by Albert Wendt
death through the tournament was temporary
The Tournament was first week of the Mating Season
(Nothing like brutal violence as thundering foreplay)
Crews slew each day out on the malae to a river
of blood my cheering subjects sucked back
while they fornicated cannibalistically to
my voyeurism that demanded at week’s end
a mountain of corpses the victorious crews didn’t
have time or energy to return to their Caves
for resurrecting and the delicate Nei maths
that balanced the whole environment was shattered
While my subjects were distracted by the Mating
that followed the Tournament I tried to force
my linked Guardains to dream back to life
the dead victims and restore the balance
but they were still too drugged with the bloodletting
Desperate I found another crew of nine (women
massagers) inserted myself into their tenth
position and linked through their Cave tried
dreaming awake the balance but failed
because some corpses were beyond resurrecting
We the survivors shut ourselves in our Circles
to escape the drowning stench of corpses
I hoped my new Crew was the only even-
numbered survivor with sole mana to
the Caves’ secret power of healing
but during our lengthy hibernation I spied
through our Cave walls three others: my Guardians
who’d acquired a tenth member one complete
female crew of chicken breeders and another
of dreaded eel trappers
Immediately I used my new Crew and Cave to try
to erase their mana but discovered
to my moa-deep horror they were blocking
my intrusion with equal moves
to have us eradicated
Through our Cave’s sight I counted 3511 remaining
Nei inhabitants and my Crew under my in-
structions braved that night’s rotten darkness
and recruited them with promises of unlimited
killing tournaments and an eternity of mating
Being expert masseuses they won 2001 disciples
before the three enemy crews recruited the others
We evened our army to 2000 invaded
enough Circles and peopled them with
our crews programmed to fight to the finish
I focused our linked 2010 minds on shattering
the Guardians but as we were attacking the chicken
breeders (physically) stormed our eastern Circles
and I had to command our defences
Unused to combat the breeders simply hurled
wave after wave of suicidal bodies at our
brainlinking that fried them to molten matter
But just on the verge of victory we were attacked
from the west by equally suicidal eel trappers
who’d somehow learnt to solidify
their courage into deadly spears of lightning
that devastated my forces while I tried
devising a counter Got it: my masseuses
and I linked and blew out the brains of
every eel in our rivers and ocean
The eel trappers who took breath from their totems
started dying with the chain explosion but
just as their threat abated the Guardians focused
their brainlinking directly on our Cave walls
We panicked and couldn’t link defensively
Long jagged fissures fingered across
our mirror protection Focus focus! I programmed
our linked Circle and for breathless days
stayed the breaking Unexpectedly the Guardians
appeared in our Walls in their grinning circle
And as their haughty eyes drank up my cohorts’
courage I felt the Circle’s resolve decreasing
Hold! I pleaded but couldn’t halt it
Looked again at the Guardians’ faces
No no couldn’t believe it:
All nine Guardians were my replicants down
to my last detail and in their whirling
eyes I recognised my madness With that
our linkage crumbled and our walls broke
upon us in a thunderous cracking
I fled the Cliff as the Guardians’ forces swarmed
over our outer defenses and started clubbing
at the doors of our Circles Fled
the evil of my own image and arrogance
into the black forest of palmtrees
From where I observed the wars that see-
sawed across the Sacred Cliff and spilled
like an epidemic over all of Nei territory
breaking forever the eternal cycle which had
guaranteed peace and abundance for every creature
A tagata is his own vanity’s measure
I’d reduced Nei to my Samoan reflection
but too cowardly to accept responsibility built
a canoe and sailed out of the tragic consequences
which now nest unhatchable in my memory
and through my telling bequeath to you for
whatever wisdom you may gain from it
and in your telling others in the written language
of the Tetea bequeath to them and so on
the planet over Nei shall become our common heritage
15
Olfact
(1) Introduction
The Tetea attribute emotions to the heart
intelligence to the brain existence of the mind and soul
is under dispute For us love is stored
in the Va between your heart and lungs
the agaga is wombed in your moa
