Hawaii

by James A. Michener

  “But these searching stars?”

  “I’ll confess, not a good omen. But I am sure that all it means is that in some manner your preparation for the voyage is incomplete. You have forgotten some vital thing.”

  “What shall I do?”

  “You must unpack everything and then repack it, and when you have accomplished this, you will know what oversight has displeased the gods.”

  And so, on the third day of the storm, King Tamatoa did an unprecedented thing: he threw open his tabu palace to the boat’s crew, and they assembled, on mats which the day before it would have been death to touch, each item that was to go north, and before the king’s careful eye they unwrapped and repacked their treasures.

  “Have we our tools?” Tamatoa inquired, and his men brought forth the basalt stones used for cooking, and the sand. They produced bundles of sticks, some hard, some pithy, for making fire. Fishlines of sennit, fishhooks of pearl, nets and spears for sharks, all were in order. There were bluish-green adzes, stone chisels, pounders for crushing taro and others for making cloth. Some chiefs produced digging sticks, harder than many stones and covered with mana from long use in planting taro. There were gourds and calabashes and cups for cooking. Men hauled in bows and arrows, and slingshots with pouches of special stones. There was a long pole with sticky gum for catching birds, a conch shell for calling to prayer, and four heavy stones to serve as sea anchors. The women who had been designated to go, proudly presented fine mats, tight in structure and waterproof. There were bailers to keep the canoe dry, paddles to speed it forward, and extra mats to use as sails. During the passage of a thousand years these wandering island people had, without the assistance of any metal or clay, perfected an intricate civilization and its tools. In one double canoe they were now ready to establish that culture on a distant island. The king was satisfied.

  “Have we cared for the plants and animals?” he next inquired. Tenderly, the farmers from the group unwrapped the seed-things that would, in time, sustain life in new lands. Taro corms were kept dry and twisted inside pandanus leaves until such time as they could be plunged into soft, wet mud for a new harvest. Banana shoots, on which the voyagers must depend for quick crops, were wrapped in damp leaves and kept cool, while choice coconuts, their eyes unopened, had to be kept dry lest they launch their shoots. Sugar cane, which all loved, had been cut into joints and was kept alive inside dark bundles made of leaves.

  “Where is the breadfruit?” Tamatoa asked, and four men dragged onto the mat large bundles swathed in leaves and mud. These contained the breadfruit shoots, most delicate of the cargo, whose fruit was so loved by the islanders. When the shoots lay exposed, the king called for his uncle to bless them anew, and the group prayed for their safe transit.

  Men now hauled two squealing sows into the palace. “Have they been bred?” the king asked.

  “To our best boar,” the men replied, hauling into the august presence an ugly, protesting beast, followed by two bred bitch dogs and a male, two chickens and a rooster.

  “Have we feed for these animals?” the king inquired, and he was shown bags of dried coconut, mashed sweet potatoes and dried fish. “Place these living things before me, and their food,” Tamatoa commanded, and when the assemblage was completed he cried in terrifying voice, “These are tabu! These are tabu! These are tabu!”

  In solemn chant the witnesses repeated, “These are tabu!” Then Tupuna blessed them with long prayers of fertility, ending with his own warning: “These are tabu!” It was not just a word that was being used; it was a divine inhibition, and it signified that a man on this trip could see his woman die of starvation, but he could not hand her one morsel of the tabu food, nor eat any himself, for without this seed even those who did reach land would perish.

  Teroro now brought in the rations: breadfruit partially dried and rolled into wads for fermentation; pandanus flour made by baking and grating the untasty fruit, just barely palatable but useful on long trips; dried sweet potatoes, shellfish, coconut meat, bonito hard as rock; more than eighty drinking coconuts; three dozen lengths of watertight bamboo filled with clear water. When the food was assembled all could see that it did not bulk large, and Tamatoa studied it with apprehension.

  “Have we enough?” he asked.

  “Our people have been starving themselves for weeks,” Teroro replied. “We can live on nothing.”

  “And have they been drinking little?”

