by Robert Booth
Captain Porter fixed on “a handsome young woman of about eighteen years of age, her complexion fairer than common, her carriage majestic, and her dress better and somewhat different from the other females.” Piteenee was the grandchild of “the chief, or greatest man in the valley,” named Gattanewa. “Neat, sleek, and comely,” she proved irresistible to Porter, who meant to make her his teen queen. The captain’s advances, however, were very much unwanted; she met them “with a coldness and hauteur which would have suited a princess, and repelled everything like familiarity with a sternness that astonished me.”
Taiohae Bay, Nukuhiva, Marquesas Islands, which David Porter renamed “Massachusetts Bay” upon arriving there with the men of the Essex, many prisoners, and several captured vessels. Inflating a minor tribal skirmish into deadly warfare of a sort previously unknown there, he built Fort Madison (atop the hill) and the village of Madisonville and took formal possession of Nukuhiva for the United States of America, which, as it turned out, had no interest in Porter’s imperialism. (from Journal of a Cruise made to the Pacific Ocean, David Porter, 1815)
Porter gazed at his enemies on the mountains. He was angry at having been rejected, and his mind filled with violent fantasies and cannibal lore. He had no knowledge of their history and traditions and no thought that they might be enacting a ritual designed to end things short of warfare.
Gattanewa was visiting a mountain fort when he got word to come meet Porter. He was not a chief, for, in spite of Porter’s assumptions, the Enana had no chiefs—and no kings or queens, no castles or estates. Most clans recognized a tribal patriarch, but some were totally democratic. The patriarch was a wise man, but no autocrat; he inherited a good deal of property, but he shared it with everyone else. He married off most of his children to the children of leaders in other tribal valleys, which kept the whole island connected by kinship. He shared public honors with the tau’a shaman-priests (often a younger brother) and with the leaders of the warriors, athletic skirmishers to whom the patriarch loaned out his many wives if they were willing. Sometimes he might have to act as a judge, but not often, as there was no crime, no theft, and very little violence. The Enana were all of one class, with few distinctions, personal or public. Most lived in groups of houses built on huge stone platforms near the island streams. They bathed frequently and dined on fish, pork, dog, and chicken, as well as abundant tropical wild fruits and vegetables. No agriculture was necessary, and wild island herbs provided topicals for injuries and medicines for sickness.
Back aboard the Essex, Porter decided on a close-in mooring and found his men inspired by glad tidings from grinning marines. The crew rowed strenuously for hours, towing their heavy frigate to an anchorage within easy view of the beach crowd, mainly female, “waving their white cloaks or cahoes for us to come on shore.” The boats went in and ferried out women “of all ages and descriptions,” reported Porter. Having visited ships before, many “had been taught by the men some few English words of the most indecent kind, which they pronounced too plain to be misunderstood. Indeed, the ship was a perfect bedlam from the time of their arrival until their departure, which was not until morning, when they were put on shore, not only with whatever was given them by all such as had shared their favors but with whatever they could lay their hands on.” Presumably some laid their hands on Captain Porter to assuage his failure with Piteenee, who, it turned out, was quite partial to one of his officers.
The midshipmen were segregated under the Reverend David P. Adams. “During our stay at this island,” wrote Gatty Farragut, “the ‘youngsters’ were sent on board the vessel commanded by our chaplain, for the purpose of continuing our studies, away from temptation. We were allowed, when not occupied with our duties, to ramble about on the shore in company with the native boys. From them we learned to throw the spear and walk on stilts; but the most useful accomplishment we acquired was the art of swimming,” at which the Enana children excelled, even as infants: “to my astonishment, the little creatures could swim like young ducks.”
Chaplain Adams and his charges also came to appreciate what they could understand of a highly successful civilization. Over the course of two millennia, the Enana had regulated their society so as to avoid war and to limit the extent of male violence. In effect, they had created a paradise of sorts at Nukuhiva, where peace and harmony reigned and no one had to work or worry. About 50,000 people inhabited six major valleys, each with a tribe comprising several clans, all speaking the same language and worshipping the same gods.
