Typee: A Romance of the South Seas

by Herman Melville

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  IDEAS SUGGESTED BY THE FEAST OF CALABASHES--INACCURACY OF CERTAINPUBLISHED ACCOUNTS OF THE ISLANDS--A REASON--NEGLECTED STATE OFHEATHENISM IN THE VALLEY--EFFIGY OF A DEAD WARRIOR--A SINGULARSUPERSTITION--THE PRIEST KOLORY AND THE GOD MOA ARTUA--AMAZING RELIGIOUSOBSERVANCE--A DILAPIDATED SHRINE--KORY-KORY AND THE IDOL--AN INFERENCE

  ALTHOUGH I had been baffled in my attempts to learn the origin ofthe Feast of Calabashes, yet it seemed very plain to me that it wasprincipally, if not wholly, of a religious character. As a religioussolemnity, however, it had not at all corresponded with the horribledescriptions of Polynesian worship which we have received in somepublished narratives, and especially in those accounts of theevangelized islands with which the missionaries have favoured us. Didnot the sacred character of these persons render the purity of theirintentions unquestionable, I should certainly be led to suppose thatthey had exaggerated the evils of Paganism, in order to enhance themerit of their own disinterested labours.

  In a certain work incidentally treating of the 'Washington, or NorthernMarquesas Islands,' I have seen the frequent immolation of human victimsupon the altars of their gods, positively and repeatedly charged uponthe inhabitants. The same work gives also a rather minute account oftheir religion--enumerates a great many of their superstitions--andmakes known the particular designations of numerous orders of thepriesthood. One would almost imagine from the long list that is givenof cannibal primates, bishops, arch-deacons, prebendaries, and otherinferior ecclesiastics, that the sacerdotal order far outnumbered therest of the population, and that the poor natives were more severelypriest-ridden than even the inhabitants of the papal states. Theseaccounts are likewise calculated to leave upon the reader's mind animpression that human victims are daily cooked and served up upon thealtars; that heathenish cruelties of every description are continuallypractised; and that these ignorant Pagans are in a state of theextremest wretchedness in consequence of the grossness of theirsuperstitions. Be it observed, however, that all this information isgiven by a man who, according to his own statement, was only at one ofthe islands, and remained there but two weeks, sleeping every night onboard his ship, and taking little kid-glove excursions ashore in thedaytime, attended by an armed party.

  Now, all I can say is, that in all my excursions through the valley ofTypee, I never saw any of these alleged enormities. If any of them arepractised upon the Marquesas Islands they must certainly have come tomy knowledge while living for months with a tribe of savages, whollyunchanged from their original primitive condition, and reputed the mostferocious in the South Seas.

  The fact is, that there is a vast deal of unintentional humbuggeryin some of the accounts we have from scientific men concerning thereligious institutions of Polynesia. These learned tourists generallyobtain the greater part of their information from retired old South-Searovers, who have domesticated themselves among the barbarous tribes ofthe Pacific. Jack, who has long been accustomed to the long-bow, andto spin tough yarns on the ship's forecastle, invariably officiates asshowman of the island on which he has settled, and having mastered a fewdozen words of the language, is supposed to know all about the peoplewho speak it. A natural desire to make himself of consequence in theeyes of the strangers, prompts him to lay claim to a much greaterknowledge of such matters than he actually possesses. In reply toincessant queries, he communicates not only all he knows but a good dealmore, and if there be any information deficient still he is at noloss to supply it. The avidity with which his anecdotes are noteddown tickles his vanity, and his powers of invention increase with thecredulity auditors. He knows just the sort of information wanted, andfurnishes it to any extent.

  This is not a supposed case; I have met with several individuals likethe one described, and I have been present at two or three of theirinterviews with strangers.

  Now, when the scientific voyager arrives at home with his collectionof wonders, he attempts, perhaps, to give a description of some of thestrange people he has been visiting. Instead of representing them asa community of lusty savages, who are leading a merry, idle, innocentlife, he enters into a very circumstantial and learned narrative ofcertain unaccountable superstitions and practices, about which he knowsas little as the islanders themselves. Having had little time, andscarcely any opportunity, to become acquainted with the customs hepretends to describe, he writes them down one after another in anoff-hand, haphazard style; and were the book thus produced to betranslated into the tongue of the people of whom it purports to give thehistory, it would appear quite as wonderful to them as it does to theAmerican public, and much more improbable.

