In the early light of morning it became apparent that the smoking mountain and its supporting island lay much farther away than had at first been supposed, and a final day of hunger and work faced the paddlers; but the visible presence of their goal spurred the famished men so that by nightfall it was certain that next morning the long voyage would end. Through the last soft tropical night, with the luminous mountain ahead, the crew of the West Wind followed their rhythmic, steady beat.
As they approached the end of a trek nearly five thousand miles long, it is appropriate to compare what they had accomplished with what voyagers in other parts of the world were doing. In the Mediterranean, descendants of once-proud Phoenicians, who even in their moments of glory had rarely ventured out of sight of land, now coasted along established shores and occasionally, with what was counted bravery, actually cut across the trivial sea in voyages covering perhaps two hundred miles. In Portugal men were beginning to accumulate substantial bodies of information about the ocean, but to probe it they were not yet ready, and it would be six hundred more years before even near-at-hand islands like Madeira and the Azores would be found. Ships had coasted the shores of Africa, but it was known that crossing the equator and thus losing sight of the North Star meant boiling death, or falling off the edge of the world, or both.
On the other side of the earth, Chinese junks had coasted Asia and in the southern oceans had moved from one visible island to the next, terming the act heroism. From Arabia and India, merchants had undertaken considerable voyages, but never very far from established coasts, while in the undiscovered continents to the west of Europe, no men left the land.
Only in the north of Europe did the Vikings display enterprise even remotely comparable to that of the men of Bora Bora; but even they had not yet begun their long voyages, though they had at their disposal metals, large ships, woven sails, books and maps.
It was left to the men of the Pacific, men like cautious Tamatoa and energetic Teroro, to meet an ocean on its own terms and to conquer it. Lacking both metals and maps, sailing with only the stars and a few lengths of sennit, some dried taro and positive faith in their gods, these men accomplished miracles. It would be another seven centuries before an Italian navigator, sailing under the flag of Spain and fortified by all the appurtenances of an advanced community, would dare, in three large and commodious ships well nailed together, to set forth upon a voyage not quite so far and only half as dangerous.
At dawn Teroro brought his canoe close to land at the southeastern shore of the vast volcanic island that rose from the southeast end of the rupture in the ocean floor. When the shoreline became visible, the voyagers had many thoughts. Teroro reflected in some disappointment: “It’s all rocks. Where are the coconuts? Where’s the water?” Mato, who paddled in the hull nearest the land, thought: “No breadfruit.” But King Tamatoa mused: “It is the land Tane brought us to. It must be good.”
Only Tupuna appreciated the profound problems which the next few hours would bring. In trembling apprehension he thought: “The children of my brothers are about to step upon new land. Everything depends on the next minutes, for this island is obviously filled with strange gods, and we must do nothing to offend them. But will I be able to placate them all?”
So he moved with agitation about the canoe, endeavoring to arrange things so that the unknown gods would be offended as little as possible. “Don’t pick up a single stone,” he warned. “Don’t break a branch or eat a shellfish.” Then he went to the gods’ house and called Pa to his side, handing him a square of flat stone. “You will follow me,” he said, “because you are extremely brave.” He adjusted the king’s feather cape, handed Teroro a spear, and lifted into his own shaking hands the two gods, Tane and Ta’aroa.
“Now!” he cried, and the canoe touched land.
First to disembark was Tamatoa, and as soon as he had made one footprint in the sand, he stopped, kneeled down, and took that earth into his hands, bringing it to his lips, where he kissed it many times. “This is the land,” he chanted gravely. “This is a man’s home. This is good land to settle upon, a good land on which to have children. Here we shall bring our ancestors. Here we bring our gods.”