The “warlike attitude of the Happahs” on the mountainsides was Porter’s excuse for not initiating repairs to the Essex. Before he could take the next step, he was called upon to welcome Gattanewa, coming out in a boat. Porter had been much impressed with the big, strong, plumed, cloaked, tattooed, ornamented warriors at the beach; now he eagerly awaited the arrival of the leader. Gattanewa was helped over the rail, and there he stood—a small, black, bent old man, leaning on a stick and wearing only “a clout about his loins and a piece of palm leaf tied about his head.” He was also drunk, having been imbibing kava, a fermented nectar for priests and patriarchs. Porter was astonished; the great man’s face and body were “entirely covered” with dense dark tattoos, “and his skin was rough and appeared to be peeling off in scales.”
Porter assembled his crew at attention and fired a salute, but the old man only griped. After a short nap, he felt better and decided either that he liked Porter or that he had no choice but to like him, and he proposed, therefore, a name exchange, by which they would share everything, wives and ancestors included. Porter agreed and added a wish for peace, at which Gattanewa declared that the Hapa’a “had cursed the bones of his mother,” recently dead, who was now Porter’s deceased mother too.
Opotee—the islanders’ word for Porter—sent him ashore, and next morning a sober Gattanewa looked out and saw five more of the moon men’s ships. In hopes of forestalling an invasion, he sent out boats piled high with coconuts and plantains, enough to feed the crews of the just-arrived prize fleet. The Essex Junior, too, had showed up the day before, with the put-upon Lieutenant Downes reporting that he had found no trace of the Mary Ann, that India-bound British phantom. Porter gave Downes the newly rescued Midshipman John Maury as his chief officer and filled him in on his plans.
Big things started happening next day. The topmasts of the Essex were removed, her sails went ashore, and water casks were landed to form a perimeter of what was to become a large American camp situated between the two hostile tribes on a spot that had been placed under a tapu, proscribing its occupation on pain of divine retribution. Such matters meant nothing to Porter. He had a large tent put up, guarded by marines. In the afternoon, the officers went ashore to visit some villages, but Porter, on board the Essex, noticed the reappearance of Hapa’a warriors descending from the mountains into the valley. He fired his guns as a warning, and Teii men drove them upward in retreat. Only then did the interpreter Wilson reveal to Porter that the Hapa’a visitations were required by an island ritual, enjoined by a tapu “of the strictest nature,” due to their having killed a Teii shaman in an ambush. Porter did not understand, or chose not to.
The Hapa’a messenger returned with a derisive response to the intruder’s ultimatum: Opotee was a coward whose camp they would wreck and whose sails they would carry away. Porter posted a large guard every evening on shore, but he heedlessly allowed his men complete liberty “in procuring sweethearts; and it was astonishing to us to see with what indifference fathers, husbands, and brothers would see their daughters, wives, and sisters fly from the embraces of one lover to that of another.” The Teii men seemed to view it only as an accommodation to strangers who had claims on their hospitality. Porter’s anthropological observations—and his research was personal, especially with teenage girls—began to give him an appreciation of just how different this culture was. The women seemed wanton, yet they were not; they were simply friendly and physical and did not view sex as sha
meful or particularly important. It was fun to do, and it made the visitors happy, and if the moon men were happy they might not blow apart the Teii’s valley or slaughter their families as they seemed capable of doing.
While Porter began to pick up these cues, he missed many more, including the most obvious; he had not happened to glide into Taihoe Bay on the eve of the very first war in Marquesan history. Captain Cook before him, whose books he had read, had realized that his sudden and outsized appearance in the islands was a catalyst for unexpected responses. Cook had come among these isolated peoples as a fearsome shiva upon whom they projected the powers of preserver and destroyer, granter of forbidden wishes, agent of ultimate tapu. Unlike Porter, Cook had been selected by his government to explore and to make contact as an enlightened, educated representative of a civilization that had scientific and commercial interests in these new lands and peoples. At first Cook had misinterpreted his encounters with natives, and some had ended in violence, but over time he had grasped the incredible power of ritual in the island cultures and had learned to adjust his behaviors and exercise understanding.
