THE thought of death, I have said, is uppermost in the mind of the Marquesan. It would be strange if it were otherwise. The race is perhaps the handsomest extant. Six feet is about the middle height of males; they are strongly muscled, free from fat, swift in action, graceful1 in repose2; and the women, though fatter and duller, are still comely3 animals. To judge by the eye, there is no race more viable4; and yet death reaps them with both hands. When Bishop5 Dordillon first came to Tai-o-hae, he reckoned the inhabitants at many thousands; he was but newly dead, and in the same bay Stanislao Moanatini counted on his fingers eight residual6 natives. Or take the valley of Hapaa, known to readers of Herman Melville under the grotesque7 misspelling of Hapar. There are but two writers who have touched the South Seas with any genius, both Americans: Melville and Charles Warren Stoddard; and at the christening of the first and greatest, some influential8 fairy must have been neglected: ‘He shall be able to see,’ ‘He shall be able to tell,’ ‘He shall be able to charm,’ said the friendly godmothers; ‘But he shall not be able to hear,’ exclaimed the last. The tribe of Hapaa is said to have numbered some four hundred, when the small-pox came and reduced them by one-fourth. Six months later a woman developed tubercular consumption; the disease spread like a fire about the valley, and in less than a year two survivors9, a man and a woman, fled from that new-created solitude10. A similar Adam and Eve may some day wither11 among new races, the tragic12 residue13 of Britain. When I first heard this story the date staggered me; but I am now inclined to think it possible. Early in the year of my visit, for example, or late the year before, a first case of phthisis appeared in a household of seventeen persons, and by the month of August, when the tale was told me, one soul survived, and that was a boy who had been absent at his schooling14. And depopulation works both ways, the doors of death being set wide open, and the door of birth almost closed. Thus, in the half-year ending July 1888 there were twelve deaths and but one birth in the district of the Hatiheu. Seven or eight more deaths were to be looked for in the ordinary course; and M. Aussel, the observant gendarme15, knew of but one likely birth. At this rate it is no matter of surprise if the population in that part should have declined in forty years from six thousand to less than four hundred; which are, once more on the authority of M. Aussel, the estimated figures. And the rate of decline must have even accelerated towards the end.
A good way to appreciate the depopulation is to go by land from Anaho to Hatiheu on the adjacent bay. The road is good travelling, but cruelly steep. We seemed scarce to have passed the deserted16 house which stands highest in Anaho before we were looking dizzily down upon its roof; the CASCO well out in the bay, and rolling for a wager17, shrank visibly; and presently through the gap of Tari’s isthmus18, Ua-huna was seen to hang cloudlike on the horizon. Over the summit, where the wind blew really chill, and whistled in the reed-like grass, and tossed the grassy19 fell of the pandanus, we stepped suddenly, as through a door, into the next vale and bay of Hatiheu. A bowl of mountains encloses it upon three sides. On the fourth this rampart has been bombarded into ruins, runs down to seaward in imminent20 and shattered crags, and presents the one practicable breach21 of the blue bay. The interior of this vessel22 is crowded with lovely and valuable trees, — orange, breadfruit, mummy-apple, cocoa, the island chestnut23, and for weeds, the pine and the banana. Four perennial24 streams water and keep it green; and along the dell, first of one, then of another, of these, the road, for a considerable distance, descends25 into this fortunate valley. The song of the waters and the familiar disarray26 of boulders27 gave us a strong sense of home, which the exotic foliage28, the daft-like growth of the pandanus, the buttressed29 trunk of the banyan30, the black pigs galloping31 in the bush, and the architecture of the native houses dissipated ere it could be enjoyed.
