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YALE UNIVERSITY
ART LIBRARY

PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST BY HIMSELF

NOA NOA

BY
PAUL GAUGUIN

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH
BT
O. F. THEIS

WITH TEN ILLUSTRATIONS

NICHOLAS L. BROWN
NEW YORK MCMXX

First Printing December, 1919
Second Printing January 1920
Third Printing February 1920

Copyright, 1919
by
NICHOLAS L. BROWN

All Rights Reserved

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NOA NOA

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NOA NOA
"Dites, qu'avez-vous vuf
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE.
ON the eighth of June, during the night,
after a sixty -three days' voyage,
sixty-three days of feverish expectancy, we
perceived strange fires, moving in zigzags on
the sea. From the somber sky a black cone
with jagged indentions became disengaged.
We turned Morea and had Tahiti before
us. Several hours later dawn appeared, and
we gently approached the reefs, entered the
channel, and anchored without accidents in
the roadstead.
The first view of this part of the island
discloses nothing very extraordinary; noth
ing, for instance, that could be compared
with the magnificent bay of Rio de Janeiro.
It is the summit of a mountain submerged
5

6 NOA NOA
at the time of one of the ancient deluges.
Only the very point rose above the waters.
A family fled thither and founded a new race
— and then the corals climbed up along it,
surrounding the peak, and in the course of
centuries builded a new land. It is still ex
tending, but retains its original character of
solitude and isolation, which is only accentu
ated by the immense expanse of the ocean.
Toward ten o'clock I made my formal call
on the governor, the negro Lacascade, who
received me as though I had been an im
portant personage.
I owed this distinction to the mission with
which the French government — I do not
know why — had entrusted me. It was an
artistic mission, it is true. But in the view
of the negro, however, this word was only
an official synonym for espionage, and I
tried in vain to undeceive him. Every one
about him shared this belief, and when I said
that I was receiving no pay for my mission
no one would believe me.

NOA NOA 7
Life at Papeete soon became a burden.
It was Europe — the Europe which I had
thought to shake off— and that under the
aggravating circumstances of colonial snob-
bism, and the imitation, grotesque even to the
point of caricature, of our customs, fashions,
vices, and absurdities of civilization.
Was I to have made this far journey,
only to find the very thing which I had
fled? Nevertheless, there was a public event
which interested me.
At the time King Pomare was mortally
ill, and the end was daily expected.
Little by little the city had assumed a
singular aspect.
All the Europeans, merchants, function
aries, officers, and soldiers, laughed and sang
on the streets as usual, while the natives
with grave mien and lowered voice held con
verse among themselves in the neighborhood
of the palace. In the roadstead there was
an abnormal movement of orange sails on

8 NOA NOA
the blue sea, and often the line of reefs shone
in a sudden silvery gleam under the sun.
The natives of neighboring islands were
hastening hither to attend at the last mo
ments of their king, and at the definite tak
ing possession of their empire by France.
By signs from above they had had report
of this, for whenever a king was about to die
the mountains in certain places became cov
ered with dark spots at the setting of the
sun. The king died, and lay in state in the pal
ace in the uniform of an admiral.
There I saw the queen, Maraii — such was
her name — decorating the royal hall with
flowers and materials. When the director
of public works asked my advice about the
artistic arrangements of the funeral, I
pointed out the queen to him. With the
beautiful instinct of her race she dispersed
grace everywhere about her, and made
everything she touched a work of art.

NOA NOA 9
I understood her only imperfectly at this
first meeting. Both the human beings and
the objects were so different from those I
had desired, that I was disappointed. I
was disgusted by all this European triviality.
I had disembarked too recently yet to dis
tinguish how much of nationality, fundamen
tal realness, and primitive beauty still re
mained in this conquered race beneath the
artificial and meretricious veneer of our im
portations. I was still in a manner blind.
I saw in this queen, already somewhat ma
ture in years, only a commonplace stout
woman with traces of noble beauty. When
I saw her again later, I revised my first
judgment. I fell under the spell of her
"Maori charm." Notwithstanding all the
intermixture, the Tahitian type was still very
pure in her. And then the memory of her
ancestor, the great chief Tati, gave her as
well as her brother and all her family an ap
pearance of truly imposing grandeur. She

10 NOA NOA
had the majestic sculptural form of her race,
ample and at the same time gracious. The
arms were like the two columns of a temple,
simple, straight; and the whole bodily form
with the long horizontal line of the shoulder,
and the vast height terminating above in a
point, inevitably made me think of the Tri
angle of the Trinity. In her eyes there
sometimes burned something like a vague
presentiment of passions which flared up
suddenly and set aflame all the life round
about. Perhaps, it is thus that the island it
self once rose from the ocean, and that the
plants upon it burst into flower under the
first ray of the sun. . . .
All the Tahitians dressed in black, and
for two days they sang dirges of grief and
laments for the dead. It seemed to me that
I was listening to the Sonata Pathetique.
Then came the day of the funeral.
At ten in the morning they left the palace.
The troops and the authorities were in white
helmet and black dress-coat, the natives in

NOA NOA 11
their mourning costume. All the districts
marched in order, and the leader of each one
bore a French flag.
At Arue they halted. There an inde
scribable monument rises — a formless mass
of coral stones bound together by cement.
It forms a painful contrast with the nat
ural decorative beauty of vegetation and
atmosphere. Lacascade pronounced a discourse of con
ventional pattern, which an interpreter
translated for the benefit of the Frenchmen
present. Then the Protestant clergyman
delivered a sermon to which Tati, the brother
of the queen, responded. That was all.
They left; the functionaries crowded into
the carriages. It reminded one somewhat of
a "return from the races."
In the confusion on the way the indiffer
ence of the French set the key, and the peo
ple, since a number of days so grave, recov
ered their gayety. The vahinas again took
the arms of their tanes, chattered actively,

12 NOA NOA
and undulated their hips, the while their
strong bare feet stirred up heavily the dust
of the road.
Close to the river Fatii, there was a
general scattering. Concealed among the
stones the women crouched here and there
in the water with their skirts raised to waist,
cooling their haunches and legs tired from
the march and the heat. Thus cleansed with
the bosom erect and with the two shells cov
ering the breasts rising in points under the
muslin of the corsage, they again took up
the way to Papeete. They had the grace
and elasticity of healthy young animals. A
mingled perfume, half animal, half vege
table emanated from them; the perfume of
their blood and of the gardenias — tiare —
which all wore in their hair.
"Teine merahi noa noa (now very fra
grant) ," they said.

*
* *
. The princess entered my chamber

GIRL WITH FRUIT. DISH

NOA NOA 13
where I lay, half -ill on the bed, dressed only
in a pareo.1 What a dress in which to re
ceive a woman of rank!
"Ia or ana (I greet thee), Gauguin," she
said. "Thou art ill, I have come to look
after thee."
"And what is your name?"
"Vaitiia."Vaitiia was a real princess, if such still ex
ist in this country, where the Europeans have
reduced everything to their own level. In
fact, however, she had come as a simple ordi
nary mortal in a black dress, with bare feet,
and a fragrant flower behind the ear. She
was in mourning for King Pomare, whose
niece she was. Her father, Tamatoa, in
spite of the inevitable contacts with officers
and functionaries, in spite of the receptions
at the house of the admiral, had never de
sired to be anything other than a royal
Maori. He was a gigantic brawler in mo
ments of wrath, and on evenings of feasting a
iThe girdle of the natives, their only article of attire.

14 NOA NOA
famous carouser. He was dead. Vaitiia,
according to report, was very like him.
With the insolence of a European only
recently landed on the island in his white
helmet, I looked with a skeptical smile on the
lips at this fallen princess. But I wanted
to be polite.
"It is very kind of you to have come,
Vaitiia. Shall we drink an absinthe to
gether?" I pointed with the finger to a bottle, which
I had just bought, standing on the ground
in a corner of the room.
Showing neither displeasure nor eager
ness she went to the place indicated, and
bent down to pick up the bottle. In this
movement her slight, transparent dress
stretched taut over her loins — loins to bear
a world. Oh, surely, she was a princess!
Her ancestors? Giants proud and brave.
Her strong, proud, wild head was, firmly
planted on her wide shoulders. At first I
saw in her only the jaws of a cannibal, the

NOA NOA 15
teeth ready to rend, the lurking look of a
cruel and cunning animal, and found her,
in spite of her beautiful and noble forehead,
very ugly.
I hoped it wouldn't occur to her to sit
down on my bed ! So feeble a piece of furni
ture would never support both of us. . . .
It is exactly what she did.
The bed creaked, but it held out.
In drinking we exchanged a few words.
The conversation, however, did not want
to become animated. It finally lagged en
tirely, and silence reigned.
I observed the princess secretly, and she
looked at me out of a corner of the eye.
Time passed, and the bottle gradually emp
tied. Vaitiia was a brave drinker.
She rolls a Tahitian cigarette and stretches
out on the bed to smoke. Her feet with a
mechanical gesture continually caress the
wood of the foot-end. Her expression be
comes gentler, it visibly softens, her eyes
shine, and a regular hissing sound escapes

16 NOA NOA
from her hps. I imagine that I am listening
to a purring cat that is meditating on some
bloody sensuality.
As I am changeable, I find her now very
beautiful, and when she said to me with a
throbbing voice, "You are nice," a great
trouble fell upon me. Truly the princess
was delicious. . . .
Doubtless in order to please me, she began
to recite a fable, one of La Fontaine's, The
Cricket and the Ants — a memory of her
childhood days with the sisters who had
taught her.
The cigarette was entirely alight.
"Do you know, Gauguin," said the prin
cess in rising, "I do not like your La Fon
taine." "What? Our good La Fontaine?"
"Perhaps, he is good, but his morals are
ugly. The ants . . ." (and her mouth ex
pressed disgust). "Ah, the crickets, yes.
To sing, to sing, always to sing!"
And proudly without looking at me, the

NOA NOA 17
shining eyes fixed upon the far distance, she
added, "How beautiful our realm was when noth
ing was sold there ! All. the year through the
people sang. . . . To sing always, always to
give! . . .
And she left.
I put my head back on the pillow, and
for a long time I was caressed by the memory
of the syllables :
"Ia orana, Gauguin."
This episode which I associate in my
memory with the death of King Pomare
left deeper traces than that event itself and
the public ceremonies.
The inhabitants of Papeete, both native
and white, soon forgot the dead king.
Those who had come from the neighboring
islands to take part in the royal obsequies
left; again thousands of orange sails crossed
the blue sea, then everything returned to
the customary routine.

18 NOA NOA
It was only one king less.
With him disappeared the last vestiges
of ancient traditions. With him Maori
history closed. It was at an end. Civiliza
tion, alas! — soldiers, trade, officialdom —
triumphed. A profound sadness took possession of
me. The dream which had brought me to
Tahiti was brutally disappointed by the ac
tuality. It was the Tahiti of former times
which I loved. That of the present filled me
with horror.
In view of the persistent physical beauty
of the race, it seemed unbelievable that all
its ancient grandeur, its personal and nat
ural customs, its beliefs, and its legends had
disappeared. But how was I, all by myself,
to find the traces of this past if any such
traces remained? How was I to recognize
them without guidance ? How to relight the
fire the very ashes of which are scattered?
However depressed I may be I am not in
the habit of giving up a project without hav-

NOA NOA 19
ing tried everything, even the "impossible,"
to gain my end.
My resolve was quickly taken. I would
leave Papeete, and withdraw from this
European center.
I felt that in living intimately with the
natives in the wilderness I would by patience
gradually gain the confidence of the Maoris
and come to know them.
And one morning I set out in a carriage
which one of the officers had graciously put
at my disposal in search of "my hut."
My vahina, Titi by name, accompanied
me. She was of mixed English and Tahi
tian blood, and spoke some French. She
had put on her very best dress for the
journey. The tiare was behind the ear; her
hat of reeds was decorated above with rib
bon, straw flowers, and a garniture of
orange-colored shells, and her long black
hair fell loose over the shoulders. She was
proud to be in a carriage, proud to be so
elegant, proud to be the vahina oi a man

20 NOA NOA
whom she believed important and rich.
She was really handsome, and there was
nothing ridiculous in her pride, for the ma
jestic mien is becoming to this race. In
memory of its long feudal history and its
endless line of powerful chiefs it retains its
superb strain of pride. I knew very well
that her calculating love in the eyes of Pari
sians would not have had much more weight
than the venial complaisance of a harlot.
But the amorous passion of a Maori courte
san is something quite different from the
passivity of a Parisian cocotte — something
very different ! There is a fire in her blood,
which calls forth love as its essential nour
ishment; which exhales it like a fatal per
fume. These eyes and this mouth cannot
he. Whether calculating or not, it is al
ways love that speaks from them. . . .
The journey was soon accomplished — a
few bits of inconsequential conversation, a
rich, monotonous country. On the right
there was always the sea, the coral-reefs and