  “Barely a cupful a day.”

  “Are your fishermen prepared to catch us extra food along the way?”

  “They have prayed to Ta’aroa. There will be fish.”

  “Then let us bless this food,” Tamatoa said, and Tupuna recited the long chant which dedicated these rations to the gods. He hoped that the deities would allow his companions to eat the food while searching for a new land, and if it was found, the gods would be rewarded with an endless supply of pigs.

  “Let us check the canoe,” the king said, and he led his subjects into the storm, where they went over each portion of Wait-for-the-West-Wind. The two hulls were not made from single hollowed-out trees, but were built up by butting together three separate sections, each about twenty-five feet long. This meant that the canoe had to be tied together at the joints, and it was here that Bora Bora’s skill with sennit showed itself to greatest advantage, for the huge canoe was as rigid as if carved from a single log, yet it was composed of many pieces, lashed intricately together, and it was these joints that the king now inspected. They leaked, of course, and without constant bailing the canoe would sink, but they did not leak much. The strakes which formed the sides of the two hulls were also lashed on, and were also nearly watertight. The two halves of the canoe were held together, about four feet apart, by eleven stout beams that passed through the inside wall of each hull, and were again bound by powerful sennit, while to them was lashed the long, solid platform upon which the passengers and the gods would ride. This left, in each hull, a narrow space between the edge of the platform and the outer edge of the hull, where the paddlers sat on small movable seats which they shifted back and forth until they found a place amid the cargo where their feet could reach the bottom of the hull.

  “The canoe is fine,” Teroro assured his brother, and the crowd waited in silence while the two brothers and their uncle studied the storm. Finally Tamatoa said, “If the omens are good, we will leave tomorrow at dusk. We must be at sea when the stars rise.”

  When the others had gone, Tamatoa led Tupuna back to the palace and sat disconsolately upon the matting. “What have we overlooked?” he fretted.

  “I saw nothing missing,” the old man said.

  “Have we forgotten some vital thing, Tupuna?”

  “Nothing that is apparent.”

  “What does it mean?” the king cried in deep perplexity. “I have tried so desperately to arrange this correctly. Where have I failed?”

  His uncle said quietly, “I noticed that as we inspected the goods, when we were through, each man tied his bundles up a little more tightly. At the canoe they fastened the sennit just a bit more strongly. Perhaps that is what the gods wanted us not to forget. The last effort that insures success.”

  “You think it could have been that?” Tamatoa asked eagerly.

  “It’s been a long day,” Tupuna evaded. “Let us all dream one more night, and if the omens are good, that must have been the meaning.”

  So on the fourth night of the storm all men who would make the voyage assembled at the temple according to ancient custom, there to acquire their last flow of mana and to sleep in terror, awaiting the omens that would lay bare the future. Once more Teroro dreamed of his canoe, and again Marama called that she was Tane and again Tehani was Ta’aroa, and just before he wakened, each woman was transformed into a mast, so that the omen was obviously hopeful. Teroro was so pleased that he risked a powerful tabu and crept out of the temple and went to the bed of Marama, lying with her for the last time and assuring her that it was only the king’s
command that kept him from taking her, and in the last stormy darkness, she wept. He consoled her by taking from his pouch the length of sennit that he had picked up at the temple in Havaiki, and taking Marama out into the storm, he upturned a large rock and carefully placed the sennit under it. “When I have gone for a year, turn the rock aside and you’ll know whether I survived,” for if the sennit still lay clean and straight, the canoe had reached land; but if it were twisted …

  King Tamatoa woke from his dream and beat his matting with fists of joy, for incredible as it seemed, he had seen the Seven Little Eyes. He had seen them! They had actually hung over Bora Bora and moved off with the canoe. “Oh, blessed Tane!” the king cried in ecstasy. And for the rest of the night he did not sleep, but stood in the doorway of the temple surveying the storm, with the rain in his face, and in those solemn hours he knew an abiding content: “Our boat is well loaded. We have good men. My brother knows the sea and my uncle knows the chants. On this day we shall set forth.”

