The Adventures of Vela

by Albert Wendt

  to heal his age unable to restore the chips to the log (The

  carving is what’s been adzed away and burnt)

  Now it’s winter and apple trees in the voiceless garden

  await expert pruning to bud again in spring (The growing’s locked

  in the sap’s dreaming the promise of fruit is already

  crunchy to the frost’s bite that’ll kill it)

  Now it’s winter and Sina’s dropped out of law into

  waitressing in that southern city that’s as frugal

  as a Presbyterian pulpit and antarctic cold that freezes

  your bones into bibleblack slate (Walk warily

  the rock path between daughter and father —

  Saveasi’uleo turned daughter into Eater of Darkness)

  Now it’s winter and Mele is bored with Machines-

  Who-Think that’ll inherit our future and searches

  the nightclubs of my youth’s city for lost relatives

  and husks of southerlies I didn’t snare: Sina

  Mele daughters of Vela’s prophecies in the unbreakable

  circle Time is Time is all here and now

  in the unfolding of my daughters from

  Nafanua’s incestuous conception

  Now it’s winter and Michael’s at Wesley College circled

  by lush farms and the stench of silage Soon I hope we can talk

  as friends not rivals not sullen son to indifferent father

  (Vela never forgave his father though he searched for

  him in other men)

  Now it’s winter and Maungakiekie (renamed

  One Tree Hill by the arrogant coloniser) is ten walking

  minutes away but the Ngāti Whātua who for centuries

  held it were eaten by war and left their generous kūmara

  atua and a sad silence I plait my skin out of as I jog

  short slow steps up to the summit the memorial concrete

  obelisk and the round sweep of Auckland as relentless

  as the coloniser’s muskets that imposed another history

  and geography on Maui’s Ika turning the blood

  and bones into grass the flesh into bread for

  the white mouths of racist generations (History

  is for cannibals who feed as victors Vela once

  sang in his wisdom)

  Now it’s winter and I fish again for Vela

  in the Tokelauan manner of short handline

  pearl-shell hook slow moving canoe hand tug-tugging teasing

  the fish like the heart beating across a lagoon that’s

  a page of anae swarming:

  (1) Canoewreck

  Once before my belly sprouted unhealable ulcers

  I lived out another adventure in a strange

  country I’ll call Nei because its atua

  couldn’t recall their origins or one step

  beyond the moment

  It was the anae season the sea teemed

  with their succulent thousands

  We hunted with handline and spear

  until the water bled and our canoes fattened

  almost to sinking with the anae’s dying

  Sickened by our gluttony Tagaloa hurled

  a storm against us No need to detail that

  just punishment Enough that it canoewrecked

  me on a beach as black as an aitu’s fury —

  a cliched event in any fisher’s story

  Woke to a hushed sky of blueblack faces

  and almost shat believing my captors Fijian

  the most ferocious maneaters in our region

  Reshut my eyes hoping it a dream but when

  I peered up again their sky was still

  grinning in blueblack silence Come they beckoned

  I stood up (my knees knocked like rocks

  tumbling in a stormy river) and we scrutinised

  each other (my fear was liquid fire that

  burst out of arsehole and dribbled)

  Ten men about my age totally naked

  without scars or tatau or other adornments

  and I couldn’t believe indistinguishable

  from one another to their genitals

  and manner Tentuplets? Impossible!

  I followed them over dunes that surged

  away to windswept horizons in the colour

  of my captors as they marched (more a

  dance) in unison with their shadows

  cast by the sun I couldn’t see or believe in

  Soon in a dense forest of palmtrees

  that reeked of dank earth and birth

  and the absence of birds insects predators

  I had to follow their upturning soles

  because their darkness merged with the forest’s

  And when we surfaced to sun again (and

  grass that felt underfoot like pig’s fur)

  I couldn’t ignore their sleek buttocks

  (they were enticing!) especially when they turned

  and smiled periodically and I glimpsed

  their uncircumcised swinging (no penis

  sheaths oddly) and balls as heavy as

  turtle’s eggs nesting in rich pubis (My mouth

  could hatch them and taste the flow of

  generations) Must concentrate on my captivity

  (2) The Circle

  The Tagata-Nei awaited in circles that climbed

  in terraces around a malae surfaced with river stones

  Crosslegged hands on their knees a silent sea

  of blackness rippling out and up from

  the moa unaging without beginning

  My captors (shouldn’t call them that for

  they’d used no force) escorted me to

  the circle’s centre to sit crosslegged then

  they merged with the observing terraces

  Not a sound or movement in their scrutiny

  Invisible sun burning into my forehead

  without my atua’s protection looked into

  their eyes that smiled but kept me out

  No sign of children or old people

  The women looked alike so did the men

  My age in rows alternately Ten rows

  then one empty then ten more and so on

  until the terraces shot clear up to terraced

  footpaths on a bonewhite cliff rowed by

  circular entrances into what I imagined

  were caves for living in? or burial?