NOA NOA 21
the sheets of water which sometimes scat
tered in spray when they came into too
violent contact with the waves and the rocks.
To the left was the wilderness with its per
spective of great forests.
By noonday we had accomplished our
forty-five kilometers, and had arrived at the
district of Mataiea.
I made a search through the district and
succeeded in finding a suitable enough hut,
which the owner rented to me. He was
building a new one near by where he in
tended to dwell.
On the next evening when we returned to
Papeete, Titi asked me whether I wished
her to accompany me.
"Later, in a few days, when I have be
come settled," I said.
Titi had a terrible reputation at Papeete
of having successively brought a number of
lovers to their grave. But it was not this
which made me put her aside. It was her
half -white blood. In spite of traces of pro-

22 NOA NOA
foundly native and truly Maori characteris
tics, the many contacts had caused her to
lose many of her distinctive racial "differ
ences." I felt that she could not teach me
any of the things I wished to know, that
she had nothing to give of that special hap
piness which I sought.
I told myself, that in the country I would
find that which I was seeking; it would only
be necessary to choose. *
* *
On one side was the sea; on the other, the
mountain, a deeply fissured mountain; an
enormous cleft closed by a huge mango
leaning against the rocks.
Between the mountain and the sea stood
my hut, made of the wood of bourao tree.
Close to the hut in which I dwelled was an
other, the fare amu (hut for eating) .
It is morning.
On the sea close to the strand I see a

NOA NOA 23
pirogue, and in the pirogue a half-naked
woman. On the shore is a man, also un
dressed. Beside the man is a diseased co-
coanut-tree with shriveled leaves. It re
sembles a huge parrot with golden tails hang
ing down, and holding in his claws a huge
cluster of cocoanuts. With a harmonious
gesture the man raises a heavy ax in his
two hands. It leaves above a blue impres
sion against the silvery sky, and below a rosy
incision in the dead tree, where for an in
flammatory moment the ardor stored up day
by day throughout centuries will come to life
again. _Ori_th^jpjuirp_le soil long serpentine leaves
of a metallic yellow make me think of a
mysterious sacred writing of the ancient
Orient. They distinctly form the sacred
word of Oceanian origin, ATUA (God),
the Taata or Takata or Tathagata, who
ruled throughout all the Indies. And there
came to my mind like a mystic counsel, in
harmony with my beautiful solitude and my

24 NOA NOA
beautiful poverty the words of the sage:
In the eyes of Tathagata, the magnificence
and splendor of kings and their ministers are
no more than spittle and dust;
In his eyes purity and impurity are like
the dance of the six nagas;
In his eyes the seeking for the sight of
the Buddha is like unto flowers.
In the pirogue the woman was putting
some nets in order.
The blue line of the sea was frequently
broken by the green of the wave-crests fall
ing on the breakwater of coral.
It is evening.
I have gone to smoke a cigarette on the
sands at the edge of the sea.
The sun, rapidly sinking on the horizon,
is already half concealed behind the island
of Morea which lay to my right. The con
flict of light made the mountains stand out
sharply and strangely in black against the

NOA NOA 25
violet glow of the sky. They were like an
cient battlemented castles.
Is it any wonder that before this natural
architecture visions of feudal magnificence
pursue me? The summit, over there, has
the form of a gigantic helmet-crest. The
billows around it, which sound hke the noise
of an immense crowd, will never reach it.
Amid the splendor of the ruins the crest
stands alone, a protector or witness, a neigh
bor of the heavens. I felt a secret look
plunge from the head up there into waters
which had once engulfed the sinful race of
the living, and in the vast fissure which
might have been the mouth I felt the hover
ing of a smile of irony or pity over the
waters where the past sleeps. . . .
Night falls quickly. Morea sleeps.

*
* *

Silence! I am learning to know the
silence of a Tahitian night.

26 NOA NOA
In this silence I hear nothing except the
beating of my heart.
But the rays of the moon play through the
bamboo reeds, standing equidistant from
each other before my hut, and reach even to
my bed. And these regular intervals of
light suggest a musical instrument to me —
the reed-pipe of the ancients, which was
familiar to the Maori, and is called vivo by
them. The moon and the bamboo reeds
made it assume an exaggerated form — an
instrument that remained silent throughout
the day, but that at night by grace of the
moon calls forth in the memory of the
dreamer well-loved melodies. Under this
music I fell asleep.
Between me and the sky there was noth
ing except the high frail roof of pandanus
Reaves, where the lizards have their nests.
Y I am far, far away from the prisons that
! European houses are.
];'¦ A Maori hut does not separate man from
.-I:!
-¦:|i;|life, from space, from the infinite. . . .
ill

NOA NOA 27
In the meantime I felt myself very lonely
here. The inhabitants of the district and I mu
tually watched each other, and the distance
between us remained the same.
By the second day I had exhausted my
provisions. What to do? I had imagined
that with money I would be able to find all
that was necessary for life. I was deceived.
Once beyond the threshold of the city, we
must turn to Nature in order to live. She
is rich, she is generous, she refuses to no one
who will ask his share of her treasures of
which she has inexhaustible reserves in the
trees, in the mountains, in the sea. But one
must know how to climb the tall trees, how to
go into the mountains, in order to return
weighed down with heavy booty. One must
know how to catch fish, and how to dive
to tear loose the shellfish so firmly attached
to stones at the bottom of the sea. — One
must know how, one must be able to do
things.

28 NOA NOA
Here was I, a civilized man, distinctly in
ferior in these things to the savages. I en
vied them. I looked at their happy, peace
ful life round about me, making no further
effort than was essential for their daily needs,
without the least care about money. To
whom were they to sell, when the gifts of
Nature were within the reach of every one?
There I was sitting with empty stomach
on the threshold of my hut, sadly consider
ing my state, and thinking of the unfore
seen, perhaps insurmountable, obstacles
which Nature has created for her protection
and placed between herself and him who
comes from a civilized world, when I saw a
native gesticulating and calling out some
thing to me. The expressive gestures inter
preted the words, and I understood that my
neighbor was inviting me to dinner. With
a shake of the head I declined. Then I re
entered my hut, ashamed, I believe equally
because charity had been offered me, and
because I had refused it.

TAHITIAN GIRL RECLINING

NOA NOA 29
A few minutes later a little girl without
saying anything left some cooked vegetables
in front of my door, and also fruit wrapped
neatly in green freshly picked leaves. I was
hungry, and likewise without a word I ac
cepted the gift.
A little later, the man passed in front of
my hut, and, smiling, but without stopping,
said in a questioning tone,
"Paiar
I divined, "Are you contented?"
This was the beginning of a reciprocal un
derstanding between the savages and my
self. "Savages!" This word came involuntar
ily to my hps when I looked at these black
beings with their cannibal-like teeth. How
ever, I already had a glimpse of their genu
ine, their strange grace ... I remembered
the little brown head with the placid eyes
cast to the ground, which from under the
clusters of large giromon leaves watched
me one morning without my knowing it,

30 NOA NOA
and fled when my glance met hers. . . .
As they were to me, so was I to them, an
object for observation, a cause of astonish
ment — one to whom everything was new,
one who was ignorant of everything. For
I knew neither their language, nor their cus
toms, not even the simplest, most necessary
manipulations. As each one of them was a
savage to me, so was I a savage to each one
of them.
And which of us two was wrong?
I tried to work, making all kinds of notes
and sketches.
But the landscape with its violent, pure
colors dazzled and blinded me. I was al
ways uncertain ; I was seeking, seeking. . . .
In the meantime, it was so simple to paint
things as I saw them; to put without spe
cial calculation a red close to a blue. Golden
figures in the brooks and on the seashore en
chanted me. Why did I hesitate to put all
this glory of the sun on my canvas?
Oh! the old European traditions! The

NOA NOA 31
timidities of expression of degenerate races!
In order to familiarize myself with the
distinctive characteristics of the Tahitian
face, I had wished for a long time to make
a portrait of one of my neighbors, a young
woman of pure Tahitian extraction.
One day she finally became emboldened
enough to enter my hut, and to look at photo
graphs of paintings which I had hung on one
of the walls of my room. She regarded the
Olympia for a long time and with special
interest. "What do you think of her?" I asked. I
had learned a few Tahitian words during the
two months since I had last spoken French.
My neighbor replied, "She is very beauti
ful!" I smiled at this remark, and was touched
by it. Had she then a sense of the beautiful?
But what reply would the professors of
the Academy of Fine Arts have made to this
remark? Then suddenly after a perceptible silence

32 NOA NOA
such as precedes the thinking out of a con
clusion, she added,
"Is it your wife?"
"Yes."
I did not hesitate at this he. I — the tane
of the beautiful Olympia!
While she was curiously examining certain
religious compositions of the Italian primi
tives, I hastened, without her noticing it, to
sketch her portrait.
She saw it, and with a pout cried out ab
ruptly, "Aita (no) !" and fled.
An hour later she returned, dressed in
a beautiful robe with the tiare behind the
ear. Was it coquetry? Was it the pleas
ure of consenting of her own free will after
having refused? Or was it simply the uni
versal attraction of the forbidden fruit which
one denies one's self? Or more probably
still, was it merely a caprice without any
other motive, a pure caprice of the kind to
which the Maoris are so given?
Without delay I began work, without hesi-

NOA NOA 33
tation and all of a fever. I was aware that
on my skill as painter would depend the
physical and moral possession of the model,
that it would be like an implied, urgent, ir
resistible invitation.
She was not at all handsome according to
our aesthetic rules.
She was beautiful.
All her traits combined in a Raphaelesque
harmony by the meeting of curves. Her
mouth had been modeled by a sculptor who
knew how to put into a single mobile line a
mingling of all joy and all suffering.
I worked in haste and passionately, for I
knew that the consent had not yet been defi
nitely gained. I trembled to read certain
things in these large eyes — fear and the de
sire for the unknown, the melancholy of bit
ter experience which lies at the root of all
pleasure, the involuntary and sovereign feel
ing of being mistress of herself. Such crea
tures seem to submit to us when they give
themselves to us ; yet it is only to themselves

34 NOA NOA
that they submit. In them resides a force
which has in it something superhuman — or
perhaps something divinely animal.
* *
Now, I work more freely, better.
But my solitude still disturbs me.
Indeed, I saw in the district young women
and young girls, tranquil of eye, pure Tahi-
tians, some of whom would perhaps gladly
have shared my life. — However, I did not
dare approach them. They actually made
me timid with their sure look, their dignity of
bearing, and their pride of gait.
All, indeed, wish to be "taken," literally,
brutally taken (Maii, to seize), without a
single word. All have the secret desire for
violence, because this act of authority on
the part of the male leaves to the woman-
will its full share of irresponsibility. For
in this way she has not given her consent for
the beginning of a permanent love. It is
possible that there is a deeper meaning in this

NOA NOA 35
violence which at first sight seems so revolt
ing. It is possible also that it has a savage
sort of charm. I pondered the matter, in
deed, but I did not dare.
Then, too, some were said to be ill, ill with
that malady which Europeans confer upon
savages, doubtless as the first degree of their
initiation into civilized life. . . .
And when the older among them said to
me, pointing to one of them, "Mail tera
(take that one) ," I had neither the necessary
audacity nor confidence.
I let Titi know that I would be pleased
to take her again.
She came at once.
The experiment succeeded badly. By the
boredom which I felt in the company of this
woman so used to the banal luxury of offi
cials, I was able to measure the real progress
which had already been made toward the
beautiful life of the savages.
After a few weeks Titi and I separated
forever.

36 NOA NOA
Again I was alone.

My neighbors have become my friends. I
dress like them, and partake of the same food
as they. When I am not working, I share
their life of indolence and joy, across which
sometimes pass sudden moments of gravity.
In the evening they unite in groups at the
foot of the tufted bushes which overtop the
disheveled heads of the cocoanut-trees, or
men and women, old men and children inter
mingle. Some are from Tahiti, others from
the Tongas, and still others from the
Marquesas. The dull tones of their bodies
form a lovely harmony with the velvet of the
foliage. From their coppery breasts trem
bling melodies arise, and are faintly thrown
back from the wrinkled trunks of the cocoa-
nut-trees. They are the Tahitian songs, the

imenes.