Behind him, in the prow of the canoe, stood Tupuna, his face upraised. “Tane, we thank you for the safe voyage,” he whispered. Then, in penetrating voice, he called, “You unknown gods! You brave and gentle gods who hold this island! You fine and generous gods of the smoking mountain! You forty gods, you forty thousand gods, you forty million gods! Allow us to land. Allow us to share your treasures, and we will honor you.” He was about to step ashore with his own gods, but the idea of invading a new land was too overpowering, so he shouted once more, “Terrible, all-seeing gods, may I please land?”
He stepped upon the land, expecting some awful omen, but none came and he told Pa, “You may bring the rock of Bora Bora onto its new home,” and the shark-faced warrior leaped ashore with the only lasting memorial of home: a square of rock. When he stood beside the king, Tupuna cried, “Now you, Teroro, with your spear.”
But when it came time for Teroro to leave the canoe, he did not worry about new gods. He placed his two hands on the prow of Wait-for-the-West-Wind and whispered, as gently as if he were speaking to Marama, “Beautiful, lovely ship. Forgive me for cutting away your glory. You are the queen of the ocean.” And he leaped ashore to guard his brother in the next fateful moments.
Tupuna left three warriors at the canoe to guard it, while the others strung out in line and formed the solemn procession that would invade the island. At the head of his nervous column marched Tupuna, and whenever he came to a large rock, he begged the god of that rock to let him pass. When he came to a grove of trees he cried, “God of these trees, we come in friendship.”
They had gone only a short distance inland when a passing cloud dropped misty rain upon them, and Tupuna shouted, “We are received! The gods bless us. Quick! See where the rainbow ends!”
It was Pa, holding the stone of Bora Bora, who saw the arc come to earth, and Tupuna cried, “There will be our temple!” And he hurried to the spot, crying, “Any evil that is here, Tane, push it aside, for this is to be your temple!”
The foot of the rainbow had fallen on an inviting plateau overlooking the ocean, and Tamatoa said, “This is a good omen indeed.” Then he and his white-bearded uncle began their search for a high male rock, for both knew that the earth itself was female, and therefore polluted, but that solid rocks of impermeable stone were male, and therefore uncontaminated, and after a long search he found a large protrusion of male rock coming erect out of fine reddish soil, and when Tupuna saw it he said, “A perfect site for an altar.”
So Pa placed upon this male rock his slab of Bora Bora stone, and with this symbolic action the new island was occupied, for upon the flat stone Tupuna reverently placed the fine old gods Tane and Ta’aroa. Then he climbed back to the sea with a coconut cup which he filled with water, and this he sprinkled over the temple area, over the gods, and over every human being who had come in the canoe, flicking it into their faces with the long finger of his right hand. “Now let us purify ourselves,” he said, leading every living thing into the ocean: king, warrior, pig, chicken and breadfruit bundle. In the cool sea the voyagers replenished themselves and a canny woman cried, as soon as the job was done, “Do you know what I stood on? Hundreds of shellfish!” And all who were purified fell back into waves and began routing out succulent shellfish. Prying the sweet snails loose, they popped them into their mouths and grinned.
When they were satiated, Tupuna announced, “Now we must design the temple,” and the slaves began to tremble. The old man led everyone back to the plateau, and while they watched, he and Tamatoa laid out the four sacred corners of the temple, and large piles of rock were collected about deep holes which the farmers dug.
The king signaled his warriors to bury the four quaking slaves, but Teroro prevented the sacrifice. Placing himself before the slaves, he pleaded: “Bro
ther, let us not launch our new island by more killing.”
Tamatoa, astonished, explained: “But the temple must be upheld!”
“Tane doesn’t require that!” Teroro argued.
“But we have always done so.”
“Isn’t that why we left Havaiki and red Oro?”
“But that was Oro,” the king rationalized. “This is Tane.”
“Brother! I beg you! Don’t start this killing!” Then, remembering how his best men had been sacrificed, he pleaded: “Ask the men!”
But this was not a question on which Tamatoa could take a vote. It concerned his relationship to the gods; perhaps the entire fortune of the voyage depended on these next few minutes. “Your words are ill timed,” he said stubbornly.