  But the dream that actually launched the voyage occurred in the hut of old Tupuna, for he saw in dream-spun heavens a rainbow standing directly in the path the canoe must take, and a worse omen than this there could not have been, but as he watched, Tane and Ta’aroa lifted the rainbow and placed it abaft the canoe, where it shone brilliantly on the waters. The omen was so auspicious, evil changing to positive good by the action of gods, that the old man did not even wake to record his dream. In the morning he was suffused with delight and told the king, “Some wonderfully good thing took place last night. I forget what it was, but we will sail tonight.”

  He went directly to the altar and took down the final precious essentials for the journey: one stone was black and white with flecks of yellow, and round, the size of a fist—it was Tane; the other stone was long and thin and greenish—it was Ta’aroa, god of the oceans on whom they must now depend. Tupuna wrapped each in a small cloth made of yellow feathers, and bearing his deities, he went to the canoe. In a small grass hut erected on the platform just abaft the masts, he placed Tane toward the right mast and Ta’aroa toward the left. The canoe could now be loaded.

  Aft of the gods’ house the platform provided an open space which Tupuna would occupy during the entire voyage, tending the deities. Behind him was sleeping space for those members of the crew who were not paddling, and behind them a large grass hut for the twelve women who had been chosen to accompany the crew. Aft of them sat Natabu, silent and sacred, the wife of Tamatoa, accompanied by red-eyed Teura, the wife of Tupuna and seer of the voyage; it was her duty to read omens. At the rear of the house, alone, sat Tamatoa beside a small doorway leading aft, from which he could watch the stars and check the steersman. The captaincy of the canoe lay with Teroro, who stood farthest forward with Tehani at his side; but the actual life and death of this bold adventure rested with the king. Only he could say turn or stay.

  As the stormy day progressed it seemed inconceivable that any sensible man would venture outside the reef, but all knew that only in such a westerly gale could a canoe go forth with much chance of success, so when the winds kept strong, so did the hearts of the voyagers. They spent the day in prayer and in stowing the canoe. The slaves, the animals and the heavier bundles went into the left-hand hull, whose lead paddler would be Mato, upon whom the beat and rhythm would depend. Into the right-hand went the food, the trees and the extra mats. This would be headed by Pa. At the rear of this hull, cornerwise from Mato, the steersman Hiro would stand.

  The afternoon wore on and the crew said good-bye to wives they could not take, and to their children. Teroro went for the last time to see grave Marama in the little house where they had been so happy. She was dressed in her finest tapa, yards and yards of it about her handsome body, and her hair was marked with flowers.

  “Guide the canoe well, Teroro,” she said softly. “I shall pray for you.”

  “You will always be in my heart,” he promised.

  “No,” she corrected. “When you are gone you must forget me. It would not be fair to Tehani.”

  “You are my wisdom, Marama,” he said sorrowfully. “When I see things clearly it is always because you showed me the way. I need you so much.”

  “Be quiet, Teroro,” she said, and as they sat on the matting for the last time she tried to share with him all the things she had forgotten to tell him. “Never go against the counsel of Mato. He sometimes seems stupid because he comes from the north side of the island, but trust him. If you get into a fight, rely on Pa. I like Pa. The man you prefer is Hiro. He’s fun, but can you trust him in an emergency? Listen to your uncle Tupuna. His teeth are yellow with wisdom. And, Teroro, never again go on a journey of simple vengeance.”

  “Would you have had us depart in shame?” he countered.

  “Well,” she admitted, “one can never defeat Havaiki enough.” She caught her breath and confided, “It would have been unbearable to have a Havaiki man for king.” Then she added quickly, “But mere revenge, especially when the king does not give consent. That must be past.”

  For the last time she talked with her man, and as the time came when he was forced to go she thought: “There is so much more he needs to know.” When he took his first step toward the door she fell on the matting and kissed his ankles, and heard him say haltingly, “Marama, when we sail, please don’t come on shore. I could not bear it,” at which she rose full height and cried sharply, “Me! Stay hidden indoors when my canoe is leaving? It is my canoe. I am the spirit of the sails and the strength of the paddlers. I will take you to land, Teroro, for I am the canoe.”