A woman begins. Her voice rises like the
flight of a bird, and from the first note

NOA NOA 37
reaches even to the highest of the scale ; then
by strong modulations it lowers again and
remounts and finally soars, the while the
voices of the other women about her, so to
speak, take flight in their turn, and faithfully
follow and accompany her. Finally all the
men in a single guttural and barbarous cry
close the song in a tonic chord.
Sometimes in order to sing or converse
they assemble in a sort of communal hut.
They always begin with a prayer. An old
man first recites it conscientiously, and then
all those present take it up hke a refrain.
Then they sing, or tell humorous stories.
The theme of these recitals is very tenuous,
almost unseizable. It is the details, broid
ered into the woof and made subtle by their
very naivete, which amuse them.
More rarely, they discourse on serious
questions or put forth wise proposals.
One evening I heard, not without surprise,
the following :
"In our village," an old man said, "we see

38 NOA NOA
here and there houses which have fallen to
ruin and shattered walls and rotting, half-
open roofs through which the water pene
trates when by chance it rains. Why?
Every one in the world has the right to shel
ter. There is lacking neither of wood, nor
of leaves wherewith to build the roofs. I
propose that we work in common and build
spacious and solid huts in place of those
which have become uninhabitable. Let us
all give a hand to it in turn."
All those present without exception ap
plauded him. — He had said well !
And the motion of the old man was unani
mously adopted.
"This is a prudent and good people," I
said myself on my return home that eve
ning. But the next day when I went to obtain in
formation about the beginning of the work
determined upon the evening before, I per
ceived that no one was any longer giving it
a thought. The daily life had again taken

NOA NOA 39
its usual course, and the huts which the wise
counselor had designated remained in their
former ruined state.
To my questions they replied with evasive
smiles. Yet the contraction of the brows drew sig
nificant lines on these vast dreaming fore
heads. I withdrew with my thoughts full of con
fusion, and yet with the feeling that I had
received an important lesson from my sav
ages. Certainly they did right in applaud
ing the proposal of the old man; perhaps
they were equally justified in not carrying
out the adopted resolution.
Why work? The gods are there to lavish
upon the faithful the good gifts of nature.
"To-morrow?"
"Perhaps!"And whatever may happen the sun will
rise to-morrow as it rose to-day, beneficent
and serene.
Is it heedlessness, frivolity, or variable-

40 NOA NOA
ness ? Or is it — who knows — the very deep
est of philosophy? Beware of luxury!
Beware of acquiring the taste and need for
it, under the pretext of providing for the
morrow. . . .
Life each day became better.
I understand the Maori tongue well
enough by now, and it will not be long be
fore I speak it without difficulty.
My neighbors — three of them quite close
by, and many more at varying distances
from each other — look upon me as one of
them. Under the continual contact with the peb
bles my feet have become hardened and used
to the ground. My body, almost constantly
nude, no longer suffers from the sun.
Civilization is falhng from me little by
little. I am beginning to think simply, to feel
only very little hatred for my neighbor —
rather, to love him.
All the joys — animal and human — of a

NOA NOA 41
free life are mine. I have escaped every
thing that is artificial, conventional, custom
ary. I am entering into the truth, into na
ture. Having the certitude of a succession
of days like this present one, equally free
and beautiful, peace descends on me. I de
velop normally and no longer occupy myself
with useless vanities.
I have won a friend.
He came to me of his own accord, and I
feel sure here that in his coming to me there
was no element of self-interest.
He is one of my neighbors, a very simple
and handsome young fellow.
My colored pictures and carvings in wood
aroused his curiosity; my replies to his ques
tions have instructed him. Not a day passes
that he does not come to watch me paint or
carve. . . .
Even after this long time I still take pleas
ure in remembering the true and real emo
tions in this true and real nature.
In the evening when I rested from my

42 NOA NOA
day's work, we talked. In his character of
a wild young savage he asked many questions
about European matters, particularly about
the things of love, and more than once his
questions embarrassed me.
But his replies were even more naive than
his questions.
One day I put my tools in his hands and a
piece of wood ; I wanted him to try to carve.
Nonplussed, he looked at me at first in
silence, and then returned the wood and tools
to me, saying with entire simplicity and sin
cerity, that I was not like the others, that
I could do things which other men were in
capable of doing, and that I was useful to
others. I indeed believe Totefa is the first human
being in the world who used such words to
ward me. It was the language of a savage
or of a child, for one must be either one of
these — must one not? — to imagine that an
artist might be a useful human being.
It happened once that I had need of rose-

NOA NOA 43
wood for my carving. I wanted a large
strong trunk, and I consulted Totefa.
"We have to go into the mountains," he
told me. "I know a certain spot where there
are several beautiful trees. If you wish it
I will lead you. We can then fell the tree
which pleases you and together carry it
here." We set out early in the morning.
The footpaths in Tahiti are rather difficult
for a European, and "to go into the moun
tains" demands even of the natives a de
gree of effort which they do not care to
undertake unnecessarily.
Between two mountains, two high and
steep walls of basalt, which it is impossi
ble to ascend, there yawns a fissure in which
the water winds among rocks. These blocks
have been loosened from the flank of the
mountain by infiltrations in order to form
a passageway for a spring. The spring
grew into a brook, which has thrust at them
and jolted them, and then moved them a lit-

44 NOA NOA
tie further. Later the brook when it became
a torrent took them up, rolled them over and
over, and carried them even to the sea. On
each side of this brook, frequently inter
rupted by cascades, there is a sort of path.
It leads through a confusion of trees — bread
fruit, ironwood, pandanus, bouraos, cocoa-
nut, hibiscus, guava, giant-ferns. It is a
mad vegetation, growing always wilder, more
entangled, denser, until, as we ascend to
ward the center of the island, it has become
an almost impenetrable thicket.
Both of us went naked, the white and
blue pareo around the loins, hatchet in hand.
Countless times we crossed the brook for the
sake of a short-cut. My guide seemed to
follow the trail by smell rather than by sight,
for the ground was covered by a splendid
confusion of plants, leaves, and flowers which
wholly took possession of space.
The silence was absolute but for the plain
tive wailing of the water among the rocks.
It was a monotonous wail, a plaint so soft

Q
Ztuq
3

NOA NOA 45
and low that it seemed an accompaniment of
the silence.
And in this forest, this solitude, this silence
were we two — he, a very young man, and I,
almost an old man from whose soul many il
lusions had fallen and whose body was tired
from countless efforts, upon whom lay the
long and fatal heritage of the vices of a
morally and physically corrupt society.
With the suppleness of an animal and the
graceful litheness of an androgyne he walked
a few paces in advance of me. And it
seemed to me that I saw incarnated in him,
palpitating and living, all the magnificent
plant-life which surrounded us. From it
in him, through him there became disengaged
and emanated a powerful perfume of beauty.
Was it really a human being walking there
ahead of me? Was it the naive friend by
whose combined simplicity and complexity
I had been so attracted? Was it not rather
the Forest itself, the living Forest, without
sex — and yet alluring?

46 NOA NOA
Among peoples that go naked, as among
animals, the difference between the sexes is
less accentuated than in our climates.
Thanks to our cinctures and corsets we have
succeeded in making an artificial being out
of woman. She is an anomaly, and Nature
herself, obedient to the laws of heredity, aids
us in complicating and enervating her. We
carefully keep her in a state of nervous
weakness and muscular inferiority, and in
guarding her from fatigue, we take away
from her possibilities of development. Thus
modeled on a bizarre ideal of slenderness
to which, strangely enough, we continue to
adhere, our women have nothing in common
with us, and this, perhaps, may not be with
out grave moral and social disadvantages.
On Tahiti the breezes from forest and sea
strengthen the lungs, they broaden the shoul
ders and hips. Neither men nor women
are sheltered from the rays of the sun nor
the pebbles of the sea-shore. Together they

NOA NOA 47
engage in the same tasks with the same ac
tivity or the same indolence. There is some
thing virile in the women and something fem
inine in the men.
This similarity of the sexes make their
relations the easier. Their continual state
of nakedness has kept their minds free from
the dangerous pre-occupation with the
"mystery" and from the excessive stress
which among civilized people is laid upon
the "happy accident" and the clandestine and
sadistic colors of love. It has given their
manners a natural innocence, a perfect pu
rity. Man and woman are comrades,
friends rather than lovers, dwelling together
almost without cease, in pain as in pleasure,
and even the very idea of vice is unknown to
them. In spite of all this lessening in sexual dif
ferences, why was it that there suddenly rose
in the soul of a member of an old civilization,
a horrible thought? Why, in all this drunk-

48 NOA NOA
enness of lights and perfumes with its en
chantment of newness and unknown mys
tery? The fever throbbed in my temples and my
knees shook.
But we were at the end of the trail. In
order to cross the brook my companion
turned, and in this movement showed himself
full-face. The androgyne had disappeared.
It was an actual young man walking ahead
of me. His calm eyes had the limpid clear
ness of waters.
Peace forthwith fell upon me again.
We made a moment's halt. I felt an in
finite joy, a joy of the spirit rather than of
the senses, as I plunged into the fresh water
of the brook.
"Toe, toe (it is cold)," said Jotefa.
"Oh, no!" I replied.
This exclamation seemed to me also a fit
ting conclusion to the struggle which I had
just fought out within myself against the
corruption of an entire civihzation. It was

NOA NOA 49
the end in the battle of a soul that had chosen
between truth and untruth. It awakened
loud echoes in the forest. And I said to my
self that Nature had seen me struggle, had
heard me, and understood me, for now she
replied with her clear voice to my cry of vic
tory that she was willing after the ordeal
to receive me as one of her children.
We took up our way again. I plunged
eagerly and passionately into the wilder
ness, as if in the hope of thus penetrating into
the very heart of this Nature, powerful and
maternal, there to blend with her living ele
ments. With tranquil eyes and ever uniform pace
my companion went on. He was wholly
without suspicion; I alone was bearing the
burden of an evil conscience.
We arrived at our destination.
The steep sides of the mountain had by
degrees spread out, and behind a dense cur
tain of trees, there extended a sort of
plateau, well-concealed. Jotefa, however.

50 NOA NOA
knew the place, and with astonishing sure
ness led me thither.
A dozen rosewood trees extended their
vast branches.
We attacked the finest of these with the
ax. We had to sacrifice the entire tree to
obtain a branch suitable for my project.
I struck out with joy. My hands be
came stained with blood in my wild rage,
my intense joy of satiating within me, I
know not what divine brutality. It was not
the tree I was striking, it was not it which
I sought to overcome. And yet gladly
would I have heard the sound of my ax
against other trunks when this one was al
ready lying on the ground.
And here is what my ax seemed to say
to me in the cadence of its sounding blows :
Strike down to the root the forest entire!
Destroy all the forest of evil,
Whose seeds were once sowed within thee
by the breathings of death!

NOA NOA 51
Destroy in thee all love of the self!
Destroy and tear out all evil, as in the
autumn we cut with the hand the flower
of the lotus.
Yes, wholly destroyed, finished, dead, is
from now on the old civilization within me.
I was reborn; or rather another man, purer
and stronger, came to life within me.
This cruel assault was the supreme fare
well to civilization, to evil. This last evi
dence of the depraved instincts which sleep
at the bottom of all decadent souls, by very
contrast exalted the healthy simplicity of the
life at which I had already made a beginning
into a feeling of inexpressible happiness.
By the trial within my soul mastery had been
won. Avidly I inhaled the splendid purity
of the light. I was, indeed, a new man ; from
now on I was a true savage, a real Maori.
.Totefa and I returned to Mateiea, care
fully and peacefully bearing our heavy load
of rosewood — noa, noa!

52 NOA NOA
The sun had not yet set when, very tired
out, we arrived before my hut.
Jotefa said to me,
"Pdiar
"Yes!" I replied.
And from the bottom of my heart I re
peated this "yes" to myself.
I have never made a single cut with the
knife into this branch of rosewood, that I did
not each time more powerfully breathe in
the perfume of victory and rejuvenation:
noa, noa!
Through the valley of Punaru, a huge fis
sure which divides Tahiti into two parts, one
reaches the plateau of Tamanoii. From
there one can see the diadem, Orofena and
Arorai, which forms the center of the island.
They had often spoken to me of it as a
place of miracles, and I had contrived the
plan of going and spending several days
there alone.
"But what will you do during the night?"

NOA NOA 53
"You will be tormented by the Tupa-
paus!" "It is not wise to disturb the spirits of
the mountain. . . ."
"You must be mad!"
Probably I was, but as the result of this
anxious solicitude of my Tahitian friends my
curiosity was all the more aroused.
Before dawn, one night, I set out for
Arorai. For almost two hours it was possible to
follow a path on the edge of the Punaru
river. But then I was repeatedly forced
to cross the river. On both sides the walls
of the mountain rose straight up. They
jutted out even to the middle of the water,
supported on huge cubes of stone as if on
buttresses. Finally, I was compelled to continue my
way in the middle of the river. The water
went up to my knees, and sometimes even to
the shoulders.
The sun, even in broad daylight, scarcely

54 NOA NOA
pierced between the two walls which from
below seemed to me of astonishing height
and very close together at the top. At mid
day I distinguished the twinkling of stars
in the brilliant blue of the sky.
Toward five o'clock, as the day was de
clining, I began to wonder where I was to
spend the night, when I noticed to the right
an almost flat space of several acres. It
was covered with a confusion of ferns, wild
bananas, and bouraos. By good fortune I
found several ripe bananas. Quickly I
built a wood-fire to cook them. They consti
tuted my dinner.
Then I lay down to sleep as well as I
might, at the foot of a tree on the low
branches with which I had intertwined
banana leaves to protect me in case of rain.
It was cold, and the wading in the water
left me chilled through and through.
I did not sleep well.
But I knew that dawn would not delay
long and that I had nothing to fear from

NOA NOA 55
either man or beast. There are neither
carnivores nor reptiles on Tahiti. The only
"wild game" on the island are the pigs which
have escaped into the forest, where they have
multiplied and become entirely wild. The
most I had to fear was that they might
come, and rub off the skin of my legs. For
that reason I kept the cord of my hatchet
around my wrist.
The night was profound. It was impos
sible to distinguish anything, save a powdery
phosphorescence close to my head which
strangely perplexed me. I smiled when I
thought of the Maori stories about the Tu-
papaiis, the evil spirits which awaken with
the darkness to trouble sleeping men. Their
realm is in the heart of the mountain, which
the forest surrounds with eternal shadows.
There it swarms with them, and without
cease their legions are increased by the spirits
of those who have died.
Woe to him who will hazard into a place
inhabited by these demons! . . .

