Daughter of the Reef

by Coleman, Clare;

  When she nodded, Rimapoa slipped his hand in hers. His touch was so reassuring that she did not pull away. He turned and led her up the path. Tepua was glad when the screen of forest surrounded her once again.

  Shortly, they came to an opening in the trees at the base of a high, dark cliff. A glistening cascade shot over the clifftop, sparkling as it fell in an unbroken sheet into a basin surrounded by stones. Children were bathing in the pool, splashing each other, racing in and out of the spray.

  Tepua gazed in astonishment. She had finally grown used to the streams and rivers of Tahiti, but this scene was startling and new to her—the coolness of the mist ... the huge, glossy leaves of the plants along the bank ... the rich scents from blossoms high in trees. The atolls held nothing like this.

  Rimapoa found a dry place above the bank and invited her to sit. She enjoyed being beside him, feeling the firmness of his hand as it pressed against hers. The surroundings were so lush that she felt she could lose herself here.

  A warning sounded in her mind. Rimapoa’s company was pleasant, and the surroundings exhilarating, but she was content merely to sit and drink everything in. Rimapoa would not be so easily satisfied.

  “Why are you so quiet?” he asked when she continued to sit stiffly beside him. Slowly he withdrew his hand.

  She felt relieved at this gesture, yet saddened at the same time. He was so considerate, so kind. What more could she want from a man? She did not wish to hurt him, yet she feared she had already done so.

  How confusing and awkward this all was! If only she could tell Rimapoa that she found him attractive, but felt more comfortable with him in the role of a friend.

  “How beautiful this place is,” he said, letting his arm rest gently against hers.

  “The waterfall is pretty,” she replied. She did not wish to withdraw from the comfort of his touch. If only he could be content to remain this way, wanting nothing more.

  “Tepua, I sense something still troubling you. Not the heights—”

  “No.”

  “Is it Hoihoi? She will not need you for a while.”

  He had given her an opening, a way to steer his thoughts in another direction. “I was just remembering something that your sister told me.”

  He sighed and Tepua realized, with a twinge of regret, that she had succeeded in breaking the mood. At least he did not move away from her this time. “What lie is my sister spreading?” he asked in a pained voice.

  “I hope it is a lie,” she answered. “But Hoihoi says that the other fishermen speak unkindly of you. They use a word I do not understand.”

  Rimapoa glanced away. “What is that word?” he asked.

  “Mafera.”

  He flinched, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment. Tepua wondered how that word could hurt him so, and regretted that she had said it. He gave her a long, appraising look. “Let me ask you this, pearl woman. Do you know how albacore are caught?”

  Tepua confessed that she did not. At home, the fishermen would bring the gleaming albacore and bonito in baskets as tribute to the family of the chief. She had never asked how they made their catches.

  “Then let me tell you, for there are two ways. The first uses a twin-hulled canoe and many people. Some men paddle while others throw out baited lines to trail in the water. At the end of the trip, they share whatever they have caught. But if no fish rise to their hooks, they accuse someone in the crew of breaking a tapu and angering the spirits. Too many times I was blamed unfairly, so I no longer fish with the large boat.”

  “Then—”

  “The other way is my way. I go out alone to deep ’holes’ in the sea where the albacore gather. I drop my hook far down and wait. Sometimes the fish strikes so hard that I am nearly pulled from my canoe. I have fallen in. I have lost fish that the other men who work together could have landed.”

  She felt a rush of sympathy. “That must be hard.”

  “It is. But when the fish hits and the battle begins, I cannot stop—until he is thrashing in the canoe or breaks from my line.” Rimapoa paused, his eyes bright and the muscles knotted in his arms as if he were straining against a wildly fighting albacore.

  To Tepua, something hidden in his spirit seemed to emerge. He was, for a moment, no longer Rimapoa the outcast and rogue, but the fisherman-hero of myth, who could draw up great islands on his hook. She sensed that Rimapoa at sea became a very different man than when he was ashore.