Landing at Tahiti, Cook had suavely refused the invitation of one tribe to fight another; the rivals, he said, had never offended him and he “was not thoroughly acquainted with the dispute.” The lesson was clear. Cook understood that he stirred extreme feelings in the peoples on whom he intruded and that, representing his nation, he was obliged “to display its character as well as its authority.” Although Cook had been killed at Hawaii when he mistook his own role in a native ritual, he showed the way for others who came after.
Porter, a renegade westerner appearing in the midst of a typical intertribal conflict, brought about a distortion in the traditional process due to his gigantic presence and partisan hostility. Gattanewa had explained that often they fought “for weeks, nay for months sometimes, without killing any on either side,” but that was in the absence of intruders employing military tactics and fatally efficient weaponry. Opotee, the leader of this tribe of whites, seemed intent on breaking the ultimate tapu. At any point he could have sailed away from the Bay of Taihoe and found another spot in which to repair his vessels in peace. But he was committed to a war, by which he would establish ascendancy over all the tribes of the island for as long as he bothered to stay.
Opotee sent ashore one of his long-range cannon and told Gattanewa to haul it to the top of a mountain, so it could be fired “and drive away the Happahs.” It was an impossible assignment—to carry a cannon up a nearly vertical cliff—but it gave Opotee an excuse to land one on the beach and demonstrate its power. First he had a six-pound ball fired almost straight up, “and a general shout of admiration marked the time of its fall into the water.” Then he had a ball shot so as to skip across the bay, which the islanders applauded; and next he fired a cannister of grape shot, guaranteed to tear men apart, which they liked best of all. When the shooting was over, “they hugged and kissed the gun, lay down beside it and fondled it with the utmost delight.” Then, to Porter’s astonishment, they “slung it to two long poles” and cheerfully marched off with their long, heavy idol to begin the climb up the mountain. Their natural cooperation, positive outlook, and incomparable skill and strength showed what sort of people they were, and Porter was deeply impressed.
In the meantime, along came Mouina, the chief soldier of the Teii. Opotee instantly admired this “prepossessing,” tall, “well-shaped man of about thirty-five years of age, remarkably active, of an intelligent and open countenance.” Mouina wanted them to fire a musket, or bouhi. The Hapa’a believed that muskets had no power to harm them, and Mouina wanted to be sure they were wrong. It happened that several Hapa’a men “were at the moment about the camp”—so much for a serious war—and Opotee took pleasure in firing his musket repeatedly at a distant mark the size of a man. Then he had the marines fire volleys at a cask, which they blew apart. Mouina smiled to see the power of the bouhi. “Mattee! Mattee!” he exclaimed, killed, killed, looking at the Hapa’a, but they just shook their heads. Opotee was a fraud; the bouhis could not “do them the injury that we pretended.” Per Enana rules of engagement, Opotee had to prove his potency in actual combat.*
Mouina, Enana warrior. When Porter and the Essex arrived at Nukuhiva in 1813, Mouina was a leader of the Teii tribe, with whom Porter made an alliance against the rest of the islanders. Handsomely adorned with full-body tattoos, Mouina impressed Porter with his size, bearing, and gravitas. (from Journal of a Cruise made to the Pacific Ocean, David Porter, 1815)
Next morning at daybreak, October 29, on the beach of the compound, Porter sent off a combined war party of Downes and Mouina. A few minutes later, Gattenewa arrived, urging Porter to recall his men; he had just heard from his son-in-law, a chief of the Hapa’a, “who had come as an envoy to beg that [Opotee] would grant them peace.” Porter did not believe Gattenewa. Suddenly he thought that he had sent his troops into a trap; “from the old man’s solicitude for peace, when contrasted with his former desire for war, I for a moment believed some treachery on foot.” Porter’s men were “in the hands” of the Teii who accompanied them, but Porter had Gattanewa and roughly took him hostage. The old man was sure that this was the end; repeatedly he asked if he would be killed, and Porter’s “assurances to the contrary did not relieve his anxiety.” Why should they? Gattanewa figured that in this war between invaders and natives, Opotee, if displeased, would not hesitate to take vengeance on the nearest target.
At noontime, near the summit, Downes and his men, with Mouina and his Teii, faced a barrage of well-aimed rocks as the Hapa’a moved from place to place, unscathed, trying to wear out their slower, weighed-down opponents. When the Hapa’a retreated to a fort, the Americans “gave three cheers and rushed on through a shower of spears and stones, which the natives threw from behind the strong barrier.”