In Olfact near the atua-less Equator
the Olfactor with the keenest nose is kingpin:
‘Best smeller is best leader’ ‘Trust only what you
can smell’ ‘Follow your nostrils’ are only
a few of their ruling proverbs
(Smell-less is their word for dead)
Sensitivity of olfaction is measure of ability
and even art so in their terms we’re
primitives not far removed
from the odourless beast
Although their language is Polynesian like ours
theirs is an inexhaustible vocabulary
for smell: all nuances subtleties shades
moods seasons species ranks and attitudes
Over 100 words for BO alone
They use piss-smell to diagnose illness pregnancy
state and identity of pisser age gender diet
and life expectancy: a medical science
developed to the nth degree (They smelled
mine and diagnosed duodenal ulcers that bled)
I observed their famous detective Manogimoenofo
trace haughty murderer who’d pissed on
his victim after strangling him: one sniff
of the killer’s piss then out into the breeze through
the palmtrees to the surprised murderer’s hut
At his trial the accused denied it but when
the elders sniffed his piss and the piss on the victim
he was exiled to Manogitevolo where no Olfact can survive
the evil stink of sulphur programmed into their
psyche at birth as undeniable death
(2) Education
‘Smell your way to wisdom’ is the basis of
their philosophy For instance their education
from birth is the training of the nose
and taste buds to think see create
the world in all its varied fragrances
A pregnancy is followed by midwives through
smell of urine and vulva to tell baby’s gender
>
possible flaws and strengths (If there’s no
odour the baby is aborted) As soon as
the baby is out of the womb the midwife
pinches its nose and declares it
orator or priest or tufuga or fisherman
or whatever talent the nose shape augurs
The aiga’s elder then breathes into its nostrils
unblocking it of aitu who might have hitched
Each elder and parent then sniffs the baby’s armpits
feet arse and mouth and agree on a name
All Olfactors are named after smells and aromas
A common girl’s name is Manogiti (Ti-plant-smell)
A boy’s name is Manusami (Sea-smell)
Some pretentious parents coin fancy names:
Manogimaifititongamalelagituaiva (Scent-from-
Fiji-Tonga-and-the-Ninth-Heaven) Manulosamaihawaii
(Scent-of-Rose-from-Hawaii) Manogitagaloaalagi
(Scent-of-Tagaloaalagi) –this is sacrilege!
To Olfactors a tagata’s essence is smell and scent
so the child is introduced first not to words
but to sniffs and scents of parents relatives home
pets family property encouraged to improve
nose power to identify family and their essences
To them the soul/agaga is the fusion of
smells that makes you unique and when
that departs from the body you’re dead
Intelligence/atamai is that which allows
you to learn the wisdom of scent essences
Atamai is presumed innate unequally spread
and is measured by what they call SQ
(Scent Quotient) Tests Your SQ score is used
to guide society’s choice of career rank
class you can best fit into
However Olfactor dissenters argue SQ Tests
are based on elitist assumptions about
noseshape inborn scentpower and class
and used to maintain the Smellocracy
in fragrant oceans of power
Nevertheless an objective observer should record facts
so I have to agree with the dissenters’ view
that though the Smellocracy’s noses were
extralarge many Olfactors with modest ones
could outsmell them at every turn
(3) Selecting Leaders
The priests allowed me to observe that sacred process
Manogisili the Boss Priest declared the time
was near and sent his priests throughout Olfact
to sample the odours of everything From
their reports he decided the leader’s hour of birth
Priests were stationed in every village
and children born at that hour were brought
to Manogisili who before Olfact’s Council pronounced
them Smellocrats to be trained by his staff
in the smell arts sciences and crafts
For three months the babies remained unseen
They emerged from the Temple for public scrutiny
with noses (miraculously) cloned after Manogisili’s
flared proboscis (I suspected surgery
and careful molding of pliant nose bone and flesh)
Their education continued with the priests
while the other children at ten were divided
according to their smell bent and lived in
communal fale under tuition of masters in each craft
(Unlike us they didn’t segregate the sexes and work)
(4) Fishing as Art
Fishing is my favourite art so I observed that
training programme first: fifty apprentices acquiring
the ingenious skills of Tautai Manogisa and
Tautai Lolototai their most gifted navigator