56 NOA NOA
And I had this audacity !
My dreams too were troubling enough.
Now, I know that the powdery luminosity
emanated from a particular species of small
fungus. They grew in most places on dead
branches hke those which I had used in build
ing my fire.
On the following day, very early, I took
up my way again.
The river became more and more irregu
lar. It was now brook, now torrent, now
waterfall. It wound about in a strangely
capricious way, and sometimes seemed to
flow back into itself. I was continually
losing the path, and often had to advance
swinging from branch to branch with the
hands, scarcely touching the ground.
From the bottom of the water cray-fish of
extraordinary shape looked at me as if to
say, "What are you doing here?" And
hundred-year-old eels fled at my approach.
Suddenly, at an abrupt turn, I saw a
naked young girl leaning against a project-

NOA NOA 57
ing rock. She was caressing it with both
hands, rather than using it as a support.
She was drinking from a spring which in
silence trickled from a great height among
the rocks.
After she had finished drinking, she let
go of the rock, caught the water in both
hands, and let it run down between her
breasts. Then, though I had not made the
slightest sound, she lowered her head like a
timid antelope which instinctively scents
danger and peered toward the thicket where
I remained motionless. My look did not
meet hers. Scarcely had she seen me, than
she plunged below the surface, uttering the
word, "Tdehae (furious)."
Quickly I looked into the river — no one,
nothing — only an enormous eel which wound
in and out among the small stones at the
bottom. It was not without difficulty or fatigue
that I finally approached Arorai, the

58 NOA NOA
dreaded sacred mountain which formed the
summit of the island.
It was evening, the moon was rising, and
as I watched its soft lights gently envelop
ing the rugged brow of the mountain, I re
called the famous legend: "Paraii Hina
Tefatou (Hina said to Tefatou)."
It was a very ancient legend which the
young girls love to tell while sitting about
in the evening, and according to them the
event occurred on the very spot where I was.
And truly it seemed to me that I saw the
scene now.
A powerful head of a god-man, the head
of a hero upon whom Nature has conferred
the proud consciousness of his strength, a
magnificent face of a giant — at the ultimate
lines of the horizon and as at the threshold
of the world. A soft clinging woman gen
tly touched the hair of the God and spoke to
him: "Let man rise up again after he has
died. . . ."

NOA NOA 59
And the angry but not cruel hps of the
god opened to reply,
"Man shall die."

*
* *

For some time past I had been growing
restless. My work suffered under it.
It is true that I lacked many of the es
sential implements; it irritated me to be re
duced to impotence in the face of artistic
projects to which I had passionately given
myself. But it was joy most of all which I lacked.
It was several months since I had sepa
rated from Titi. For several months I had
not heard the childish, melodious babble
which flowed without cease from the vahina,
always about the same things, always ask
ing the same questions, and I always reply
ing with the same stories.
This silence was not good for me.
I decided to leave, and undertake a voy-

60 NOA NOA
age around the island. I had set no defi
nite limits to it.
While I was making my preparations —
a few light packages that might be needed
on the way — and putting my studies in or
der, my neighbor and landlord, my friend
Anani, watched me with unquiet eyes.
After long hesitation, with gestures half -be
gun and left incomplete whose meaning was
clear enough to me and at the same time
amused and touched me, he finally decided to
ask me whether I was intending to leave.
"No," I rephed to him, "I am merely
making a several days' excursion. I shall
return." He did not believe me, and began to cry.
His wife came and joined him and told
me that she liked me, that money was not
required in order to live among them, and
that some day, if I so wished, I could rest
for always — there. She pointed to a burial
mound, ornamented with small trees, close
to the hut.

GIRL WITH FAN

NOA NOA 61
And suddenly a desire fell upon me to
rest for always — there. At least for all
eternity no one would ever disturb me there.
"You people of Europe," added the wife
of Anani, "are strange. You come, you
promise to remain, and when we have come
to love you, you leave. To return, you say,
but you never return."
"But I swear that it is my intention to
return, this time. Later," (I did not dare
to lie), "later, I shall see."
Finally they let me go.
I left the road which follows the edge of
the sea, and took up a narrow path leading
through a dense Jthicket. This path led so
far into the mountains that at the end of
several hours I reached a little valley where
the inhabitants still lived in the ancient
Maori manner.
They are happy and undisturbed. They
dream, they love, they sleep, they sing, they
pray, and it seems that Christianity has not

62 NOA NOA
yet penetrated to this place. Before me
I can clearly see the statues of their divini
ties, though actually they have long since
disappeared; especially the statue of Hina,
and the feasts in honor of the moon-goddess.
The idol of a single block of stone measures
ten feet from shoulder to shoulder and forty
feet in height. On the head she wears in
the manner of a hood a huge stone of red
dish color. Around her they dance accord
ing to ancient rite, the matamua, and the vivo
varies its note from lightness and gayety
to somberness and melancholy according to
the color of the hour. . . .
I continue my way.
At Taravao, the district farthest from
Mataiea at the other extremity of the island,
a gendarme lends me his horse, and I range
along the east coast, which is little fre
quented by Europeans.
At Faone, a tiny district which precedes
the more important one of Itia, I hear a na
tive calling out to me,

NOA NOA 63
"Halloa! Man who makes human be
ings!" — He knows that I am a painter. —
"Ha'ere mai ta maha (come and eat with
us) ." This is the Tahitian formula of hos
pitality. No persuasion is required, for the smile
accompanying the invitation is engaging and
gentle. I dismount from the horse. My host
takes the animal by the bridle and ties it to
a branch, simply and skillfully, without a
trace of servility.
Together we enter a hut where men and
women are sitting together on the ground
talking and smoking. Around them chil
dren play and prattle.
"Where are you going?" asked a beautiful
Maori woman of about forty.
"I am going to Itia."
"What for?"
I do not know what idea flitted across my
mind. Perhaps, I was only giving expres
sion to the real purpose of my journey, which

64 NOA NOA
had hitherto been hidden even to myself.
"To find a wife," I replied.
"There are many pretty women at Faone.
Do you want one?"
"Yes.""Very well! If she pleases you, I will
give her to you. She is my daughter."
"Is she young?"
"Yes.""Is she pretty?"
"Yes.""Is she in good health?"
"Yes."
"It is well. Go and bring her to me."
The woman went out.
A quarter of an hour later, as they were
bringing on the meal, a truly Maori one of
wild bananas and shellfish, she returned,
followed by a young girl who held a small
bundle in the hand.
Through her dress of almost transparent
rose-colored muslin one could see the golden
skin of her shoulders and arms. Two swel-

NOA NOA 65
ling buds rose on the breasts. She was a
large child, slender, strong, of wonderful
proportions. But in her beautiful face I
failed to find the characteristics which
hitherto I had found everywhere dominant
on the island. Even her hair was excep
tional, thick like a bush and a little crispy.
In the sunlight it was all an orgy in chrome.
They told me that she was of Tonga or
igin. I greeted her ; she smiled and sat down be
side me.
"Aren't you afraid of me?" I asked.
"Aita (no)."
"Do you wish to live in my hut for al-
ways? "Eha (yes) ."
"You have never been ill?"
"AitarThat was all.
My heart beat, while the young girl on the
ground before me was tranquilly arranging
the food on a large banana-leaf and offering

66 NOA NOA
it to me. I ate with good appetite, but I
was pre-occupied, profoundly troubled.
This child of about thirteen years (the
equivalent of eighteen or twenty in Europe)
charmed me, made me timid, almost fright
ened me. What might be passing in her
soul? And it was I, so old in contrast with
her, who hesitated to sign a contract in which
all the advantages were on my side, but
which was entered into and concluded so
hastily. Perhaps, I thought, it is in obedience to
her mother's command. Perhaps, it is an
arrangement upon which they have agreed
among themselves. . . .
I was reassured when I saw in the face
of the young girl, in her gestures and at
titude the distinct signs of independence and
pride which are so characteristic of her race.
And my faith was complete and unshakable,
when after a deep study of her, I saw un
mistakably the serene expression which in
young beings always accompanies an honor-

NOA NOA 67
able and laudable act. — But the mocking
line about her otherwise pretty, sensual,
and tender mouth warned me that the real
dangers of the adventure would be for me,
not for her. . . .
I cannot deny that in crossing the thresh
old of the hut when leading my heart was
weighed down with a strange and very
poignant anguish.
The hour of departure had come. I
mounted the horse.
The girl followed behind. Her mother,
a man, and two young women — her aunts,
she said — also followed.
We returned to Taravao, nine kilometers
from Faone.
After the first kilometer, they said:
"Parahi teie (here stop)."
I dismounted from my horse, and all six of
us entered into a large hut, neatly kept, al
most rich — with the riches of the earth, with
beautiful straw-mats.
A still young and exceedingly gracious

68 NOA NOA
couple lived here. My bride sat down be
side the woman, and introduced me,
"This is my mother."
Then in silence fresh water was poured
into a goblet from which we drank each in
turn, gravely, as if we were engaged in some
intimate religious rite.
After this the woman whom my bride
had just designated as her mother said to me
with a deeply-moved look and moist lashes,
"You are good?"
I replied, not without difficulty, after hav
ing examined my conscience,
"I hope so!"
"You will make my daughter happy?"
"Yes.""In eight days she must return. If she is
not happy she will leave you."
I assented with a gesture. Silence fell.
It seemed as if no one dared to break it.
Finally we went out, and again on horse
back I set out, always accompanied by my
escort.

NOA NOA 69
On the way we met several people who
were acquainted with my new family. They
were already informed of the happening, and
in saluting the girl they said:
"Ah, and are you now really the vahina
of a Frenchman? Be happy!"
One point disturbed me. How did
Tehura — this was my wife's name — come to
have two mothers.
I asked the first one, the one who had of
fered her to me:
"Why did you lie to me?"
The mother of Tehura replied,
"I did not lie. The other one also is her
mother, her nurse, foster-mother."
At Taravao, I returned the horse to the
gendarme, and an unpleasant incident oc
curred there. His wife, a Frenchwoman,
said to me, not maliciously, but tactlessly:
"What! You bring back with you such
a hussy?" And with her angry eyes she undressed

70 NOA NOA
the young girl, who met this insulting ex
amination with complete indifference.
I looked for a moment at the symbolic
spectacle which the two women offered. On
the one side a fresh blossoming, faith and
nature ; on the other the season of barrenness,
law and artifice. Two races were face to
face, and I was ashamed of mine. It hurt
me to see it so petty and intolerant, so un
comprehending. I turned quickly to feel
again the warmth and the joy coming from
the glamor of the other, from this living gold
which I already loved.
At Taravao the family took leave of us
at the Chinaman's who sells everything —
adulterated liqueurs and fruit, stuffs and
weapons, men and women and beasts.
My wife and I took the stage-coach which
left us twenty-five kilometers farther on at
Mataiea, my home.
My wife is not very talkative ; she is at the

NOA NOA 71
same time full of laughter and melancholy
and above all given to mockery.
We did not cease studying each other, but
she remained impenetrable to me, and I was
soon vanquished in this struggle.
I had made a promise to keep a watch over
myself, to remain master of myself, so that
I might become a sure observer. My
strength and resolutions were soon overcome.
For Tehura I was in a very short time an
open book.
In a way I experienced, at my expense
and in my own person, the profound gulf
which separates an Oceanian soul from a
Latin soul, particularly a French soul. The
soul of a Maori is not revealed immediately.
It requires much patience and study to ob
tain a grasp of it. And even when you be
lieve that you know it to the very bottom, it
suddenly disconcerts you by its unforeseen
"jumps." But, at first, it is enigma itself,
or rather an infinite series of enigmas. At

72 NOA NOA
the moment you believe you have seized it, it
is far away, inaccessible, incommunicable, en
veloped in laughter and variability. Then
of its own free will it reapproaches, only to
slip away again as soon as you betray the
slightest sign of certitude. And when con
fused by its externals you seek its inmost
truth, it looks at you with tranquil assurance
out of the depths of its never-ending smile
and its easy lightheartedness. This tran
quility is, perhaps, less real than it seems.
For my part I soon gave up all these con
scious efforts which so interfered with the
enjoyment of hfe. I let myself live simply,
waiting confidently in the course of time
for the revelations which the first moments
had refused.
A week thus went by during which I had a
feeling of "childlikeness," such as I had
never before experienced.
I loved Tehura and told her so ; it made her
laugh — she knew it, very well.
She seemed to love me in return, but she