  “Some men say that fishing my way spoils it for others,” he continued. “They say that if albacore are caught on deep lines, they will not come to the surface. So they use ugly names for what I do, and they shun me.” He lowered his voice. “Sometimes I fish at night so I will not be noticed. That is the worst offense of all, in some eyes. That is what they call mafera.”

  She saw the pain in his eyes and wished she could soothe him. Gently she replied, “I see no harm in it. One man alone cannot take many fish. If the others do not like it, what can they do to you?”

  Rimapoa’s grin returned, though some bitterness remained. “They will do me no harm. Hoihoi knows a bit of sorcery and they fear she would take revenge on them if they tried. But the next time the priest calls for an offering, my name will be mentioned.”

  Hair rose on Tepua’s nape as his meaning became clear. “Offering!”

  “You do not sacrifice men to your gods?” The worry lines about his eyes were deeper now than she had ever seen them.

  Tepua shuddered. “We have so few people—”

  “Here, on Tahiti, it is different. When the gods demand an offering, the chief’s pick someone they can easily spare—someone like me.”

  Again she stared at him, not knowing what to say. How could the Tahitians do such a thing to a man who seemed so gentle? “Then why do you stay here?” she managed to ask.

  “Where else can I go? Here I have my arrangements. The headman takes my fish and lets me live on his land. Though I have enemies, they keep their distance. In another place, as a stranger, I might suffer an even harsher fate.”

  “Perhaps your friend the headman will warn you if your name is chosen. Then you can hide somewhere and let them take another man.”

  “Friend?” Rimapoa snorted. “Pigs-run-out is not my friend. He tolerates me only because of the tribute I pay him. But I have a spirit who protects me and will give me warning. When the time comes, I will get away.” He smiled, though she knew he did not feel as confident as he sounded. “But we have spent too much time in gloomy talk,” he said.

  “I think we should start walking back,” she suggested, before his amorous mood could show itself again. “Let me teach you a game I know. We can play it on the way. You hold your hand like this and cover your thumb. . . .”

  She tried not to see his look of disappointment.

  The next morning Tepua and Hoihoi went out early to gather seafood. The air was quiet, the beach still shaded by coconut palms. Low tide had drawn the lagoon down, exposing shellfish beds. Tepua saw Hoihoi’s eyes brighten when she spied a cluster of oblong blue-black shells in among the whelks and limpets.

  “Mussels,” Hoihoi said, licking her lips. “Just the right delicacy for this day.”

  “What is so different about today?” Tepua asked, yawning. She still didn’t know why Hoihoi had gotten her up so early.

  “Today we will have feasting and dancing and special visitors. The Arioi will perform for us. We must feed them well.”

  “Arioi?”

  “You will see.”

  When the baskets had been filled to overflowing, Hoihoi marched ahead, leading the way to the assembly ground, a large clearing above the beach. In the wide pits that served as communal ovens, Tepua saw fires blazing, heating the stones within.

  As was customary, men and women worked separately, each group preparing their own part of the feast. Hoihoi took her basket first to one of the men and emptied half its contents onto some coconut leaves. She waited until he acknowledged the gift. “Do you expect pork in return, woman?
” he chided. “Take some of those bananas.”

  Hoihoi snorted her anger, then told Tepua to pick up the largest bunch. They delivered their load of food to the women’s oven, staying on to help until everything had been wrapped in leaves and buried to cook. “Now,” said Hoihoi, “we must go to the house and get ready.”

  Along the way, they gathered green coconut fronds, brightly striped leaves of the ti plant, maire ferns, and flowers. At the hut they wove these into colorful headdresses. Then they joined the other women in the stream for a midday bath. The mood that day, Tepua thought, was unusually bright, each woman boasting about how much she would eat and how long she would dance at the celebration. There was also lusty talk about men, but Tepua did not listen to it.

  She did follow the lead of the others, rubbing herself with scented oil and combing out her long hair. Suddenly she heard drumming from afar. “Arioi!” shouted the women, running off in several directions.

  In a few moments Tepua was following Hoihoi, who was already bouncing to the drumbeat as she walked. Decked in fresh wraps and their new headdresses, the women hurried toward the beach. There Tepua drew in her breath as she gazed across the lagoon.