The houses on the Hatiheu side begin high up; higher yet, the more melancholy32 spectacle of empty paepaes. When a native habitation is deserted, the superstructure — pandanus thatch33, wattle, unstable34 tropical timber — speedily rots, and is speedily scattered35 by the wind. Only the stones of the terrace endure; nor can any ruin, cairn, or standing36 stone, or vitrified fort present a more stern appearance of antiquity37. We must have passed from six to eight of these now houseless platforms. On the main road of the island, where it crosses the valley of Taipi, Mr. Osbourne tells me they are to be reckoned by the dozen; and as the roads have been made long posterior to their erection, perhaps to their desertion, and must simply be regarded as lines drawn38 at random39 through the bush, the forest on either hand must be equally filled with these survivals: the gravestones of whole families. Such ruins are tapu in the strictest sense; no native must approach them; they have become outposts of the kingdom of the grave. It might appear a natural and pious40 custom in the hundreds who are left, the rearguard of perished thousands, that their feet should leave untrod these hearthstones of their fathers. I believe, in fact, the custom rests on different and more grim conceptions. But the house, the grave, and even the body of the dead, have been always particularly honoured by Marquesans. Until recently the corpse42 was sometimes kept in the family and daily oiled and sunned, until, by gradual and revolting stages, it dried into a kind of mummy. Offerings are still laid upon the grave. In Traitor’s Bay, Mr. Osbourne saw a man buy a looking-glass to lay upon his son’s. And the sentiment against the desecration43 of tombs, thoughtlessly ruffled44 in the laying down of the new roads, is a chief ingredient in the native hatred45 for the French.
The Marquesan beholds46 with dismay the approaching extinction47 of his race. The thought of death sits down with him to meat, and rises with him from his bed; he lives and breathes under a shadow of mortality awful to support; and he is so inured48 to the apprehension49 that he greets the reality with relief. He does not even seek to support a disappointment; at an affront50, at a breach of one of his fleeting51 and communistic love-affairs, he seeks an instant refuge in the grave. Hanging is now the fashion. I heard of three who had hanged themselves in the west end of Hiva-oa during the first half of 1888; but though this be a common form of suicide in other parts of the South Seas, I cannot think it will continue popular in the Marquesas. Far more suitable to Marquesan sentiment is the old form of poisoning with the fruit of the eva, which offers to the native suicide a cruel but deliberate death, and gives time for those decencies of the last hour, to which he attaches such remarkable52 importance. The coffin53 can thus be at hand, the pigs killed, the cry of the mourners sounding already through the house; and then it is, and not before, that the Marquesan is conscious of achievement, his life all rounded in, his robes (like Caesar’s) adjusted for the final act. Praise not any man till he is dead, said the ancients; envy not any man till you hear the mourners, might be the Marquesan parody54. The coffin, though of late introduction, strangely engages their attention. It is to the mature Marquesan what a watch is to the European schoolboy. For ten years Queen Vaekehu had dunned the fathers; at last, but the other day, they let her have her will, gave her her coffin, and the woman’s soul is at rest. I was told a droll55 instance of the force of this preoccupation. The Polynesians are subject to a disease seemingly rather of the will than of the body. I was told the Tahitians have a word for it, ERIMATUA, but cannot find it in my dictionary. A gendarme, M. Nouveau, has seen men beginning to succumb56 to this insubstantial malady57, has routed them from their houses, turned them on to do their trick upon the roads, and in two days has seen them cured. But this other remedy is more original: a Marquesan, dying of this discouragement — perhaps I should rather say this acquiescence58 — has been known, at the fulfilment of his crowning wish, on the mere59 sight of that desired hermitage, his coffin — to revive, recover, shake off the hand of death, and be restored for years to his occupations — carving60 tikis (idols), let us say, or braiding old men’s beards. From all this it may be conceived how easily they meet death when it approaches naturally. I heard one example, grim and picturesque61. In the time of the small-pox in Hapaa, an old man was seized with the disease; he had no thought of recovery; had his grave dug by a wayside, and lived in it for near a fortnight, eating, drinking, and smoking with the passers-by, talking mostly of his end, and equally unconcerned for himself and careless of the friends whom he infected.