  And when the men climbed aboard Wait-for-the-West-Wind, Marama, with her beautiful hair in the storm, guided them with her spirit and blessed them, and said to young Tehani, “Take care of our husband. Fill him with love.” But at the last minute she was thrust aside by a most unexpected arrival. It was the High Priest, come down to the launching with a long retinue of assistants, and he went to the canoe and cried, “Great Oro bids you safe journey!”

  Grabbing hold of the bowsprit, he stepped aboard, clutching the mast Tane as he did so. Kneeling before the gods’ house, he pushed aside the grass door and deposited inside a sanctified statue of Oro, made of sacred sennit woven with his own hands and clothed in feathers. In haunting voice he cried into the storm, “Great Oro, bless this canoe!” And as he stepped ashore, Teroro saw that a smile of enormous relief had come upon the face of his new wife, Tehani. She had been willing to go upon the seas with strange gods, but now that Oro was with her, she knew the journey would succeed.

  And so the double canoe, Wait-for-the-West-Wind, loaded and creaking with king and slave, with contradictory gods and pigs, with hope and fear, set forth upon the unknown. At the prow stood Teroro, ill-named the wise one, but at this fateful moment he was wise enough not to look back at Bora Bora, for that would have been not only an evil omen, but folly as well, for he would have seen Marama, and that sight he could not have borne.

  When West Wind reached the reef, and stood for a moment in its last stretch of easily navigable water, all in the canoe experienced a moment of awful dread, for outside the coral barrier roared the storm on slashing waves and tremendous deeps. Just for an instant Mato, lead paddle on the left, whispered, “Great Tane! Such waves!” But with prodigious force he led the paddlers into a swift rhythm that bore them directly into the heart of the storm. The canoe rose high in the sea, teetered a moment with its shrouds whistling, then ripped down, down into the valley of the waves. Spray dashed across all heads and the two halves seemed as if they must tear apart. Pigs squealed in terror and dogs barked, while in the flooded grass house women thought: “This is death.”

  But instantly the powerful canoe cut into the waves, found itself, and rode high onto the crest of the ocean, away from Bora Bora of the muffled paddles, away from the comforting lagoon and onto the highway that led to nothingness.

  IN SUCH WEATHER King Tamatoa led his people into exile. They did not go in triumph or with banners flying
; they fled at night, with no drums beating. They did not leave with riches and in panoply; they were rudely elbowed off their island with only enough food to sustain them precariously. Had they been more clever, they would have held their homeland; but they were not and they were forced to go. Had they perceived the deeper nature of gods, they would never have fallen prey to a savage deity who tormented them; but they were stubborn rather than wise, and the false god expelled them.

  Later ages would depict these men as all-wise and heroic, great venturers seeking bright new lands; but such myths would be in error, for no man leaves where he is and seeks a distant place unless he is in some respect a failure; but having failed in one location and having been ejected, it is possible that in the next he will be a little wiser.

  There was, however, one overriding characteristic that marked these defeated people as they swept into the storm: they did have courage. Only if they had been craven could they have swallowed their humiliation and remained on Bora Bora; this they would not do. It is true that they fled into the dusk, but each man carried as his most prized possession his own personal god of courage. For Teroro it was the mighty albatross that winged its way over distant seas. For King Tamatoa it was the wind that spoke to him in tempests. For Tupuna it was the spirit of the lagoon that brought fish. And for his ancient bleary-eyed wife, Teura, the keeper of omens, it was a god so powerful that she scarcely dared mention its name. But it followed her in the ocean, her great and sweet and powerful deity, her courage in the unknown.

  When they had reached, more swiftly than ever before, a point off the north coast of Havaiki, Teroro crawled over to where Mato paddled and said, “I am going to speak with the king about our feeling. Promise me that you will support me.”

  “I promise,” Mato said.

  “Even if it means death?”