NOA NOA 73
never spoke of it — but sometimes at night
the lightning graved furrows in the gold of
the skin of Tehura. . . .
On the eighth day — to me it seemed as
though we only for the first time had entered
my hut — Tehura asked my permission to
visit her mother at Faone. It was some
thing that had been promised.
I sadly resigned myself. Tying several
piastres in her handkerchief in order to de
fray the expenses of the journey and to buy
some rum for her father, I led her to the
stage-coach. I had the feeling that it was a good-by
forever. The following days were full of torment.
Solitude drove me from the hut and memor
ies brought me back to it. I was unable to
fix my thought upon any study. . . .
Another week passed, and Tehura re
turned. Then a life filled to the full with happiness

74 NOA NOA
began. Happiness and work rose up to
gether with the sun, radiant like it. The
gold of Tehura's face flooded the interior of
our hut and the landscape round about with
joy and light. She no longer studied me,
and I no longer studied her. She no longer
concealed her love from me, and I no longer
spoke to her of my love. We lived, both of
us, in perfect simplicity.
How good it was in the morning to seek
refreshment in the nearest brook, as did, I
imagine, the first man and the first woman in
Paradise. Tahitian paradise, nave nave fenua, —
land of delights!
And the Eve of this paradise became more
and more docile, more loving. I was per
meated with her fragrance — noa noa. She
came into my life at the perfect hour. Earl
ier, I might, perhaps, not have understood
her, and later it would have been too late.
To-day I understand how much I love her,
and through her I enter into mysteries which

NOA NOA 75
hitherto remained inaccessible to me. But,
for the moment, my intelligence does not yet
reason out my discoveries; I do not classify
them in my memory. It is to my emotions
that Tehura confides all this that she tells
me. It is in my emotions and impressions
that I shall later find her words inscribed.
By the daily telling of her life she leads me,
more surely than it could have been done by
any other way, to a full understanding of her
race. I am no longer conscious of days and
hours, of good and evil. The happiness is
so strange at times that it suppresses the very
conception of it. I only know that all is
good, because all is beautiful.
And Tehura never disturbs me when I
work or when I dream. Instinctively she is
then silent. She knows perfectly when she
can speak without disturbing me. We talk
of Europe and of Tahiti, and of God and of
the gods. I instruct her. She in turn in
structs me.

76 NOA NOA
{ I had to go to Papeete for a day.
I had promised to return the same evening,
but the coach which I took left me half way,
and I had to do the rest on foot. It was one
o'clock in the morning when I returned.
When I opened the door I saw with sink
ing heart that the light was extinguished.
This in itself was not surprising, for at the
moment we had only very little light. The
necessity of renewing our supply was one
of the reasons for my absence. But I trem
bled with a sudden feeling of apprehension
and suspicion which I felt to be a presenti
ment — surely, the bird had flown. . . .
Quickly, I struck a match, and I saw. . . .
Tehura, immobile, naked, lying face down
ward flat on the bed with the eyes inordi
nately large with fear. She looked at me,
and seemed not to recognize me. As for
myself I stood for some moments strangely
uncertain. A contagion emanated from the
terror of Tehura. I had the illusion that

z £o

NOA NOA 77
a phosphorescent light was streaming from
her staring eyes. Never had I seen her so
beautiful, so tremulously beautiful. And
then in this half-light which was surely peo
pled for her with dangerous apparitions and
terrifying suggestions, I was afraid to make
any movement which might increase the
child's paroxysm of fright. How could I
know what at that moment I might seem
to her? Might she not with my frightened
face take me for one of the demons and
specters, one of the Tupapaiis, with which
the legends of her race people sleepless
nights? Did I really know who in truth she
was herself? The intensity of fright which
had dominated her as the result of the physi
cal and moral power of her superstitions had
transformed her into a strange being, en
tirely different from anything I had known
heretofore^ Finally she came to herself again, called
me, and I did all I could to reason with her,

78 NOA NOA
to reassure her, to restore her confidence.
She listened sulkily to me, and with a voice
in which sobs trembled she said,
"Never leave me again so alone without
light. ..." J
But fear scarcely slumbered, before jeal
ousy awoke.
"What did you do in the city? You have
been to see women, those who drink and
dance on the market-place, and who give
themselves to officers, sailors, to all the
world." I would not quarrel with her, and the
night was soft, soft and ardent, a night of
the tropics. . . .
Tehura was sometimes very wise and af
fectionate, and then again quite filled with
folly and frivolity. Two opposite beings,
leaving out of account many others, infinitely
varied, were mingled in one. They gave the
lie, the one to the other; they succeeded one
another suddenly with astonishing rapidity.

NOA NOA 79
She was not changeable; she was double,
triple, multiple — the child of an ancient race.
One day, the eternal itinerant Jew, who
ranges over islands as well as continents, ar
rived in the district with a box of trinkets of
gilded copper.
He spread out his ware; every one sur
rounded him.
A pair of ear-rings pass from hand to
hand. The eyes of the women shine; all
want to possess them.
Tehura knits her brows and looks at me.
Her eyes speak very clearly. I pretend I
do not understand.
She draws me aside in a corner.
"I want them."
I explain to her that in France those
trifles have no value whatsoever, that they
are of copper.
"I want them."
"But why? To pay twenty francs for
such trash! It would be folly. No!"
"I want them."

80 NOA NOA
And with passionate volubility, her eyes
full of tears, she urges.
"What, would you not be ashamed to see
this jewel in the ears of some other woman?
Some one there is already speaking about
selling his horse so that he may give the pair
of ear-rings to his vahina."
I will have nothing to do with this folly.
For the second time I decline.
Tehura looks at me fixedly, and without
saying another word begins to weep.
I go away, I return, and give the twenty
francs to the Jew — and the sun reappears.
Two days later was Sunday. Tehura is
dressing. The hair is washed with soap,
then dried in the sun, and finally rubbed
down with a fragrant oil. In her best dress,
one of my handkerchiefs in the hand, a flower
behind the ear, the feet bare, she is going to
the temple.
"And the ear-rings?" I ask.
With an expression of disdain, Tehura re
plies,

NOA NOA 81
"They are of copper."
And laughing aloud she crosses the thresh
old of the hut, and suddenly becoming grave
again continues her way.
At the hour of siesta, undressed, quite sim
ply, we sleep on this day as on other days,
side by side, or we dream. In her dream
Tehura, perhaps, sees gleam other ear-rings.
I — I would forget all that I know and
sleep always. . . .
One day when the weather was beautiful,
God knows which day of the year it may
have been for beautiful days are by no means
exceptional in the Tahitian year, we decided
one morning to visit friends whose hut was
about ten kilometers from ours.
We left about six o'clock, and in the cool
ness we made such quick progress that we ar
rived at the early hour of eight.
We were not expected. There was great
joy and when the embracings were finished,
they went out in quest of a little pig to pre-

82 NOA NOA
pare a feast for us. It was slaughtered, and
two chickens were added. A magnificent
mollusc caught that very morning, taros and
bananas, made up the menu of this abundant
and tempting repast.
I suggested that while waiting for noon
day we visit the grottoes of Mara. I had
often seen them from the distance without
ever having had the opportunity of visiting
them. Three young girls, a young boy, Tehura
and I, a gay little company, soon arrived at
our destination.
From the edge of the way the grotto, al
most wholly concealed by guavas, might be
taken for a simple irregularity in the rocks
or a fissure a little deeper than the others.
But when you bend back the branches and
glide down a meter, the sun is no longer visi
ble. You are in a sort of cavern whose
further end suggests a little stage with a
bright red ceiling apparently about a hun
dred meters above. Here and there on the

NOA NOA 83
walls enormous serpents seem to extend
slowly as if to drink from the surface of the
interior lake. They are roots which have
forced their way through the crevices in the
rocks. "Shall we take a bath?"
They reply that the water is too cold.
Then there are long consultations aside and
laughter which make me curious.
I persist ; finally the young girls make up
their minds and lay aside their hght robes.
With pareos around the loins, soon all of us
are in the water.
There is a general cry, "Toe, toe!"
The water ripples and the cries are thrown
back in a thousand echoes which repeat,
"toe, toe!"
"Will you come with me?" I asked Te
hura, pointing to the end of the grotto.
"Are you mad? Down there, so far.
And the eels? One never goes there."
Undulant and graceful, she was disport
ing herself on the shore, like one very proud

84 NOA NOA
of her skill in swimming. But I also am a
skilled swimmer. Though I did not like to
venture so far entirely alone, I set out for
the other end.
By what strange phenomenon of mirage
was it that it seemed to recede farther from
me the more I struggled to attain it ? I was
continually advancing, and from each side
the huge serpents viewed me ironically.
One moment I seemed to see a large turtle
swimming, the head emerging from the
water, and I distinguished two brilliant eyes
fixed suspiciously on me. Absurd, I
thought, sea-turtles do not live in sweet
water. Nevertheless (have I become a
Maori in truth?) doubts assail me, and it
lacked little to make me tremble. What are
those large silent undulations, there, ahead
of me? Eels! Come, come! We must
shake off this paralyzing impression of fear.
I let myself down perpendicularly in or
der to touch the bottom. But I have to rise

NOA NOA 85
again without having accomphshed it. On
the shore Tehura calls to me,
"Come back!"
I turn, and I see her very far away and
very small. . . . Why does distance here
also seem to become infinite? Tehura is
nothing but a black point in a circle of light.
Angrily and stubbornly I persist. I
swim for another full half hour. The end
seems as far away as ever.
A resting-place on a little plateau, and
then again a yawning orifice. Whither does
it lead? A mystery whose fathoming I re
nounce !
I confess that finally I was afraid.
It needed a full hour for me to accomplish
my purpose.
Tehura was waiting for me alone. Her
companions having become indifferent had
left. Tehura uttered a prayer, and we left the
grotto.

86 NOA NOA
I was still trembling a little from the cold,
but in the open air I soon recovered, espe
cially when Tehura asked with a smile which
was not wholly free from malice,
"Were you afraid?"
Boldly, I replied,
"Frenchmen know no fear!"
Tehura displayed neither pity nor admira
tion. But I noticed that she was watching
me out of the corner of her eye as I was
walking a few steps in advance of her to
pick a fragrant tiare for her bushy hair.
The road was beautiful, and the sea
superb. Before us rose Morea's haughty
and grandiose mountains.
How good it is to live! And with what
an appetite we devour, after a two hours'
bath, the daintily prepared little pig which
is awaiting us in the house !
A great wedding took place at Mataiea
— a real wedding, religious and legal, of the

NOA NOA 87
kind which the missionaries imposed upon
the converted Tahitians.
I had been invited to it, and Tehura ac
companied me.
The meal at Tahiti, as I believe elsewhere,
was the most important part of the cere
mony. On Tahiti, at any rate, the greatest
culinary luxury is displayed in these feasts.
There are little pigs roasted on hot stones, an
unbelievable abundance of fish, bananas and
guavas, taros, etc.
The table at which a considerable number
of guests were seated had been placed be
neath an improvised roof, charmingly deco
rated with leaves and flowers.
All the relatives and friends of the bride
and groom were present.
The young girl, the schoolmistress of the
place, was half-white. She took for hus
band a genuine Maori, the son of the chief
of Punaauia. She had been educated in
one of the "religious schools" of Papeete,

88 NOA NOA
and the Protestant bishop, who had taken an
interest in her, had personally interceded to
bring about this wedding which many re
garded as a httle hurried. Out here, the will
of the missionary is the will of God. . . .
For a full hour they eat, and drink much.
After this the speeches begin. There are
many of these. They are delivered accord
ing to a regular order and method, and there
is a curious competition in eloquence.
Then comes the important question.
Which of the two families is to give the new
name to the newly married? This national
custom, going back to very ancient times, is
regarded as a precious, much desired, and
much disputed prerogative. Not infre
quently the discussion on this point degener
ated into an actual battle.
On this occasion, however, there was noth
ing like this. Everything passed happily
and peacefully. To tell the truth, all the
table was pretty well intoxicated. Even
my poor vahina (I could not keep my eye

NOA NOA 89
on her all the time), carried away by exam
ple, herself, alas, had become dead-drunk.
It was not without difficulty that I finally
brought her home. . . .
At the center of the table the wife of the
chief of Punaauia throned in admirable dig
nity. Her pretentious and bizarre dress of
orange velvet gave her vaguely the appear
ance of a heroine of a country fair. But the
indestructible grace of her race and the con
sciousness of her rank lent some sort of a
grandeur to her tinsel. The presence of this
majestic woman of very pure race at this
Tahitian ceremony gave, it seemed to me, an
additional pungency to the flavors of the
food and the perfumes of the flowers of the
island, stronger than all the others and by
which all the others themselves became mag
nified. Beside her sat a hundred-year-old woman,
ghastly in her decreptitude, which was ac
centuated by a double row of well preserved
cannibalistic teeth. She took little interest

90 NOA NOA
in what was going on about her. She sat
immobile and rigid, almost like a mummy.
On her cheek was a tatoo-marking of dark
and indecisive form, but suggesting the style
of a Latin letter. In my eyes it spoke for
her, and told me her history. This tatoo-
ing in no way resembled that of the savages.
It was surely put there by a European hand.
I made inquiries.
Formerly, they told me, the missionaries,
zealous against the sin of the flesh, marked
"certain women" with a seal of infamy,
"signet of hell." It covered them with
shame, not because of the sin committed, but
because of the ridicule and opprobrium asso
ciated with such a "mark of distinction."
I understood on that day, better than I
had ever done, the distrust of the Maori to
ward Europeans. This distrust persists
even to-day, no matter how much tempered
it may be by the generous and hospitable in
stincts of the Oceanian soul.
What a reach of years there was between

NOA NOA 91
this ancient woman marked by the priest,
and this young woman married by the priest !
The mark remained indelible, a testimony
to the defeat of the race which had submitted
and to the cowardliness of the race which
had inflicted it.
Five months later the young married
woman brought into the world a well de
veloped child. Outraged relatives de
manded a separation. The young man de
clined. "Since we love each other what does it
matter? Is it not one of our customs to
adopt the children of others? I adopt this
one." But why had the bishop been so anxious to
hurry the marriage ceremony? There was
much talk. Evil tongues insinuated that
. . . There are evil tongues even on Tahiti.