Fighting was fierce in the moment of collision, and five of the young Hapa’a warriors “were at this instant shot dead.” They had not believed in the power of these guns, and one had “fought until the muzzle of the piece was presented to his forehead, when the top of his head was entirely blown off.” That was enough. In traditional Enana skirmishing, five dead men was a total massacre, so the Hapa’a fled in horror down the hill, full of the terrible knowledge of guns and bullets. Mouina and some of his men pounced on the bodies, dipping their spears in the blood and calling their spears by the names of the slain. Others ran down into the Hapa’a Valley to take the spoils.
Opotee liberated his brother Gattanewa. The old man “dreaded an ally so powerful” and could not leave fast enough. Next day he had recovered sufficiently to attend the victory ceremony on the plaza, with ranks of tall warriors in their tattoos and regalia, and the four bodies—the fifth man killed had been a Teii living with the Hapa’a—and the shaman Tawattaa chanting and shaking his wand, a palm branch twined with strands of hair. On cue, the warriors gave three shouts with loud claps, followed by five minutes of drumming and loud, animated singing, repeating the sequence twice more, each time with greater intensity as they boasted of their conquest and thanked the gods for sending Porter to their aid. Toward the end, a Hapa’a emissary appeared and was led fearfully to Opotee, who responded ominously by taking up his musket and firing it at a distant tree, hitting it at man-height, then inviting the warriors to try their slings and spears at doing the same. All of them refused, and praised his weapon.
At the American camp there was much tribute in the form of food and goods. The Hapa’a were granted terms of peace, and their leaders suggested that all of the tribes build a suitable town for the great hekai (chief), Opotee. Within two days, Porter received envoys from all over the island. Except for the proud Taipi people and their allies in the distant valley of Hannahow, each tribe agreed to supply provisions and to build a house, and to each leader Opotee gave a much-prized harpoon. Porter hastened to lay down the plan of “the village about to be built.” At the rear of the camp, a barrier of water casks traced the crescent
line of the proposed buildings, which would be in the style and materials of the Enana, each fifty feet long and twelve feet apart, connected by a wall four feet high to be extended to enclose the entire settlement. On the morning of November 3, a huge crowd of tribesmen—perhaps 4,000—arrived with construction materials and began their labors.
Incredulous, Porter watched them by the hour. “Nothing,” he wrote, “can exceed the regularity with which these people carried on their work, without any chief to guide them, without confusion, and without much noise; they performed their labor with expedition and neatness; every man appeared to be master of his business, and every tribe appeared to strive which should complete their house with most expedition and in the most perfect manner.” At the end of this remarkable day, before sunset, they had completed a residence for Porter and another for the officers, a sail loft, a cooper’s shop, an infirmary, a bake house, a guard house, a shed for the sentinel, and all of the connecting walls. Opotee distributed more harpoons and iron hoops and gave a little speech thanking his benefactors for “our delightful village, which had been built as if by enchantment.”
Porter was humbled by this enormous gift from the tribes and by their spirit of friendship, and he marveled at their unity and harmony, so unlike westerners, and wondered about the sources of this remarkable variant on human nature. “They appear to act with one mind, to have the same thought, and to be operated on by the same impulse.” Porter had begun the week concerned about cannibalism; now he was “inclined to believe that an honester and more friendly and better disposed people do not exist under the sun. They have been stigmatized by the name of savages; it is a term wrongly applied; they rank high in the scale of human beings, whether we consider them morally or physically. We find them brave, generous, honest, and benevolent, acute, ingenious, and intelligent, and their beauty and regular proportions of their bodies correspond with the perfections of their minds.” He might almost have been quoting from another westerner at his first encounter with a traditional island culture: “They are the best people in the world and above all the gentlest—without knowledge of what is evil—nor do they murder or steal. . . they love their neighbors as themselves and they have the sweetest talk in the world. . . always laughing.” Those natives, “exhibiting great love toward all others,” would be enslaved, raped, killed, and ultimately exterminated by the admiring writer, Christopher Columbus, and his successors in the New World.