  A flotilla of double canoes was coming in to shore. The tall prows, elegantly carved, and decorated with red and yellow streamers, were like none she had seen before. On the decks stood men and women in festive costumes, their faces painted black and red. They danced and paraded while musicians behind them played on tall drums and slender nose flutes.

  “Who are these people?” Tepua asked as Hoihoi danced to the music, and the crowds grew thick along the shore,

  “The followers of Oro,” Hoihoi answered. “They entertain us, and teach us, and help us please the gods. Tonight you will see.”

  “And who is that—a great chief?” Tepua pointed to a tall, heavyset man who stood by the shore, apparently waiting to greet the arriving Arioi. He wore an elegantly painted cape and a feather headdress that spread out like a fan. She saw his feathers shimmering and gleaming in the sunlight, but could not get a glimpse of his face.

  “He is but the headman here, the underchief, the one called Pigs-run-out.”

  The man who might have helped me. Tepua pushed that thought aside. She did not wish to remember that she had met Tangled-net outside his compound. The underchief turned briefly, assessing the crowd. Then Tepua saw his middle-aged face, dignified in expression, with a trace of petulance about the mouth and the lower lip.

  A moment later the first of the Arioi came ashore, and the crowd made way for them. Tepua watched the underchief warmly greet the man who stood at the fore of the troop, embracing him and pressing his nose to each cheek. Then a woman leader stepped forward and was greeted as well. These head Arioi, unlike the others, had solid black tattooing covering them from ankle to thigh. They wore cloths painted scarlet and yellow, necklaces of pearl shell, and feather headdresses as tall as the chief’s.

  The remaining Arioi were decorated in a variety of styles, some with cowrie shells and feathers, others with necklaces and fringed gorgets. They strode forward, smiling and laughing, toward places that had been set for them on the ground, men and women in separate sections. Tepua smelled delicious steamy odors as servers hurried from the ovens to feed the guests.

  Tepua and Hoihoi found places of their own, far from the honored guests, and they had to wait a long time to be served. When the food finally came, Tepua thought it the best she had ever eaten—roasted fowls, savory with sea salt, and yams, plantains, reef fish, steamed leaves of taro. At home there had been feasts, of course, but none with this variety.

  While she ate, Tepua glanced occasionally across at the gathering of men. Rimapoa was seated at the edge of the crowd. When he saw her, he grinned and flourished a leg of fowl. Tepua returned his greeting, but she felt uneasy. Later, when the dancing started, she knew he would come looking for her. There would be no distracting him then. . . .

  At last she realized that she had finished all the food before her. She saw other women around her moving into the shade beneath the palms to escape the fiercest heat of the day. Some had brought sleeping mats. Others, like Hoihoi, dug themselves hollows in the sandy soil. Tepua made herself a resting place and curled up on her side.

  The entertainment was still to come. She was curious to see why these Arioi merited the great welcome that the headman’s people had provided. But now, as she heard the snores and the buzzing of flies, her eyelids fell shut.

  Tepua awoke to drumming. It grew louder and faster, picking up a two-toned beat. Boom, ba-boomba, boom ba-boomba, almost the same as the drumbeats of her homeland. When she stood up, her feet began moving to the rhythm. It got into her, making her skin tingle.

  As she followed Hoihoi in the slanting sunlight of late afternoon, she saw the Arioi gathering about the level area in the center of the assembly ground. Underlings were laying down mats. “For the performance,” Hoihoi explained. The musicians had already taken seats at the rear of this simple stage.

  So many people in one place! Tepua feared she would be lost in the midst of the crowd around the mats, but she felt Hoihoi’s hand close about her wrist and draw her through. Then the noise quieted and people knelt or sat on the ground.

  The chief Arioi stood and raised his hands to still the drums and the crowd. “Let us remember,” he said in a booming voice, “why it is that we feast and laugh and dance here today. Let us recall the god who inspires us. Let us do honor to Oro-of-the-laid-down-spear.”