In the evening we have long and often
very grave conversations in bed.

92 NOA NOA
Now that I can understand Tehura, in
whom her ancestors sleep and sometimes
dream, I strive to see and think through
this child, and to find again in her the traces
of the far-away past which socially is dead
indeed, but still persists in vague memories.
I question, and not all of my questions
remain unanswered.
Perhaps the men, more directly affected
by our conquest or beguiled by our civi
lization, have forgotten the old gods, but in
the memory of the women they have kept
a place of refuge for themselves. It is a
touching spectacle which Tehura presents,
when under my influence the old national
divinities gradually reawaken in her memory
and cast off the artificial veils in which the
Protestant missionaries thought it necessary
to shroud them. As a whole the work of
the catechists is very superficial. Their
labors, particularly among the women, have
fallen far short of their expectations. Their
teaching is like a feeble coat of varnish which

YOUTH BETWEEN TWO GIRLS

NOA NOA 93
scales off, and quickly disappears at the
slightest skillful touch.
Tehura goes regularly to the temple, and
offers lip-service to the official religion. But
she knows by heart, and that is no small task,
the names of all the gods of the Maori Olym
pus. She knows their history, she teaches
me how they have created the world, how
they rule it, how they wish to be honored.
She is a stranger to the rigors of Christian
morals, or else she does not care. For ex
ample, she does not think of repenting of the
fact that she is the concubine, as they call
it, of a tane.
I do not exactly know how she associates
Taaroa and Jesus in her beliefs. I think
that she venerates both.
As chance has come she has given me a
complete course in Tahitian theology. In
return I have tried to explain to her some
of the phenomena of nature in accordance
with European knowledge.
The stars interest her much. She asks

94 NOA NOA
me for the French name of the morning-star,
the evening-star, a id the other stars. It is
difficult for her to understand that the earth
turns around the sun. . . .
She tells me the names of the stars in her
language, and, as she is speaking, I dis
tinguish by the very light of the stars who are
themselves divinities the sacred forms of the
Maori masters of the air and the fire, of the
islands and of the waters.
The inhabitants of Tahiti, as far as it is
possible to go back in their history, have al
ways possessed a rather extended knowledge
of astronomy. The periodical feasts of the
Areois, members of a secret rehgious and
military society which ruled over the islands
and of which I shall have more to say, were
based on the revolutions of the stars. Even
the nature of moonhght, it seems, was not
unknown to the Maori. They assume that
the moon is a globe very much like the earth,
inhabited like it and rich in products like
our own.

NOA NOA 95
They estimate the distance from the earth
to the moon in their manner thus : The seed
of the tree Ora was borne from the moon
to the earth by a white dove. It took her
two moons to reach the satellite, and when
after two more moons she fell upon the
earth again, she was without feathers. Of
all the birds known to the Maoris, this
one is regarded as having the swiftest
flight. But here is the Tahitian nomenclature of
the stars. I complete Tehura's lesson with
the aid of a very ancient manuscript found
in Polynesia.
Is it too presumptuous to see in this the be
ginnings of a rational system of astronomy,
rather than a simple play of the imagina
tion? Roiia — great is his beginning — slept with
his wife, the Gloomy Earth.
She gave birth to her king, the sun, then
to the dusk, and then to the night.
Then Roiia cast off this woman.

96 NOA NOA
Roiia — great is his beginning — slept with
the woman called "Grande Reunion."
She gave birth to the queens of the
heaven, the stars, and then to the star Tahiti,
the evening-star.
The king of the golden skies, the only
king, slept with his wife Fanoiii.
Of her is born the star Taiiroiia (Venus) ,
the morning-star, the king Taiiroiia, who
gives laws to the night and the day, to the
other stars, to the moon, to the sun, and
serves as a guide to mariners.
Taiiroiia sailed at the left toward the
north, where he slept with his wife, and be
gat the Red Star, the star which shines in
the evening under two faces.
The Red Star, flying in the East, made
ready his pirogue, the pirogue of the full
day, and steered toward the skies. At the
rise of the sun he sailed away.
Rehoiia now arises in the wideness of
space. He sleeps with his wife, Oiira
Taneipa.

NOA NOA 97
Of them are born the Twin-kings, the
Pleiades. These Twin-kings are surely identical
with our Castor and Pollux.
This first version of the Polynesian genesis
is complicated with variations which are
perhaps only developments.
Taaroa slept with the woman who calls
herself Goddess of the Without (or of the
sea). Of them are born the white clouds, the
black clouds, and the rain.
Taaroa slept with woman who calls her
self Goddess of ihe Within (or of the earth) .
Of them is born the first germ.
Is born in turn all that grows upon the
surface of the earth.
Is born in turn the mist of the mountains.
Is born in turn he who calls himself the
Strong. Is born in turn she who calls herself the
Beautiful, or the one Adorned-in-order-to-
Please.

98 NOA NOA
Mahoiii 1 launches his pirogue.
He sits down in the bottom. At his right
hangs the hook, fastened to the line by
strands of hair.
And this line, which he holds in his hand,
and this hook, he lets fall down into the
depths of the universe in order to fish for
the great fish (the earth) .
The hook has caught.
Already the axes show, already the God
feels the enormous weight of the world.
Tefatou (the God of the earth and the
earth itself) caught by the hook, emerges
out of tlie night, still suspended in the im
mensity of space.
Mahoiii has caught the great fish which
swims in space, and he can now direct it ac
cording to his will.
He holds it in his hand.
Mahoiii rides also the course of the sun,
i This Mahoiii seems to be confused with Taaroa, and
also with Roiia who created the stars. They are perhaps
different names for the same God.

NOA NOA 99
in such a way that day and night are of equal
duration. I asked Tehura to name the Gods for
me. Taaroa slept with the woman Ohina, the
Goddess of the air.
Of them is born the rainbow, the moon
light, then, the red clouds and the red rain.
Taaroa slept with the woman Ohina, God
dess of the bosom of the earth.
Of them is born Tefatou, the spirit who
animates the earth, and who manifests him
self in subterranean noises.
Taaroa slept with the woman called Be-
yond-the-Earth. Of them are born the Gods Teirii and
Roiianoiia. Then in turn Roo who sprang from the
flank of his mother's body.
And of the same woman were also born
Wrath and the Tempest, the Furious Winds,
and also the Peace which follows these.

100 NOA NOA
And the source of these spirits is in the
place whence the Messengers are sent.
But Tehura admits that these relations
are contested.
The most orthodox classification is this.
The Gods are divided into Atuas and
Oromatuas. The superior Atuas are all sons and
grandsons of Taaroa.
They dwell in the heavens. — There are
seven heavens.
Taaroa and his wife Feii Feii Maiterai
had as sons : Oro (the first of the gods after
his father, and who himself had two sons (Te-
tai Mati and Oiiroii Tetefa), Raa (father
of Tetoiia Oiiroii Oiiroii, Feoito, Teheme,
Roa Roa, Tehu Rai Tia Hotoii, Temouria) ,
Tane (father of Peiiroiirai, Piata Hoiia,
Piatia Roroa, Parara Iti Matai, Patia
Taiira, Tane Haerirai) , Roo, Tieri, Tefatou,
Roiia Noiia, Toma Hora, Roiia Otia, Moe,
Toiipa, Panoiia, Tefatou Tire, Tefatou
Toutaii, Peurai, Mahoiii, Harana, Paii-

NOA NOA 101
moiiri, Hiro, Roiii, Fanoiira, Fatouhoiii,
Rii. Each of these gods has his particular at
tributes. We already know the works of Mahoiii
and Tefatou. . . .
Tane has the seventh heaven for his mouth,
and this signifies that the mouth of this god,
who has given his name to man, is the far
thest end of the heavens whence the light
begins to illume the earth.
Rii separated the heavens and the earth.
Roiii stirred up the waters of the ocean;
he broke the solid mass of the terrestrial con
tinent, and divided it into innumerable parts
which are the present islands.
Fanoiira, whose head touches the clouds
and whose feet touch the bottom of the sea,
and Fatouhoiii, another giant, descended to
gether upon Eiva — an unknown land — -in
order to combat and destroy the monstrous
hog: which devoured human beings.
Hiro, the god of thieves, dug holes in the

102 NOA NOA
rocks with his fingers. He hberated a vir
gin whom the giants held captive in an en
chanted place. With one hand he snatched
up the trees which during the day concealed
the prison of the virgin, and the charm was
broken. . . .
The inferior Atuas are particularly occu
pied with the life and work of men, but they
do not abide in their dwelling-places.
They are: the Atuas Maho (god-sharks),
guardian spirits of mariners ; the Peho, gods
and goddesses of the valleys, guardian spirits
of husbandry; the No Te Oiipas Oiipas,
guardian spirits of singers, of comedians,
and of dancers; the Raaoii Pava Mais,
guardian spirits of physicians ; the No Apas,
gods to whom offerings are made after they
have protected one from witchcraft and en
chantment ; the O Tanoii, guardian spirits of
laborers ; the Tane Ite Haas, guardian spir
its of carpenters and builders; the Minias
and the Papeas, guardian spirits of the roof'

NOA NOA 103
ers; the Matatinis, guardian spirits of mak
ers of nets.
The Oromatuas are household gods, the
Lares. There are Oromatuas properly so called,
and Genii.
The Oromatuas punish the fomenters of
strife, and preserve peace in the families.
They are : the Varna Taatas, the souls of the
men and women of each family who have
died; the Eriorios, the souls of the children,
who have died at an early age of a natural
death; the Poiiaras, the souls of the chil
dren, who have been killed at birth, and who
have returned into the body of grasshoppers.
The Genii are conjectural divinities, or
rather consciously created by man. With
out apparent motive, except that of his own
choice, he attributes divine qualities to some
animal or to some object, as, for example,
a tree, and then he consults it in all impor
tant circumstances. There is in this, per-

104 NOA NOA
haps, a trace of Indian metempsychosis
with which the Maoris very probably were
acquainted. Their historical songs and
legends abound in fables in which the great
gods assume the form of animals and plants.
In the last rank of the celestial hierarchy,
after the Atuas and the Oromatuas, come
the Tiis.
These sons of Taaroa and Hina are very
numerous. In the Maori cosmogomy, they are spirits,
inferior to the gods and strangers to men.
They are intermediate between organic be
ings and inorganic beings and defend the
rights and prerogatives of the latter against
the usurpations of the former.
Their origin is this :
Taaroa slept with Hina, and of them was
born Tii.
Tii slept with the woman Ani (Desire),
and of them were born: Desire-of-the-
night, the messenger of shadows and of
death; Desire-of-the-day, the messenger of

NOA NOA 105
light and of life; Desire-of-the-gods, the
messenger of the things of heaven; Desire-
of-men, the messenger of the things of the
earth. Of them in turn were born: Tii of the
within who watches over animals and plants ;
Tii of the without who guards the beings and
things of the sea ; Tii of the sands, and Tii of
the sea-shores, and Tii of the loose earth;
Tii of the rocks and Tii of the solid earth.
Still later were born: the happenings of
the night, the happenings of the day, going
and coming, flux and reflux, the giving and
receiving of pleasure.
The images of the Tiis were placed at the
farthest ends of the mara'es (temples), and
formed the limit which circumscribed the
sacred places. They are seen on the rocks
and on the sea-shores. These idols have the
mission of marking the boundaries between
the earth and the sea, of maintaining the
balance between the two elements, and of
restraining their reciprocal encroachments.