Tupuna supported him, grumbling petulantly, “From the beginning of time, temples have been held up by men.”
“Bury the slaves!” Tamatoa ordered.
But again Teroro spread his arms before them and cried, “Brother, don’t do this thing!” Then an idea came to him and he pleaded, “If we must sacrifice to Tane, let us sacrifice the male pig.”
For a moment the idea was appealing; all knew that Tane loved pig sacrifices more than any other. But Tupuna killed the suggestion. “We must keep the boar to breed more pigs,” he said flatly, and all agreed.
But Teroro, impassioned by his desire to start the colony correctly, cried, “Wait! Long ago when we had no pigs, we gave Tane ulua, the man-of-the-sea!”
When Tamatoa looked at his uncle for confirmation, the old man nodded. “The gods are pleased with man-of-the-sea,” he admitted.
“Give me half an hour,” Teroro pleaded, and he took six of his best fishermen, and they waded onto the reef and cast their lines and Teroro prayed, “Ta’aroa, god of the sea and of the fish that live therein, send us ulua to save men’s lives.” And when they had caught eight, two for each corner, they returned to the plateau, and Tamatoa looked at the big handsome fish and said, “For three of the corners we will use the man-of-the-sea. But for the essential corner we will use a man.”
“Please …” Teroro began, but the king roared in anger, “Silence! You are in command of the canoe, but I am in command of the temple. What would Tane say if we begrudged him his due?” So, in anxiety of spirit, Teroro left the scene, for he would not be partner to what was about to occur, and if the priest and the king conspired to kill him for his offense, he did not care. He sat on a distant rock and thought: “We flee an evil, but we bring it with us,” and he knew bitterness.
When he was gone the king said to Mato, “Bury the fish,” and they were placed in three of the holes. Then he directed: “Mato, bring us one of the slaves.” And the warrior went to the six who huddled apart and said bluntly: “I am sent by the king to select one of you to be the spirit for the temple.”
Although the slaves were gratified that only one had to die, they were anguished that the choice of that one, was forced on them. Looking at one another, they asked, “Which of us shall go to die for our masters?” The six wept, and one who had a position of leadership finally pointed and said, “You, perhaps.”
The man identified gasped and steeled himself for his ordeal. First he moved to the leader who had named him and rubbed noses with him, signifying that he went to his death with no hatred. Then he rubbed noses with the other two men, saying to each, “It is better that of the two of us I should die. Between you and me, good friend, it shall be I.” But when he came to the second woman, whom he loved, and when he rubbed noses with her for the last mournful time, he could not speak, and he marched from her to the pit, where he was thrown in, with the stones crushed down upon him, and where earth was pounded about him and over him, and where in silence he met dark death.
When the consecration of the temple was completed, and when mana had again begun to flow from the gods into King Tamatoa, so that he could function as king, Tupuna organized his second expedition, and with all save four who guarded the canoe and the animals, he probed deeper into the unknown in search of food. It was not a productive journey, for there was almost no food available. They did come upon a fern whose inner core was just barely edible, and to the fern Tupuna said, “Oh, secret god of this sweet fern, we are hungry. Allow us to borrow your trunk, and we will leave the roots so that you will grow again.”
They came upon a taller tree than any they had known in Bora Bora, and Pa observed: “One tree like that would build a house,” so Tupuna reverently prayed, “Mighty tree, we need your wood to build a house. Please let us borrow your strength. See, I plant at your roots a rich ulua for you to eat, and when you are finished, may we come and use your wood?”
If they did not find food, they did come upon something almost as good: a cave well up from the reach of the sea, and dry. At its entrance Tupuna buried his last ulua and prayed: “Gods of this cave, please take away any dark things you have left hiding here. Allow me to sprinkle holy water that this place may be sanctified.” Then he entered and called back: “This will be our home.”
