In the South Seas | Page 6

grass huts of Hawaii, the birdcage houses
of Tahiti, or the open shed, with the crazy Venetian blinds, of the polite
Samoan--none of these can be compared with the Marquesan
paepae-hae, or dwelling platform. The paepae is an oblong terrace built
without cement or black volcanic stone, from twenty to fifty feet in
length, raised from four to eight feet from the earth, and accessible by a
broad stair. Along the back of this, and coming to about half its width,
runs the open front of the house, like a covered gallery: the interior
sometimes neat and almost elegant in its bareness, the sleeping space
divided off by an endlong coaming, some bright raiment perhaps
hanging from a nail, and a lamp and one of White's sewing-machines
the only marks of civilization. On the outside, at one end of the terrace,
burns the cooking-fire under a shed; at the other there is perhaps a pen
for pigs; the remainder is the evening lounge and al fresco banquet-hall
of the inhabitants. To some houses water is brought down the
mountains in bamboo pipes, perforated for the sake of sweetness. With
the Highland comparison in my mind, I was struck to remember the
sluttish mounds of turf and stone in which I have sat and been
entertained in the Hebrides and the North Islands. Two things, I
suppose, explain the contrast. In Scotland wood is rare, and with
materials so rude as turf and stone the very hope of neatness is
excluded. And in Scotland it is cold. Shelter and a hearth are needs so
pressing that a man looks not beyond; he is out all day after a bare
bellyful, and at night when he saith, 'Aha, it is warm!' he has not

appetite for more. Or if for something else, then something higher; a
fine school of poetry and song arose in these rough shelters, and an air
like 'Lochaber no more' is an evidence of refinement more convincing,
as well as more imperishable, than a palace.
To one such dwelling platform a considerable troop of relatives and
dependants resort. In the hour of the dusk, when the fire blazes, and the
scent of the cooked breadfruit fills the air, and perhaps the lamp glints
already between the pillars and the house, you shall behold them
silently assemble to this meal, men, women, and children; and the dogs
and pigs frisk together up the terrace stairway, switching rival tails. The
strangers from the ship were soon equally welcome: welcome to dip
their fingers in the wooden dish, to drink cocoanuts, to share the
circulating pipe, and to hear and hold high debate about the misdeeds
of the French, the Panama Canal, or the geographical position of San
Francisco and New Yo'ko. In a Highland hamlet, quite out of reach of
any tourist, I have met the same plain and dignified hospitality.
I have mentioned two facts--the distasteful behaviour of our earliest
visitors, and the case of the lady who rubbed herself upon the
cushions--which would give a very false opinion of Marquesan
manners. The great majority of Polynesians are excellently mannered;
but the Marquesan stands apart, annoying and attractive, wild, shy, and
refined. If you make him a present he affects to forget it, and it must be
offered him again at his going: a pretty formality I have found nowhere
else. A hint will get rid of any one or any number; they are so fiercely
proud and modest; while many of the more lovable but blunter
islanders crowd upon a stranger, and can be no more driven off than
flies. A slight or an insult the Marquesan seems never to forget. I was
one day talking by the wayside with my friend Hoka, when I perceived
his eyes suddenly to flash and his stature to swell. A white horseman
was coming down the mountain, and as he passed, and while he paused
to exchange salutations with myself, Hoka was still staring and ruffling
like a gamecock. It was a Corsican who had years before called him
cochon sauvage--cocon chauvage, as Hoka mispronounced it. With
people so nice and so touchy, it was scarce to be supposed that our
company of greenhorns should not blunder into offences. Hoka, on one
of his visits, fell suddenly in a brooding silence, and presently after left
the ship with cold formality. When he took me back into favour, he

adroitly and pointedly explained the nature of my offence: I had asked
him to sell cocoa- nuts; and in Hoka's view articles of food were things
that a gentleman should give, not sell; or at least that he should not sell
to any friend. On another occasion I gave my boat's crew a luncheon of
chocolate and biscuits. I had sinned, I could never learn