106 NOA NOA
Even modern travelers have seen a few sta
tues of Tiis on the Ile-de-Paques. They
are colossal outlines partaking of human and
animal forms, and bear witness to a special
conception of beauty and a genuine skill in
the art of working in stones, for they are
architecturally constructed of superimposed
blocks with original and ingenious combina
tions of color.
The European invasion and monotheism
have destroyed these vestiges of a civiliza
tion which had its own grandeur. When the
Tahitians to-day raise monuments, they
achieve miracles of bad taste — as, for ex
ample, the tomb of Pomare. They had been
richly endowed with an instinctive feeling
for the harmony necessary between human
creations and the animal and plant life which
formed the setting and decoration of their
existence, but this has now been lost. In
contact with us, with our school, they have
truly become "savages," in the sense which
the Latin Occident has given this word.

NOA NOA 107
They themselves have remained beautiful as
masterpieces, but morally and physically
(owing to us) they have become unfruitful.
Some traces of maraes still exist. They
were parallelograms broken by openings.
Three sides were formed of stone walls, four
to six feet in height; a pyramid not as high
as it was wide formed the fourth. The
whole had a width of about one hundred
meters, and a length of forty. Images of
Tiis decorated this simple architectural
structure. The moon had an important place in the
metaphysical speculations of the Maoris. It
has already been stated that great feasts
were celebrated in her honor. Hina is often
invoked in the traditional recitals of the
Areois. But her share or role in the harmony of
the world is negative rather than positive.
This appears clearly in the dialogue be
tween Hina and Tefatou.

108 NOA NOA
Such texts would offer beautiful material
for exegists, if the Oceanian Bible could be
found as a subject for commentary. They
would see there first of all the principles of
a religion based on the worship of the forces
of nature-J-a characteristic common to all
"W i i' '"¦ i 1 11 mil
primitive religions. The greater number
of Maori gods are in effect personifications
of different elements. But an attentive
glance, if not misled or depraved by a de
sire to demonstrate the superiority of our
philosophy over that of these "tribes," would
soon discover interesting and singular char
acteristics in these legends.
I should like to point out two, but I shall
do no more than indicate them. The prob
lem of verifying these hypotheses is a matter
for savants.
It is above all the clearness with which the
two only and universal principles, of, lif e_are
designated and distinguished and ultimately
resolved into a supreme unity. The one,
soul and intelligence, Taaroa, is the male;

¦_;SS
BATHING TAHITIANS

NOA NOA 109
the other in a certain way matter and body
of the same god, is the female, that is Hina.
To her belongs all the love of men, to him
their respect. Hina is not the name of the
moon alone. There is also a Hina-of-the-
air, a Hina-of-the-sea, a Hina-of-the-
Within, but these two syllables characterize
only the subordinate parts of matter. The
sun and the sky, light and its empire, all the
noble parts of matter, so to speak, or rather
all the spiritual elements of matter are
T^aaroa^ This is definitely formulated in
more than one text, in which the definition of
spirit and matter can be recognized. Or
what, if we acquiesce in this definition, is the
significance of the fundamental doctrine of
the Maori genesis :
THE GREAT AND HOLY UNIVERSE IS ONLY ?
THE SHELL OF TAAROA  ?
Does not this doctrine constitute a primi
tive belief in the unity of matter? Is there
^ — « L-J-fth«w>j».|> .-I-- —

110 NOA NOA
not in this definition and separation of spirit
and matter an analysis of the twofold mani
festations of a single and unique substance?
However rare such a philosophical intention
may be among primitives, it does not follow
that one should decline to receive testimony.
It is evident that the Oceanian theology
had two ends in view in the actions of the
god who created the world and conserves it :
the generative cause and? matter which has

become fecuno^ the motive force and the
object acted upon, spirit and matter. It
also appears clearly that in the constant in
teraction between the luminous spirit and
the perceptive matter which it vivifies — that
is to say in the successive unions of Taaroa
with the diverse manifestations of Hina —
one should recognize the continual and ever-
varying influence of the sun upon things.
And in the fruits of these unions are to be
seen the changes continually effected in these
very elements by light and warmth. When
once we have a clear view of this phenomenon

NOA NOA 111
out of which the two universal currents pro
ceed, we see that in the fruit are united and
mingled the generative cause and the matter
which has become fecund, in movement, the
motive force and the object acted upon, and
in life, spirit and matter, and that the uni
verse just created is only the shell of Taaroa.
In the second place it appears from the
dialogue between Tefatou and Hina, that
man and the earth shall perish, but that the
moon and the race inhabiting it shall con-
.tinue.^ If we recall that Hina represents
matter, and that according to the scientific
precept, "all things transform but nothing
perishes," we must agree that the old Maori
sage who invented the legend knew as much
about the subject as we do. Matter does
not perish, that is to say it does not lose
the qualities which can be perceived by the
senses. Spirit, on the contrary, and light,
this "spiritual matter," are subject to trans
formation. There is night and there is
death, when the eyes close, from which

112 NOA NOA
light seemed to radiate and to reflect.
Spirit, or rather the highest actual mani
festation of spirit, is man. "Man must die
. . . he dies never to rise again. . . . And
man should die." But even when man and
the earth, these fruits of the union of Taaroa
and Hina, have perished, Taaroa himself
will remain eternal, and we are told that
Hina, matter, will also continue to be.
There will then necessarily be present
throughout all eternity spirit and matter,
light and the object which it strives to illum
ine. They will be urged on with a mutual
desire for a new union from which will arise
a new "state" in the infinite evolution of life.
Evolution! . . . The unity of matter!
. . . Who would have thought to find such
testimony of a high civilization in the concep
tions of former cannibals ? I can with good
conscience say that I have added nothing
to the truth.
It is true that Tehura had no doubts con
cerning these abstractions, but she persisted

NOA NOA 113
in regarding shooting stars as wandering
tupapaiis and genii in distress. In the same
spirit as her ancestors, who thought that
the sky was Taaroa himself and that the
Atuas descended from Taaroa were simul
taneously gods and heavenly bodies, she as
cribed human feelings to the stars. I do not
know in how far these poetic imaginings im
pede the progress of the most positive sci
ence, neither do I know to what point the
highest science would condemn them.
From other points of view it would be
possible to give other interpretations to the
dialogue between Tefatou and Hina: The
counsel of the moon who is feminine might be
the dangerous advice of blind pity and senti
mental weakness. The moon and women,
expressions in the Maori conception for mat
ter, need not know that death alone guards
the secrets of life. Tefatou's reply might
be regarded as the stern, but far-sighted and
disinterested, decree of supremest wisdom,
which knows that the individual manifesta-

114 NOA NOA
tions of actual life must give way before a
higher being in order that it may come and
must sacrifice themselves to it in order that
it may triumph.
In earlier days this response would have
had a much more far-reaching implication
and the import of a national prophecy. A
great spirit of ancient days would have
studied and measured the vitality of his race ;
he would have foreseen the germs of death in
its blood without the possibility of recovery
or rebirth, and he would have said:
Tahiti will die, it will die never to rise
again.

Tehura spoke with a kind of religious
dread of the sect or secret society of the
Areois, which ruled over the islands during
the feudal epoch.
Out of the confused discourse of the child
I disentangle memories of a terrible and
singular institution. I divine a tragic his
tory full of august crimes, but which it is

NOA NOA 115
difficult to penetrate because it is guarded
from the curious by a well kept secret.
After Tehura had told me all she knew
on this subject, I made inquiries wherever
possible. The legendary origin of this famous so
ciety is as follows:
Oro, the son of Taaroa, and after his
father the greatest of the gods, resolved one
day to choose a mate from among the mor
tals. He wished her to be a virgin and beauti
ful, to the end that he might found with her
among the multitude of men a race superior
and favored above all others.
He strode through the seven heavens and
descended upon Paia, a high mountain on the
island of Bora-Bora, where dwelt his sisters,
the goddesses Teouri and Oaaoa.
Oro, transformed into a young warrior,
and his sisters into young girls, set out upon
a journey through the islands to find there
the creature deserving of the kiss of a god.

116 NOA NOA
Oro snatched up the rainbow, and placed
one end upon the summit of Paia and the
other upon the earth; thus the god and the
goddesses passed over valleys and tides.
In the different isles where people
hastened to welcome the fair and magnificent
visitors, the travelers gave marvelous feasts
to which all the women flocked.
And Oro gazed upon them.
But his heart was filled with sadness, for
the god found love, but he did not love.
His glance did not remain long upon any of
the daughters of men ; in not a single one did
he find the virtues and graces of which he
had dreamed.
And after many days had been consumed
in vain search, he decided to return to heaven,
when he saw at Vaitape on the island of
Bora-Bora a young girl of rare beauty bath
ing in the little lake of Avai Aia.
She was tall in stature, and all the fires of
the sun burned and shone in the splendor of

NOA NOA 117
her flesh, while all the magic of love slept in
the night of her hair.
Enchanted, Oro prayed his sisters to speak
to the young girl for him.
He himself retired to the summit of Paia
to await the result of their embassy.
The goddesses in approaching the young
woman saluted her, praised her beauty, and
told her that they came from Avanaii, a place
on Bora-Bora.
"Our brother asks of you whether you will
consent to become his wife."
Vairaumati — for so the young girl was
named — carefully scrutinized the strangers,
and said to them,
"You are not from Avanaii, but that does
not matter. If your brother is a chief, if he
is young and beautiful, let him come.
Vairaumati will be his wife."
Without delay Teouri and Oaaoa as
cended Paia to tell their brother that he was
awaited.

118 NOA NOA
Then Oro, placing the rainbow again as at
first, came down to Vaitape.
Vairaumati had prepared for his reception
a table weighed down with the most beauti
ful fruit, and a couch of the rarest of stuffs
and the finest of mats.
And divine in their grace and strength
they offered service to love under the tamaris
and pandanus, in the forest and on the edge
of the sea. Every morning the god re-
ascended the summit of Paia; every eve
ning he came down again to sleep with
Vairaumati. No other daughter of men henceforth was
permitted to see him in human form.
And always the rainbow extended between
Paia and Vaitape served him as a way of
passage. Many moons had shone and become ex
tinguished, and in the deserted Seven
Heavens no one knew where was the retreat
of Oro. Two other sons of Taaroa, Orotefa
and Oiirtefa, took on human form and set

NOA NOA 119
out to find their brother. For a long time
they wandered hither and thither among the
islands without finding him. Finally, ap
proaching Bora-Bora, they saw the young
god sitting with Vairaumati in the shadow
of a sacred mango-tree.
They marveled at the beauty of the young
woman, and wished to give her presents as
a testimony of their admiration. Orotefa
transformed himself into a sow, and Oiir
tefa into red feathers. Immediately taking
on human form again, the while the sow
and the feathers remained, they approached
the two lovers, bearing these presents in
their hand.
Oro and Vairaumata welcomed the two
august travelers with joy.
That same night the sow threw a litter
of seven. The first of these was reserved for
a later purpose; the second was sacrificed to
the gods; the third was consecrated to hos
pitality and offered to strangers; the fourth
they named Pig of the Hecatomb, in honor

120 NOA NOA
of love; the fifth and the sixth were to be
preserved for the purpose of multiplying the
species until after the first litter; and finally
the seventh was roasted entire on hot-stones
(according to the Maori custom thus divinely
inaugurated) , and then eaten.
The brothers of Oro returned to the
heavens. A few weeks later Vairaumati told Oro
that she was about to become a mother.
Then Oro took the first of the seven pigs
which had been spare.d, and went to Raiatea
to the great marae, the temple of the god,
Vapoa. There he encountered a man, Mahi by
name, to whom he gave the pig, saying,
"Maii maitai oe teinei boiiaa (take this
pig and guard it well) ."
And solemnly the god continued,
"This is the sacred pig. In its blood will
be dyed the league of men who shall spring
from me. For I am father in this world.