This proneness62 to suicide, and loose seat in life, is not peculiar63 to the Marquesan. What is peculiar is the widespread depression and acceptance of the national end. Pleasures are neglected, the dance languishes64, the songs are forgotten. It is true that some, and perhaps too many, of them are proscribed65; but many remain, if there were spirit to support or to revive them. At the last feast of the Bastille, Stanislao Moanatini shed tears when he beheld66 the inanimate performance of the dancers. When the people sang for us in Anaho, they must apologise for the smallness of their repertory. They were only young folk present, they said, and it was only the old that knew the songs. The whole body of Marquesan poetry and music was being suffered to die out with a single dispirited generation. The full import is apparent only to one acquainted with other Polynesian races; who knows how the Samoan coins a fresh song for every trifling67 incident, or who has heard (on Penrhyn, for instance) a band of little stripling maids from eight to twelve keep up their minstrelsy for hours upon a stretch, one song following another without pause. In like manner, the Marquesan, never industrious68, begins now to cease altogether from production. The exports of the group decline out of all proportion even with the death-rate of the islanders. ‘The coral waxes, the palm grows, and man departs,’ says the Marquesan; and he folds his hands. And surely this is nature. Fond as it may appear, we labour and refrain, not for the rewards of any single life, but with a timid eye upon the lives and memories of our successors; and where no one is to succeed, of his own family, or his own tongue, I doubt whether Rothschilds would make money or Cato practise virtue69. It is natural, also, that a temporary stimulus70 should sometimes rouse the Marquesan from his lethargy. Over all the landward shore of Anaho cotton runs like a wild weed; man or woman, whoever comes to pick it, may earn a dollar in the day; yet when we arrived, the trader’s store-house was entirely71 empty; and before we left it was near full. So long as the circus was there, so long as the CASCO was yet anchored in the bay, it behoved every one to make his visit; and to this end every woman must have a new dress, and every man a shirt and trousers. Never before, in Mr. Regler’s experience, had they displayed so much activity.
In their despondency there is an element of dread72. The fear of ghosts and of the dark is very deeply written in the mind of the Polynesian; not least of the Marquesan. Poor Taipi, the chief of Anaho, was condemned73 to ride to Hatiheu on a moonless night. He borrowed a lantern, sat a long while nerving himself for the adventure, and when he at last departed, wrung74 the CASCOS by the hand as for a final separation. Certain presences, called Vehinehae, frequent and make terrible the nocturnal roadside; I was told by one they were like so much mist, and as the traveller walked into them dispersed75 and dissipated; another described them as being shaped like men and having eyes like cats; from none could I obtain the smallest clearness as to what they did, or wherefore they were dreaded76. We may be sure at least they represent the dead; for the dead, in the minds of the islanders, are all — pervasive77. ‘When a native says that he is a man,’ writes Dr. Codrington, ‘he means that he is a man and not a ghost; not that he is a man and not a beast. The intelligent agents of this world are to his mind the men who are alive, and the ghosts the men who are dead.’ Dr. Codrington speaks of Melanesia; from what I have learned his words are equally true of the Polynesian. And yet more. Among cannibal Polynesians a dreadful suspicion rests generally on the dead; and the Marquesans, the greatest cannibals of all, are scarce likely to be free from similar beliefs. I hazard the guess that the Vehinehae are the hungry spirits of the dead, continuing their life’s business of the cannibal ambuscade, and lying everywhere unseen, and eager to devour78 the living. Another superstition79 I picked up through the troubled medium of Tari Coffin’s English. The dead, he told me, came and danced by night around the paepae of their former family; the family were thereupon overcome by some emotion (but whether of pious sorrow or of fear I could not gather), and must ‘make a feast,’ of which fish, pig, and popoi were indispensable ingredients. So far this is clear enough. But here Tari went on to instance the new house of Toma and the house-warming feast which was just then in preparation as instances in point. Dare we indeed string them together, and add the case of the deserted ruin, as though the dead continually besieged80 the paepaes of the living: were kept at arm’s-length, even from the first foundation, only by propitiatory81 feasts, and, so soon as the fire of life went out upon the hearth41, swarmed82 back into possession of their ancient seat?
I speak by guess of these Marquesan superstitions83. On the cannibal ghost I shall return elsewhere with certainty. And it is enough, for the present purpose, to remark that the men of the Marquesas, from whatever reason, fear and shrink from the presence of ghosts. Conceive how this must tell upon the nerves in islands where the number of the dead already so far exceeds that of the living, and the dead multiply and the living dwindle84 at so swift a rate. Conceive how the remnant huddles85 about the embers of the fire of life; even as old Red Indians, deserted on the march and in the snow, the kindly86 tribe all gone, the last flame expiring, and the night around populous87 with wolves.