  I didn’t know (or dare guess in case

  I was sacrificed to their atua whose

  eyes I now believed were ravenous circles)

  Save me Lulu! I prayed Save me!

  My skin bristled even before my ears caught

  their humming issuing from the pit of

  the belly the insistent buzz of hornets

  but unthreatening a quivering chord I’d

  heard before but where? by whom or what?

  As their sound intensified their lips quivering

  like cicadas they closed their eyes

  in unison and dived deeply into their moa

  which has no memory or finagalo

  but in which their atua are rooted and fed

  Watched their bodies vibrating row upon

  row flesh and bone becoming liquid sound

  rippling from the centre in wave upon

  wave until their tide was scaling the cliff

  and flooding the caves and cavern of Vanimonimo

  until all was pulsating being moa unity

  and I too every pore of me opened to it

  and knew beyond the barrier of finagalo

  that they were and always will

  be now is together

  (3) Our Crew

  All civilised societies are ordered in classes so

  at the ceremony’s end I expected ali’i to decide

  my future and so order their commoners

  but alas the Tagata-Nei in rows dispersed

  in tens as if to
a predetermined plan and purpose

  leaving me encircled by my original captors

  who waited but I couldn’t connect

  to their brainlinking until I counted

  only nine of them realised their intention

  and stepped into the tenth space in the circle

  They hummed their approval and focused again

  but I couldn’t connect so they pointed at

  my tattered clothing with obvious meaning

  Only savages went naked so NO I protested

  but they closed upon me and stripped

  my pride to frantic hands hiding their essentials

  To a dead fire they led me and in a tanoa

  mixed charcoal and water which

  though I protested they painted me

  with their savage hue allover

  To the civilised like us black is the taint of

  inferiors but to the Tagata-Nei the true tagata

  can be no other colour so my Ten helped

  paint on my skin every morning swooning

  each time at my midnight beauty

  Sometimes their painting hands were firesticks

  the sparked my flesh to a furious erection

  I couldn’t conceal and they considered

  deviant a farcical curiosity outside

  the mating season — but more about that later

  As our Ten marched through the village

  of enormous communal fale I clutched my shame

  Other Tens at their tasks nodded

  as we passed oblivious to my nakedness

  so I let go and swung free in the nibbling breeze

  All Tens seemed linked as one living creature

  and I asked myself Who created Nei?

  For what purpose? What’s their history?

  The Tagata-Nei hadn’t just happened as they were

  to remain unchanged without progress?

  Pigs! Their squeeling was suddenly solid

  My moa kicked in gladness for

  Pig is best Pig is delicious Pig is aristocracy

  Pig Pig Pig! Pig never spits back

  So hold still my lovely hold still

  Shoulder high rock fences divided the pens

  that held animals in swirling groups of ten

  and as soon as we stood above them

  they chorused to be fed and each of our Ten

  assumed his assigned work:

  Number One fetched water Number Two scraped

  coconuts Number Three boiled bananas

  Number Four swept the pens

  Number Five cut swamp grass to mix with

  the feed Number Six mended the fences

  Number Seven tended to our wards’ ailments

  Number Eight played them soothing tunes on

  his nose flute made of pig bone Number Nine

  counted to ensure ten animals to each pen

  Only I was ignorant of my atua-meant purpose

  Homesick for civilisation stranded on that rock-

  fence recalling my boyhood pigherder’s loneliness

  I wept as if Mulialofa had died again

  and called What work does your atua

  have for me? They focused again

  And in their telling eyes I saw slaughterer

  culler of the herds into tens: my club –

  their primitive method of killing – was to

  feed our village on pork and our crops

  on pig’s blood heart offal

  Ours was a pigherding crew out of nine others

  that shared a communal fale feeding

  only on vegetables and seafood: a tapu

  that suited us because we spewed

  every time cooked pork odour intruded

  (4) Slaughterer

  Tagata-Nei lived out a schedule woven into

  their fibre (No other explanation for their

  behaviour) Theirs was a history that unfolded

  in their circle’s blood to ward off aging

  the past and future 10 was eternity’s number

  Each crew’s schedule was linked to others

  in an ever-spiralling circle that meshed

  earth sea sky and Vanimonimo

  No choice for individuals to pursue separate

  destinies to excel to innovate civilisation further

  For the unchanging circle was perfection to be

  as it was always admitting no deviance

  or odd numbers But I’m getting ahead

  of my tale into abstraction instead

  of immediate detail and action –

  the stuff of the gifted chronicler’s telling

  (By the way Nei had no storytellers or historians

  because of not needing to remember –

  each moment was new yet expected

  to be enjoyed here and now instantly)

  But back to my tale of the moment: in the pigpens’

  centre stood a breadfruit leafed

  with clubs of all sizes and designs

  From it I chose the heaviest to display

  strength and unflinching killer swing

  The club of ebony hardwood shone

  like dark water in which my ferocity

  was to be reflected in its beauty

  In the shape of a double-headed erection

  the front head for killing the other as balance

  (Why is it our weapons are always imaged

  on the penis which gives birth and the most

  exquisite of pleasures and each new weapon

  gets bigger and bigger? One day the biggest

  in the ever-mushrooming power

  of a cloud will choke us all with

  its monstrous splendour)

  Wungg-wung-wungg! I practised my swing

  Numbers Eight and Nine beckoned

  They’d trussed up a boar and held

  it with forehead exposed to my killing

  Lifted The club caught mercy’s zenith

  and drove down into the giving bone and shriek-

  ing animal Swung again and it kicked

  once twice and knew stillness

  My helpers swung the carcass on to the platform

  Number Seven dragged it away while

  I revelled in my new mana as Slaughterer

  initiated Slaughterer growing

  Slaughterer in the elite circle of Ten Slaughterers

  They brought another pig then another and my

  first afternoon passed with fifty carcasses

  (no numbers over tens permitted) and my skin

  tattooed with blood brain and bone splinters

  my celebrating head aswirl with death’s richness

  At the first evening shadows our crew stopped

  working and I trailed their lean flanks

  to the communal pools (It was hard

  controlling my ‘intestine’ after that lusty killing!)

  Silent women waited on the banks

  Automatically I cupped my predicament but they

  didn’t seem to see it as they washed us

  with coconut husk dried us with siapo oiled

  our bodies to a scented glistening without signs

  of sexual arousal not even a lingering finger

  In our fale we sat arms folded while the female crews

  (one to each man) fed us a scrumptious mash of

  clam coconut cream and taro (As pigherders

  our hands weren’t permitted to pollute food)

  Our feeders hummed but I couldn’t link to their talking

  Washed the meal down with fresh coconut juice

  and I copied my crew when they stretched back

  on their mats and ali and dropped to sleep

  which evaded me as I chased my fears about

  what that savage country might promise

  Later the quiet was like dying

  No moon or stars but the world was aglow

  with the luminous emanations from every thing

  including the
sleepers in our fale – a honey light

  that stretched to Vanimonimo’s belly

  (Decided then that night explorations would best

  uncover Nei’s secrets and rhythms)

  Dawn was a quick kiss on my forehead

  Woke to my crew disappearing and tasted

  congealed pig’s blood in my nostrils

  but when I pleaded to be relieved of the killing

  they smiled and brought that day’s first animal

  The slaughter would become during my

  captivity a slow nightmare in which I’d watch

  myself killing in tortured motion

  condemned to that function forever as each

  Tagata-Nei was to his predetermined role in

  the circle from which he didn’t think of escaping

  (It’s masalo that allows us to be dissatisfied

  to question even that which is perfect)

  Clubbing too is so primitive so I introduced

  the civilised Samoan method of strangling e.g.

  pig upsidedown hard yoke pressed down

  across the windpipe silent and bloodless

  My crew hummed their approval

  At that night’s meal the other Slaughterers

  hummed at me too but how had they acquired

  my teaching? The insight flashed: you teach

  one Tagata-Nei and if the group mind

  approves the transfer to everyone is instant

  (What a miraculous method of learning)

  My strangling was now part of their culture

  as if it had always been present and

  I’d discovered how to civilise them swiftly

  (that knowledge was a heady aphrodisiac)

  (5) Birth and Death

  Even on my secret night searches I observed

  no aging death or procreation Little variation