Typee: A Romance of the South Seas
Page 25
The water is held in high estimation by the islanders, some of whomconsider it an agreeable as well as a medicinal beverage; they bring itfrom the mountain in their calabashes, and store it away beneath heapsof leaves in some shady nook near the house. Old Marheyo had a greatlove for the waters of the spring. Every now and then he lugged off tothe mountain a great round demijohn of a calabash, and, panting with hisexertions, brought it back filled with his darling fluid.
The water tasted like a solution of a dozen disagreeable things, and wassufficiently nauseous to have made the fortune of the proprietor, hadthe spa been situated in the midst of any civilized community.
As I am no chemist, I cannot give a scientific analysis of the water.All I know about the matter is, that one day Marheyo in my presencepoured out the last drop from his huge calabash, and I observed at thebottom of the vessel a small quantity of gravelly sediment very muchresembling our common sand. Whether this is always found in the water,and gives it its peculiar flavour and virtues, or whether its presencewas merely incidental, I was not able to ascertain.
One day in returning from this spring by a circuitous path, I came upona scene which reminded me of Stonehenge and the architectural labours ofthe Druids.
At the base of one of the mountains, and surrounded on all sides bydense groves, a series of vast terraces of stone rises, step by step,for a considerable distance up the hill side. These terraces cannotbe less than one hundred yards in length and twenty in width. Theirmagnitude, however, is less striking than the immense size of the blockscomposing them. Some of the stones, of an oblong shape, are from tento fifteen feet in length, and five or six feet thick. Their sides arequite smooth, but though square, and of pretty regular formation, theybear no mark of the chisel. They are laid together without cement, andhere and there show gaps between. The topmost terrace and the lowerone are somewhat peculiar in their construction. They have both aquadrangular depression in the centre, leaving the rest of the terraceelevated several feet above it. In the intervals of the stones immensetrees have taken root, and their broad boughs stretching far over, andinterlacing together, support a canopy almost impenetrable to the sun.Overgrowing the greater part of them, and climbing from one to another,is a wilderness of vines, in whose sinewy embrace many of the stoneslie half-hidden, while in some places a thick growth of bushes entirelycovers them. There is a wild pathway which obliquely crosses two ofthese terraces; and so profound is the shade, so dense the vegetation,that a stranger to the place might pass along it without being aware oftheir existence.
These structures bear every indication of a very high antiquity andKory-Kory, who was my authority in all matters of scientific research,gave me to understand that they were coeval with the creation of theworld; that the great gods themselves were the builders; and that theywould endure until time shall be no more.
Kory-Kory's prompt explanation and his attributing the work to adivine origin, at once convinced me that neither he nor the rest of hiscountry-men knew anything about them.
As I gazed upon this monument, doubtless the work of an extinct andforgotten race, thus buried in the green nook of an island at the endsof the earth, the existence of which was yesterday unknown, a strongerfeeling of awe came over me than if I had stood musing at the mightybase of the Pyramid of Cheops. There are no inscriptions, no sculpture,no clue, by which to conjecture its history; nothing but the dumbstones. How many generations of the majestic trees which overshadow themhave grown and flourished and decayed since first they were erected!
These remains naturally suggest many interesting reflections. Theyestablish the great age of the island, an opinion which the buildersof theories concerning, the creation of the various groups in the SouthSeas are not always inclined to admit. For my own part, I think itjust as probable that human beings were living in the valleys of theMarquesas three thousand years ago as that they were inhabiting the landof Egypt. The origin of the island of Nukuheva cannot be imputed to thecoral insect; for indefatigable as that wonderful creature is, it wouldbe hardly muscular enough to pile rocks one upon the other more thanthree thousand feet above the level of the sea. That the land may havebeen thrown up by a submarine volcano is as possible as anything else.No one can make an affidavit to the contrary, and therefore I still saynothing against the supposition: indeed, were geologists to assert thatthe whole continent of America had in like manner been formed by thesimultaneous explosion of a train of Etnas laid under the water all theway from the North Pole to the parallel of Cape Horn, I am the last manin the world to contradict them.
I have already mentioned that the dwellings of the islanders were almostinvariably built upon massive stone foundations, which they call pi-pis.The dimensions of these, however, as well as of the stones composingthem, are comparatively small: but there are other and larger erectionsof a similar description comprising the 'morais', or burying grounds,and festival-places, in nearly all the valleys of the island. Some ofthese piles are so extensive, and so great a degree of labour and skillmust have been requisite in constructing them, that I can scarcelybelieve they were built by the ancestors of the present inhabitants. Ifindeed they were, the race has sadly deteriorated in their knowledge ofthe mechanic arts. To say nothing of their habitual indolence, by whatcontrivance within the reach of so simple a people could such enormousmasses have been moved or fixed in their places? and how could they withtheir rude implements have chiselled and hammered them into shape?
All of these larger pi-pis--like that of the Hoolah Hoolah ground in theTypee valley--bore incontestible marks of great age; and I am disposedto believe that their erection may be ascribed to the same race of menwho were the builders of the still more ancient remains I have justdescribed.
According to Kory-Kory's account, the pi-pi upon which stands the HoolahHoolah ground was built a great many moons ago, under the direction ofMonoo, a great chief and warrior, and, as it would appear, master-masonamong the Typees. It was erected for the express purpose to which it isat present devoted, in the incredibly short period of one sun; and wasdedicated to the immortal wooden idols by a grand festival, which lastedten days and nights.
Among the smaller pi-pis, upon which stand the dwelling-houses of thenatives, I never observed any which intimated a recent erection. Thereare in every part of the valley a great many of these massive stonefoundations which have no houses upon them. This is vastly convenient,for whenever an enterprising islander chooses to emigrate a few hundredyards from the place where he was born, all he has to do in order toestablish himself in some new locality, is to select one of the manyunappropriated pi-pis, and without further ceremony pitch his bambootent upon it.