and fisherman (and better than our mediocre lot)
Our art’s purpose they said is blunt: to harvest
our Sea Atua’s beneficence bring needed goods
from other lands survive and explore our
vast Moana’s stretch ruled by atua
who sometimes want you smell-less so
our programme is aimed solely at
succeeding the Final Test or our pupils drown –
lost at sea to drift to cannibal lands
And the test? I asked Wait and see
they said Even our pupils aren’t told until the end
So imagine a 10-year-old much loved by
family arriving to learn/survive the Way
of Manumoana the Sea Atua as taught by
severe Masters who expected him to be adult
right from his first step into the scene
To Olfactors each virtue vice quality
has a unique mix of scents partly innate but
can be nurtured or erased through careful
conditioning in a chosen Way so before
the Masters see their apprentices with their eyes
each one has to enter the fale in the utter dark
stand in the centre strip and turn
slowly 360 degrees while the Masters sit
and with their perceptive noses smell out
(and remember) each one’s flaws and strengths
For six months Manumoana’s Masters gave
all their training at night or with
the fale blinds drawn to minimise use
of ear and eye (Sometimes ears were
plugged with husk and eyes were bandaged shut)
First you had to identify well known smells
then their ingredients and deeper still
their chemical components and quantities of mix
Less familiar odours were then introduced
and drilled into nostrils’ memory banks
New smells came next: in this the weakest
pupils had to learn repeatedly with degrees
of harsh words and the Masters’ whipping sticks
Repeat repeat repeat until the knowledge
was woven like veins into olfactions
Their study next shifted to the sea –
the element they had to survive on and in:
at first Masters and pupils sat on
the night beach identifying scent of
every tideshift windmood and swing
Using forefingers dipped into the sea’s
netherend taste smell and name the content
of the water underneath Canoe mounted
they then paddled round the lagoon tasting
smelling and recording each location’s mix
From safety of lagoon the training shifted to
Moana’s unpredictable deep on huge alia
and small fleet of canoes and again in
night and darkness pupils learned taste
smell moods and directions of the sea
That stage’s test was for each pupil to navigate
the Masters to a chosen point
and back to locate certain schools of fish
predict tides and weather and survive
five weeks without food except what they caught
Again you had to score one hundred percent then
the Masters taught each star in heaven’s night map
lying on your patient back nose and eyes
all night memorising every shift and star mix
Listen smell remember recall repeat
Then to that map they added names and smells of
reefs islands lands you could find
following your educated smellsense and memory
to known Moana’s ends and the tips
of the atua’s familiar scents
I’d come to love the pupils (though they considered
me senile – No smellpower Vela they joked)
and I told the Masters I was singing
my songs at their graduation feast
What feast? they asked There’s yet the Final Test
In all Olfact the
Masters had suffered and survived
the longest sea drifts had discovered new lands
to expand variety of fragrances and the stepping
stones for Manumoana’s children to walk
across the sea’s downsucking depths
They were worshipped as icons of courage
and smellectual strength heroes who’d endured
the smell-less abyss over and over again
but I sensed at the price of having to deny
love scents for lovers are often lost to Manumoana’s Way
I suspected also they disdained loving because it
didn’t measure up to the euphoric scents of danger
and the excrutiating fear of death in Manu-
moana’s demanding breath: Danger’s smells
are a fantastic trip! Manogisa once exclaimed
(5) Other Arts
I’ll leave description of the Final Test to
my tale’s end and describe other Olfactor
practices and arts we can learn much from
As songmaker/poet I was interested in their
unusual (to say the least) music and poetry
Their musicians/poets were selected by the priests
out of those born into the Smellocracy
Selection was based on results of Ability Tests
developed centuries before by their Master
Songmaker Manogipesemalie the First
after whom every Master Songmaker is called
and numbered successively Manogipesemalie
the 40th was in charge when I was in Olfact
250 years old they said but looked a vigorous 50
and still smelling-into-being a river of songs
Out of that annual selection of Smellocrats
I observed a girl and two boys undergoing