  For a moment the crowd fell into a respectful silence for the god. Then, at the chief Arioi’s signal, the drums and flutes started once more, joined by a chorus of male singers. They began chanting a history of Oro, starting with the story of his search for a wife, finally telling how he inspired the start of the Arioi society.

  To Tepua, much of this was new. Oro was known in her islands, but her people held no rites in his honor. He was a god of many aspects, feared as the patron of war, yet admired as the spirit of peace when enemies sat down together. From the words of the chant, she gathered that both aspects were important to the Arioi. They kept themselves ready for war, should it come. But they devoted themselves to promoting Oro’s peaceful nature, when he presided over rich harvests.

  The chanting continued as the sun dropped toward the horizon. Tepua felt gooseflesh as she listened. Oro was more powerful than any god her own people dared call on. It was far wiser, she had been taught, to beg favors of a lesser spirit; the great gods could not be bothered by human troubles. Yet these Arioi told of Oro coming to earth, allowing his power to touch men and women.

  After the introduction, the mood of the audience turned from sober to gay as a small group of players took their places on the stage. These Arioi wore outlandish costumes—oversized or undersized wraps, necklaces made of discarded shells and coconut husks. Tepua saw people grinning, leaning forward in anticipation. “And now our first entertainment,” announced the Arioi chief. The players began to perform in mime, strutting about the stage while the chorus spoke for them.

  Tepua looked on in puzzlement, wondering why people were laughing. One player after another stepped forward, each with a distinctly mannered gait, each earning an enthusiastic response from the crowd. She had seen something like this at home—performers mimicking well-known people.

  Suddenly she stiffened as a man dressed like a plump woman, with bundles of straw stuffed under his wrap, sashayed onto the stage. As the actor raised a fist angrily the chorus chanted:

  “What is this you serve to the women?

  This is no festive meal.

  Give me good food.

  Give me succulent pork!”

  A man dressed in mock chief’s attire came out to rebuke the “woman.” He stood with his legs wide apart and waved an absurdly decorated staff. The chorus chanted:

  “This is our privilege.

  We men will eat the pig.

  No pork for you, woman.

  No pork for you, Poipoi.”
/>   Poipoi? Tepua glanced at her companion’s smile of embarrassment. Others around Hoihoi began to slap their thighs in appreciation. Tepua tried to hold back her own laughter as the two characters traded insults and boasts, but suddenly it was too much for her. Tears of mirth ran down her cheeks.

  So even the Arioi knew Rimapoa’s sister! For a moment, sitting so close to the center of attention, Tepua felt a part of this boisterous throng. She watched the victim herself begin to laugh. Yes, these people are not so different from my own. In a surge of feeling that surprised her, Tepua flung her arms around Hoihoi.

  One entertainment followed another, until finally all the actors left the stage. Then the drums, which had been restrained, began booming again. The flutes joined them in a pulsating melody. Tepua sensed the mood change once again as people followed the beat with their heads and their hands.

  A couple appeared on stage, both wearing wreaths and dancing skirts. They stood opposite each other, and slowly the woman began to roll her hips in the beginning motions of the dance.

  The wreath about the woman’s waist accented her hip motion. She stepped in time to the drumbeat while holding her arms above her head. Her hands fluttered in the air, fingers making graceful gestures as her hips picked up the tempo. She inclined her head, sending her partner sly looks.

  Her partner crouched on his toes, his upper body straight, his knees bent. He clapped his knees together and apart, matching his partner’s rhythm. He was well suited to his role, Tepua thought, for his muscles were huge and ropy, bulging along the top of his upper leg from knee to thigh.

  More performing couples joined the two on stage as the drumbeat accelerated. The onlookers bobbed their heads and sang along with the music as the dance grew faster and more intense.

  “May Oro be pleased! Everyone dance!” came the deep bellow of the head Arioi.

  By now night had fallen and the area was lit by bonfires and torches. With excited cries the young men and women in the audience leaped to their feet while their elders drew to the side. Tepua felt her heart jumping. This dance was almost the same as one she knew. At home she had been the best, making up for her slender form with suppleness and speed.