At this point there came a shout of laughter from the shore, where the pigs had been turned loose, and it was obvious that the old boar still had sea legs, for he would take a few steps, wait for the canoe to surge beneath him, adjust his legs to meet it, and then fall snout-first into the sand. Looking dazed, he would grunt loudly and adjust his wobbly legs for the next roll, only to fall on his face again. The watchers roared with glee and forgot the haunting uncertainties that perplexed them, for the infuriated hog brought them the therapy of laughter, so that when Tupuna cried, “Move everything to the cave!” they responded willingly, and in labor ignored the danger, threatening all of them, that in their new home there might be no food.
But when they got to the cave with their burdens, two farmers reported: “There are many birds on this island, good ones,” and as if to prove this claim, overhead flew a line of terns, which ate clean fresh fish, so that when baked they tasted like delicious chicken and bonito, mixed. Tamatoa, looking at the terns, said, “Tane would never have brought us here if there were no food. It may not be the food we have known, but it’s here. Our job is to find it.”
Now, with the temple established and the gods at home, with the great canoe properly beached, and all treasures stowed in the cave, the hungry men who had completed this long voyage began to look at their women, and one by one the emaciated but handsome girls of the long black hair were led into the bushes and cherished, and strange multiple marriages were begun, and new life was launched on the island.
But of the women, the fairest could not find her man, for Teroro was brooding by the sea, reflecting on the sacrifice of the slave and its dark portent for the new homeland, so Tehani left the cave and walked down to the sea, crying in vain, “Teroro, Teroro!” until Mato, who so far had no woman of his own and who had sat close to Tehani all the way north, thus seeing her in many lights and appreciating her quality, heard her and ran through the woods until he could, as if by accident, encounter her along the shore. “Can’t you find Teroro?” he asked casually.
“No.”
“Perhaps he has important business,” Mato suggested.
“Where?” Tehani asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe …” He took Tehani’s hand and tried to lead her back into the trees through which he had just run, but she pulled away.
“No!” she insisted. “I am a chief’s daughter and a chief’s wife.”
“Are you Teroro’s wife?” Mato chided.
“What do you mean?” she demanded, her long hair flashing across her delicate breasts as she turned her head sharply.
“I sat very near you on the trip, Tehani,” Mato explained. “It didn’t look to me as if Teroro thought of you as his wife.”
“I was tabu,” she explained.
“But thinking of you wasn’t tabu,” Mato said. “Teroro never thought of you, Tehani. I did.”
He took her hand again, and this time she held on to the rugged young chief, because she knew that wh
at he said was true. “I am very alone,” she confessed.
“Do you know what I think, Tehani? I think you will never be Teroro’s wife. I think he is hungry for his old wife Marama.”
Since Tehani shared this suspicion, she experienced a moment of recognition and felt strongly drawn toward Mato and allowed him to pull her into the dark glade away from the shore, and to slip her leafy skirt from her, until in her nakedness she looked at him and realized how desperately she wanted this young man who did not reject her; and he, looking for the first time at her exquisite beauty, diminished though it had been by the voyage, felt a pang of sorrow that such a girl should have been given to a man who did not want her. Gathering her in his arms he whispered, “You are my woman, Tehani.”
But when she actually felt his body against hers, and when she heard his words, she grew afraid, for she knew that she was not his woman, and she broke away and ran back to the beach, adjusting her skirt as she went. Before Mato could overtake her she saw Teroro and ran up to him, crying nervously, “You must make peace with your brother.”
And she led her husband back along the ocean front, past where Mato stood bitterly watching her, and onto the plateau where King Tamatoa surveyed the rude temple. At first neither man spoke, but Teroro, looking over his brother’s shoulder, could see the ominous stones resting on fresh earth. He was dismayed but said grudgingly, “This is an appropriate temple, brother. Later we will build a better.” The king nodded, and it was then that Tehani of the long tresses and the flashing eyes led her bewildered husband into the darkness, knowing in her heart that it was another who should have accompanied her.