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graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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repose
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| v.(使)休息；n.安息 | |
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comely
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| adj.漂亮的，合宜的 | |
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viable
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| adj.可行的，切实可行的，能活下去的 | |
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bishop
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| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
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residual
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| adj.复播复映追加时间；存留下来的，剩余的 | |
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grotesque
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| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
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influential
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| adj.有影响的，有权势的 | |
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survivors
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| 幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 ) | |
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solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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wither
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| vt.使凋谢，使衰退，(用眼神气势等)使畏缩；vi.枯萎，衰退，消亡 | |
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tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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residue
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| n.残余，剩余，残渣 | |
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schooling
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| n.教育；正规学校教育 | |
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gendarme
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| n.宪兵 | |
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deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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wager
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| n.赌注；vt.押注，打赌 | |
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isthmus
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| n.地峡 | |
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grassy
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| adj.盖满草的；长满草的 | |
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imminent
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| adj.即将发生的，临近的，逼近的 | |
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breach
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| n.违反，不履行；破裂；vt.冲破，攻破 | |
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vessel
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| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
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chestnut
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| n.栗树，栗子 | |
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perennial
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| adj.终年的；长久的 | |
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descends
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| v.下来( descend的第三人称单数 )；下去；下降；下斜 | |
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disarray
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| n.混乱，紊乱，凌乱 | |
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boulders
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| n.卵石( boulder的名词复数 )；巨砾；（受水或天气侵蚀而成的）巨石；漂砾 | |
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foliage
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| n.叶子，树叶，簇叶 | |
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buttressed
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| v.用扶壁支撑，加固( buttress的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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banyan
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| n.菩提树，榕树 | |
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galloping
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| adj. 飞驰的, 急性的 动词gallop的现在分词形式 | |
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melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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thatch
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| vt.用茅草覆盖…的顶部；n.茅草(屋) | |
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unstable
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| adj.不稳定的，易变的 | |
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scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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antiquity
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| n.古老；高龄；古物，古迹 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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random
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| adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动 | |
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pious
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| adj.虔诚的；道貌岸然的 | |
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hearth
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| n.壁炉炉床，壁炉地面 | |
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corpse
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| n.尸体，死尸 | |
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desecration
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| n. 亵渎神圣, 污辱 | |
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ruffled
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| adj. 有褶饰边的, 起皱的 动词ruffle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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beholds
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| v.看，注视( behold的第三人称单数 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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extinction
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| n.熄灭，消亡，消灭，灭绝，绝种 | |
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inured
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| adj.坚强的，习惯的 | |
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apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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affront
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| n./v.侮辱，触怒 | |
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fleeting
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| adj.短暂的，飞逝的 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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coffin
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| n.棺材，灵柩 | |
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parody
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| n.打油诗文，诙谐的改编诗文，拙劣的模仿；v.拙劣模仿，作模仿诗文 | |
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droll
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| adj.古怪的，好笑的 | |
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succumb
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| v.屈服，屈从；死 | |
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malady
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| n.病，疾病(通常做比喻) | |
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acquiescence
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| n.默许；顺从 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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carving
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| n.雕刻品，雕花 | |
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picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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proneness
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| n.俯伏，倾向 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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languishes
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| 长期受苦( languish的第三人称单数 )； 受折磨； 变得（越来越）衰弱； 因渴望而变得憔悴或闷闷不乐 | |
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proscribed
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| v.正式宣布（某事物）有危险或被禁止( proscribe的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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beheld
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| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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trifling
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| adj.微不足道的；没什么价值的 | |
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industrious
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| adj.勤劳的，刻苦的，奋发的 | |
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virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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stimulus
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| n.刺激，刺激物，促进因素，引起兴奋的事物 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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wrung
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| 绞( wring的过去式和过去分词 )； 握紧（尤指别人的手）； 把（湿衣服）拧干； 绞掉（水） | |
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75
dispersed
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| adj. 被驱散的, 被分散的, 散布的 | |
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dreaded
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| adj.令人畏惧的；害怕的v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的过去式和过去分词) | |
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pervasive
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| adj.普遍的；遍布的，(到处)弥漫的；渗透性的 | |
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devour
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| v.吞没；贪婪地注视或谛听，贪读；使着迷 | |
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superstition
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| n.迷信，迷信行为 | |
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80
besieged
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| 包围，围困，围攻( besiege的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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propitiatory
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| adj.劝解的；抚慰的；谋求好感的；哄人息怒的 | |
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82
swarmed
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| 密集( swarm的过去式和过去分词 )； 云集； 成群地移动； 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去 | |
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83
superstitions
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| 迷信，迷信行为( superstition的名词复数 ) | |
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84
dwindle
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| v.逐渐变小（或减少） | |
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85
huddles
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| （尤指杂乱地）挤在一起的人（或物品、建筑）( huddle的名词复数 )； （美式足球）队员靠拢（磋商战术） | |
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86
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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populous
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| adj.人口稠密的，人口众多的 | |
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