their spiritual views to allow someone to try to call on a new more powerful god. Myths and legends explaining the nature of reality were always being changed and reinterpreted to fit changing situations.
At the end of the service, Pastor McDuff gave his benediction to the congregation, using a lot of the pageantry he had borrowed from the Roman Catholics. He had read that the natives in some places around the world preferred the mass celebrated by the Catholic Church because it was more colorful. He vowed that such petty jealousies would not keep him from winning the hearts of the native population.
Then, to McDuff’s utter amazement, Yani lifted one of the sheets that had been used to cover the altar. He displayed several cases of canned goods, which he had moved down from the Big House storeroom. Yani pried open the lids, and announced that everyone who had stayed for the entire service would receive a tin of beef, vegetables, or whatever happened to come up as the cartons were unpacked.
McDuff almost panicked. “What are you doing?’ he yelled at Yani. “You’re giving away our food.”
“We tell Blackfella we have feast without kill pig. We no have taro. You ask God. He send more tinken. Plenty more tinken in Heaven.”
McDuff could not get near the cartons to stop the wholesale giveaway. Nor did he realize that if he did not give them each a food gift, no one would ever return to his church. He would have broken an unwritten contract with them. There were nearly 100 men and women who received cans, making a serious impact on his larder.
After the Great Giveaway, Yani was sought out by the church attendees. Most of them had no idea how to open the cans. They had banged them against rocks, stabbed them with sharp objects and had thrown them unopened into the fire. Yani used his knife to open lids until it became almost too dull to do so.
Moses McDuff was frightened. If the congregation expected free food each time they came to church, he would run out of supplies after two more services.
Chapter 8
Part of the reason Jeremy Thompson was more successful managing the copra plantation than his predecessors, both English and German, was his ability to go slightly native. If necessary, he could have lived on native food alone. He even had a small herd of pigs, but he drew the line at planting his own garden. That he left to Jeeves, the houseboy.
When Dr. McDuff first arrived, Thompson joined heartily with the American in eating dishes his housekeeper made, using the canned goods. However, as time passed certain items became less frequent, and finally disappeared from the menu. The othe
r thing that changed was that supper was now the only meal McDuff ate at the Big House. He spent most of his waking hours working at the church.
One evening while they were sitting at the table waiting for dinner to be served, McDuff said, “I don’t want to overstep my limitations, Mr. Thompson, but I am developing a craving for a piece of fresh meat.”
“That’s a generally scarce commodity on the islands. No refrigeration, you know. I’d love to have an ice cube in a cool drink, myself.”
“I noticed that you have a small herd of pigs out in the back. If I may be so bold to ask, how often to you butcher one of them.”
“Hardly ever,” he replied. “A boar piglet once in a while for a festival day. Pigs are the closest thing to money you will find in the islands. You can buy practically anything with a pig — including a woman if you are interested.”
Dr. McDuff blushed brightly.
The plantation manager continued, “You don’t serve dollar bills for green salad back in the States, do you? Well, here we don’t go around chopping up pigs indiscriminately”
“No offense intended,” McDuff said.
“None taken,” Thompson said, realizing that he had been a little rough on the minister. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have jumped on you like that. It takes a while to get used to things here. Of course, since I was the last of eight kids on a station in the Outback, I never got used to any kind of fancy food. One thing you’ll never see on this table though, is a piece of mutton. I gag at the thought. It’s a wonder I don’t ‘baa’ when I speak. It’s all we ate.” He thought for a moment and added, “The other thing is water.”
“Water?” McDuff asked.
When John Frum Came Page 7