  For my own part, I am free to confess my almost entire inability togratify any curiosity that may be felt with regard to the theology ofthe valley. I doubt whether the inhabitants themselves could do so. Theyare either too lazy or too sensible to worry themselves about abstractpoints of religious belief. While I was among them, they never held anysynods or councils to settle the principles of their faith by agitatingthem. An unbounded liberty of conscience seemed to prevail. Thosewho pleased to do so were allowed to repose implicit faith in anill-favoured god with a large bottle-nose and fat shapeless arms crossedupon his breast; whilst others worshipped an image which, having nolikeness either in heaven or on earth, could hardly be called an idol.As the islanders always maintained a discreet reserve with regard tomy own peculiar views on religion, I thought it would be excessivelyill-bred of me to pry into theirs.

  But, although my knowledge of the religious faith of the Typees wasunavoidably limited, one of their superstitious observances with which Ibecame acquainted interested me greatly.

  In one of the most secluded portions of the valley within a stone'scast of Fayaway's lake--for so I christened the scene of our islandyachting--and hard by a growth of palms, which stood ranged in orderalong both banks of the stream, waving their green arms as if to dohonour to its passage, was the mausoleum of a deceased, warrior chief.Like all the other edifices of any note, it was raised upon a smallpi-pi of stones, which, being of unusual height, was a conspicuousobject from a distance. A light thatching of bleached palmetto-leaveshung over it like a self supported canopy; for it was not until youcame very near that you saw it was supported by four slender columns ofbamboo rising at each corner to a little more than the height of a man.A clear area of a few yards surrounded the pi-pi, and was enclosed byfour trunks of cocoanut trees resting at the angles on massive blocks ofstone. The place was sacred. The sign of the inscrutable Taboo was seenin the shape of a mystic roll of white tappa, suspended by a twistedcord of the same material from the top of a slight pole planted withinthe enclosure*. The sanctity of the spot appeared never to have beenviolated. The stillness of the grave was there, and the calm solitudearound was beautiful and touching. The soft shadows of those loftypalm-trees!--I can see them now--hanging over the little temple, as ifto keep out the intrusive sun.

  *White appears to be the sacred colour among the Marquesans.

  On all sides as you approached this silent spot you caught sight of thedead chief's effigy, seated in the stern of a canoe, which was raised ona light frame a few inches above the level of the pi-pi. The canoe wasabout seven feet in length; of a rich, dark coloured wood, handsomelycarved and adorned in many places with variegated bindings of stainedsinnate, into which were ingeniously wrought a number of sparklingseashells, and a belt of the same shells ran all round it. The bodyof the figure--of whatever material it might have been made--waseffectually concealed in a heavy robe of brown tappa, revealing; onlythe hands and head; the latter skilfully carved in wood, and surmountedby a superb arch of plumes. These plumes, in the subdued and gentlegales which found access to this sequestered spot, were never for onemoment at rest, but kept nodding and waving over the chief's brow. Thelong leaves of the palmetto drooped over the eaves, and through them yousaw the warrior holding his paddle with both hands in the act of rowing,leaning forward and inclining his head, as if eager to hurry on hisvoyage. Glaring at him foreve
r, and face to face, was a polished humanskull, which crowned the prow of the canoe. The spectral figurehead,reversed in its position, glancing backwards, seemed to mock theimpatient attitude of the warrior.

  When I first visited this singular place with Kory-Kory, he told me--orat least I so understood him--that the chief was paddling his way tothe realms of bliss, and bread-fruit--the Polynesian heaven--whereevery moment the bread-fruit trees dropped their ripened spheres to theground, and where there was no end to the cocoanuts and bananas: therethey reposed through the livelong eternity upon mats much finer thanthose of Typee; and every day bathed their glowing limbs in riversof cocoanut oil. In that happy land there were plenty of plumes andfeathers, and boars'-tusks and sperm-whale teeth, far preferable to allthe shining trinkets and gay tappa of the white men; and, best of all,women far lovelier than the daughters of earth were there in abundance.'A very pleasant place,' Kory-Kory said it was; 'but after all, not muchpleasanter, he thought, than Typee.' 'Did he not then,' I asked him,'wish to accompany the warrior?' 'Oh no: he was very happy where he was;but supposed that some time or other he would go in his own canoe.'

  Thus far, I think, I clearly comprehended Kory-Kory. But there was asingular expression he made use of at the time, enforced by as singulara gesture, the meaning of which I would have given much to penetrate.I am inclined to believe it must have been a proverb he uttered; for Iafterwards heard him repeat the same words several times, and in whatappeared to me to be a somewhat: similar sense. Indeed, Kory-Kory hada great variety of short, smart-sounding sentences, with which hefrequently enlivened his discourse; and he introduced them with an airwhich plainly intimated, that in his opinion, they settled the matter inquestion, whatever it might be.

  Could it have been then, that when I asked him whether he desired to goto this heaven of bread-fruit, cocoanuts, and young ladies, which he hadbeen describing, he answered by saying something equivalent to ourold adage--'A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush'?--if he did,Kory-Kory was a discreet and sensible fellow, and I cannot sufficientlyadmire his shrewdness.

  Whenever, in the course of my rambles through the valley I happened tobe near the chief's mausoleum, I always turned aside to visit it. Theplace had a peculiar charm for me; I hardly know why, but so it was. AsI leaned over the railing and gazed upon the strange effigy and watchedthe play of the feathery head-dress, stirred by the same breeze which inlow tones breathed amidst the lofty palm-trees, I loved to yield myselfup to the fanciful superstition of the islanders, and could almostbelieve that the grim warrior was bound heavenward. In this mood whenI turned to depart, I bade him 'God speed, and a pleasant voyage.' Aye,paddle away, brave chieftain, to the land of spirits! To the materialeye thou makest but little progress; but with the eye of faith, I seethy canoe cleaving the bright waves, which die away on those dimlylooming shores of Paradise.

  This strange superstition affords another evidence of the fact, thathowever ignorant man may be, he still feels within him his immortalspirit yearning, after the unknown future.

  Although the religious theories of the islands were a complete mysteryto me, their practical every-day operation could not be concealed. Ifrequently passed the little temples reposing in the shadows of thetaboo groves and beheld the offerings--mouldy fruit spread out upona rude altar, or hanging in half-decayed baskets around some uncouthjolly-looking image; I was present during the continuance of thefestival; I daily beheld the grinning idols marshalled rank and file inthe Hoolah Hoolah ground, and was often in the habit of meetingthose whom I supposed to be the priests. But the temples seemed to beabandoned to solitude; the festival had been nothing more than a jovialmingling of the tribe; the idols were quite harmless as any other logsof wood; and the priests were the merriest dogs in the valley.

  In fact religious affairs in Typee were at a very low ebb: all suchmatters sat very lightly upon the thoughtless inhabitants; and, in thecelebration of many of their strange rites, they appeared merely to seeka sort of childish amusement.

  A curious evidence of this was given in a remarkable ceremony in which Ifrequently saw Mehevi and several other chefs and warriors of note takepart; but never a single female.

  Among those whom I looked upon as forming the priesthood of the valley,there was one in particular who often attracted my notice, and whomI could not help regarding as the head of the order. He was a noblelooking man, in the prime of his life, and of a most benignant aspect.The authority this man, whose name was Kolory, seemed to exercise overthe rest, the episcopal part he took in the Feast of Calabashes, hissleek and complacent appearance, the mystic characters which weretattooed upon his chest, and above all the mitre he frequently wore,in the shape of a towering head-dress, consisting of part of a cocoanutbranch, the stalk planted uprightly on his brow, and the leafletsgathered together and passed round the temples and behind the ears, allthese pointed him out as Lord Primate of Typee. Kolory was a sort ofKnight Templar--a soldier-priest; for he often wore the dress of aMarquesan warrior, and always carried a long spear, which, instead ofterminating in a paddle at the lower end, after the general fashion ofthese weapons, was curved into a heathenish-looking little image. Thisinstrument, however, might perhaps have been emblematic of his doublefunctions. With one end in carnal combat he transfixed the enemies ofhis tribe; and with the other as a pastoral crook he kept in order hisspiritual flock. But this is not all I have to say about Kolory.

  His martial grace very often carried about with him what seemed to methe half of a broken war-club. It was swathed round with ragged bits ofwhite tappa, and the upper part, which was intended to represent ahuman head, was embellished with a strip of scarlet cloth of Europeanmanufacture. It required little observation to discover that thisstrange object was revered as a god. By the side of the big and lustyimages standing sentinel over the altars of the Hoolah Hoolah ground, itseemed a mere pigmy in tatters. But appearances all the world over aredeceptive. Little men are sometimes very potent, and rags sometimescover very extensive pretensions. In fact, this funny little image wasthe 'crack' god of the island; lording it over all the wooden lubberswho looked so grim and dreadful; its name was Moa Artua*. And it was inhonour of Moa Artua, and for the entertainment of those who believe inhim, that the curious ceremony I am about to describe was observed.

  *The word 'Artua', although having some other significations, is innearly all the Polynesian dialects used as the general designation ofthe gods.