NOA NOA 121
These man shall be the Areois. To thee I
give their prerogatives and their name. As
for myself I can no longer stay here."
Mahi sought out the chief of Raiatea, and
told him of the happening. But, as he could
not guard the sacred trust without being the
friend of the chief, he added,
"My name shall be thy name, and thy
name shall be mine."
The chief agreed, and together they took
the name Taramanini.
In the meantime Oro, having returned to
Vairaumati, announced to her that she would
bring forth a son, and commanded she name
him Hoa Tabou te Rai (sacred friend of
the heavens) .
Then he said :
"The fullness of time has come, and I
must leave thee."
Immediately he changed into an immense
pillar of fire, which majestically rose into
the air even above Perirere which is the

122 NOA NOA
highest mountain of Bora-Bora. There he
disappeared from the view of his weeping
wife and the astonished people.
Hoa Tabou te Rai became a great chief,
and did much good toward man. At his
death he was raised to heaven, where Vairaii
mati herself ranked among the goddesses.
Oro may very well have been a wandering
Brahmin who brought to these islands the
doctrine of Brahma to the traces of which in
the Oceanian religion I have already re
ferred. When? . . .
In the purity of this doctrine the Maori
genius had its awakening. Minds capable
of comprehending recognized each other and
became associated for the practice of the
prescribed rites, naturally quite apart from
the common people. More enlightened than
the other men of their race, they soon seized
hold of the religious and political govern
ment of the island. They arrogated to
themselves important prerogatives and es-

NOA NOA 123
tablished a powerful feudal state which was
the most glorious period in the history of the
archipelago. Though apparently they were ignorant of
the art of writing, the Areois nevertheless
were men of learning. They passed entire
nights in reciting scrupulously word by word
the ancient "sayings of the gods." Their
text has now become established, but this
could not have been accomplished except at
the cost of years of assiduous labor. The
Areois alone had access to these sayings of
the gods, and at the most were only per
mitted to add commentaries. It gave them
the security of an intellectual center, the
habit of meditation, the authority of a super
human mission, and a prestige before which
all the others bowed their heads.
There are in our Christian and feudal
Middle Ages very similar institutions, as the
reader knows. For myself I know nothing
more frightful than the religious and mili
tary association, the permanent council of

124 NOA NOA
that period, which rendered judgments in the
name of God and held absolute power over
life and death.
The Areois taught that human sacrifices
are pleasing to the gods, and they themselves
sacrificed in the maraes all their children
save the first-born. This bloody rite was
symbolized by the seven pigs of the legend,
all of which except the first, the "sacred pig,"
were put to death.
Let us not be overhasty in criticizing this
as savagery. This cruel obligation which
many other primitive peoples also had to
obey has deep-lying social and general
causes. Among very prolific races, such as
the Maori race formerly was, unlimited in
crease of the population is a menace to exist
ence itself, both national and personal.
Doubtless life on the islands was easy
enough, and it did not require much effort
to obtain the necessities for subsistence.
But the area was very restricted, and sur
rounded by an immense ocean, impassable to

CONTES BARBARES

NOA NOA 125
frail pirogues. It would soon have been in
sufficient for a people continually increasing.
There would not have been sufficient fish in
the sea, nor sufficient fruit in the forest.
Famine would not have long delayed, and
as always everywhere in the world would
have had cannibalism as a consequence.
To avoid the murder of men, the Maoris
resigned themselves to the killing of children.
Let us note besides that cannibalism was al
ready a custom when the Areois appeared,
and that to combat it and to destroy its
causes they introduced infanticide. One
might say that infanticide already consti
tuted a distinct mitigation in their customs,
even though the sinister humor of this ob
servation might serve as a subject for the
amusement of a vaudevillist. Doubtless the
Areois had to exercise extraordinary energy
to accomplish even this degree of progress.
Probably they were able to achieve it only
by assuming unto themselves in the eyes of
the people all the authority of the gods.

126 NOA NOA
Ultimately infanticide was a potent means
of selection for the race. The terrible right
of primogeniture, which was the right to life
itself, kept the strength of the race intact in
that it protected it from the malign influence
of an exhausted blood. It kept alive fur
thermore in all these children from their
earliest youth a consciousness of unalter
able pride. The primitive force and the last
flower of this pride are what we still admire
in the last scions of a great but dying race.
The constant spectacle and the frequent
return of death was finally an austere but
vivifying doctrine. The warriors learned
to despise pain, and the entire nation ob
tained from it an intense emotional benefit
which preserved it from tropical enervation
and the languor of perpetual idleness. It is
a historic fact that from the day on which
sacrifice was forbidden by law the Maoris be
gan to decline and finally lost all their moral
vitality and physical fruitfulness. Even if
this was not the cause, the coincidence,

NOA NOA 127
at least, remains a subject for thought.
Perhaps the Areois even understood the
deeper virtue and symbolic necessity of sac
rifice. . . .
In the society of the Areois, prostitution
was a sacred duty. We have changed that.
Prostitution has not ceased on Tahiti since
we have heaped upon it the benevolences of
our civilization. On the contrary it pros
pers. It is neither obligatory nor sacred.
It is simply inexcusable and without gran
deur. The religious dignity descended from
father to son, and the initiation began in
infancy. The society was originally divided into
twelve lodges, which had as grand-masters
the twelve first Areois. Then came the dig
nitaries of second rank, and finally the ap
prentices. The different grades were dis
tinguished by special tatoo-markings on the
arms, the sides of the body, the shoulders,
and the ankle-joints.

128 NOA NOA
The Matumua of the Areois is a Maori
scene of ancient times which took place at
the enthronement of the king.
The new ruler leaves the palace dressed in
sumptuous robes, surrounded by the chief
men of the island. The grand-masters of
the Areois precede him with rare feathers in
the hair.
He goes with his train of attendants to the
mara'e. When the priests, waiting on the thresh
old, see him, they proclaim with loud sound
ing of trumpets and drums that the cere
mony has begun.
Then when the king has entered the tem
ple they place a human sacrifice, a corpse,
before the idol of the god.
The king and the priests recite and sing
prayers in unison, whereupon the priest
tears out the two eyes from the sacrifice.
He offers the right eye to the god, and the
left to the king, who opens the mouth as if
to swallow the bloody eye, but the priest

NOA NOA 129
forthwith withdraws it, and places it with
the rest of the body.1
The statue of the god is placed upon a
carved litter borne by the priests. Seated
upon the shoulders of the chief priest, the
king then follows the idol as far as the sea
shore, accompanied by the Areois, as though
he were about to set out on a j ourney . Danc
ing, along the entire way, the priests do not
cease sounding the trumpet and beating the
drum. The multitude follows behind, silently and
reverently. The sacred pirogue undulates gently in a
little bay on the seashore. It has been deco
rated for this ceremony with green branches
and flowers. The idol is first placed aboard.
Then the king is disrobed of his vestments,
and the priests lead him into the sea, where
among the waves the Atuas Mao (god-
sharks) come to caress and lave him.
i It is impossible to misunderstand the symbolic sig
nificance of this rite. It is clearly prohibiton of canni
balism.

130 NOA NOA
Thus consecrated a second time by the kiss
of the sea under the eyes of the god, as he
was the first time in the temple by the god
himself, the king ascends into the pirogue.
There the high priest girds his loins with
the maro oiiroii, and places around his head
the taoii mata. They are the bands of sov
ereignty. Standing upright on the prow of the
sacred pirogue, the king shows himself to the
people. And at this sight the people finally break
their long silence, and everywhere the solemn
cry resounds,
"Ma'eva Arii (long live the king) !"
When the first tumult of joy has sub
sided, the king is placed upon the sacred
couch where just now the idol has been.
Then they take up their way to the marae
again, almost in the same order of procession
in which they came.
The priests again bear the idol. The
chiefs bear the king. They open the proces-

NOA NOA 131
sion again with their music and dancing.
The people follow behind. But now hav
ing given themselves over to joy they cry
continually, "Maeva Arii!"
The idol is solemnly replaced on its altar.
With this the religious ceremony is at an
end, and now the popular celebration begins.
Just as he held communion with the gods
in the temple, and with nature in the sea, so
the king must now hold communion with
his people.1 The king, couched on mats,
now receives the highest homage of the peo
ple. It is the frenzied homage of a savage peo
ple. The entire multitude expresses its love
for a man, and that man is the king.
i It is to be feared that the missionaries by whom the
record of the traditions has been handed down to us have
calumniated the ancestors of their flock on this point as
on many others for a purpose which can easily be divined.
But in spite of all that is brutal, grotesque, and even
repulsive, one must agree that, perhaps, this supreme rite
did not lack a peculiar beauty.

132 NOA NOA
Grandiose even to the point of horror and
terror is this spectacle which is like a dia
logue between a man and the multitude.
To-morrow he will be supreme master, freely
able to dispose over the destinies of those
subject to him, and all the future is his. The
multitude has only this hour.
Men and women, entirely naked, circle
around the king dancing lascivious dances.
They strive to touch certain parts of his
body with certain parts of theirs. It is not
always possible to avoid contacts or to keep
from contamination. The frenzy of the
people increases; it turns into madness.
The peaceful island vibrates with frightful
cries. The falling evening shows the fan
tastic spectacle of a multitude in ecstatic
madness. Suddenly the sound of the sacred trumpet
and drum is heard again.
The homage is at an end, the festival is
over; the signal of retreat has sounded.
Even the most delirious obey, and all sub-

NOA NOA 133
side. There is an abrupt, absolute silence.
The king rises; solemnly and majestically
he reenters the palace, accompanied by his
suite.

Since about a fortnight there have been
swarms of flies which are rare at other times,
and they have become insupportable.
But the Maoris rejoice. The bonitoes
and tunny-fish are coming to the surface.
The flies proclaim that the season for fishing
is at hand, the season of labor. But let us
not forget that on Tahiti work itself is plea
sure. Every one was testing the strength of his
lines and hooks. Women and children with
unusual activity busied themselves in drag
ging nets, or rather long grates of cocoa-
nut leaves, upon the seashore, and the corals
which occupied the sea bottom between the
land and the reefs. By this method certain
small bait-fish of which the tunny-fish are
very fond are caught.

134 NOA NOA
After the preparations have been com
pleted, which takes not less than three weeks,
two large pirogues are tied together and
launched upon the sea. They are furnished
at the prow with a very long rod, which can
be quickly raised by means of two lines fixed
behind. The rod is supplied with a hook
and bait. As soon as a fish has bitten it is
drawn from the water and stored in the boat.
We set out upon the sea on a beautiful
morning — naturally I participated in the
festival— and soon were beyond the line of
reefs. We ventured quite a distance out
into the open sea. I still see a turtle with
the head above water, watching us pass.
The fishermen were in a joyful mood, and
rowed lustily.
We came to a spot which they called
"tunny-hole" where the sea is very deep, op
posite the grottoes of Mara.1
1 This word mara is found in the language of the Bud
dhists, where it signifies death, and by extension sin.

NOA NOA 185
There, it is said, the tunny-fish sleep dur
ing the night at a depth inaccessible to the
sharks. A cloud of sea-birds hovered above the
hole on the alert for tunnies. When one of
the fish appeared the birds dashed down with
unbelievable rapidity, and then rose again
with a ribbon of flesh in the beak.
Thus everywhere in the sea and in the air,
and even in our pirogues carnage is con
templated or carried out.
When I ask my companions why they do
not let a long line down to the bottom of
the "tunny-hole," they reply to me that it
is impossible since it is a sacred place.
"The god of the sea dwells there."
I suspect that there is a legend behind
this, and without difficulty I succeed in get
ting them to tell it to me.
Roiia Hatou, a kind of Tahitian Nep
tune, slept here at the bottom of the sea.

136 NOA NOA
A Maori was once foolhardy enough to
fish here, and his hook caught in the hair of
the god, and the god awoke.
Filled with wrath he rose to the surface
to see who had the temerity to disturb his
sleep. When he saw that the guilty one was
a man, he decided that all the human race
must perish to expiate the impiety of one.
By some mysterious indulgence, however,
the author himself of the crime escaped pun
ishment. The god ordered him to go with all his
family upon Toa Marama, which according
to some is an island or mountain, and accord
ing to others a pirogue or an "ark."
When the fisher and his family had gone
to the designated place, the waters of the
ocean began to rise. Slowly they covered
even the highest mountains, and all the living
perished except those who had taken flight
upon (or in) Toa Marama.
Later they repeopled the islands.1
i This legend is one of the numerous Maori explanations
of the Deluge.

NOA NOA 137
We left the "tunny-hole" behind us, and
the master of the pirogue designated a man
to extend the rod over the sea and cast out
the hook.
We waited long minutes, but not a bite
came. It was now the turn of another oarsman;
this time a magnificent tunny-fish bit and
made the rod bend downward. Four power
ful arms raised it by pulling at the ropes
behind, and the tunny appeared on the
surface. But simultaneously a huge shark
leaped across the waves. He struck a few
times with his terrible teeth, and nothing was
left on the hook except the head.
The master gave a signal. I cast out the
hook. In a very short time we caught an enor
mous tunny. Without paying much atten
tion to it, I heard my companions laughing
and whispering among themselves. Killed
hy blows on the head the animal quivered in
its death agony in the bottom of the boat.

138 NOA NOA
Its body was transformed into a gleaming
many-faceted mirror, sending out the lights
of a thousand fires.
The second time I was lucky again.
Decidedly, the Frenchman brought good
luck. My companions joyously congratu
lated me, insisted that I was a lucky fellow,
and I, quite proud of myself, did not make
denial. But amid all this unanimity of praise, I
distinguished, as at the time of my first ex
ploit, an unexplained whispering and laugh
ter. The fishing continued until evening.
When the store of small bait -fish was ex
hausted, the sun lighted red flames on the
horizon, and our pirogue was laden with ten
magnificent tunny-fish.
They were preparing to return.
While things were being put in order, I
asked one of the young fellows as to the
meaning of the exchange of whispered words
and the laughter which had accompanied my

NOA NOA 139
two captures. He refused to reply. But I
was insistent, knowing very well how little
power of resistance a Maori has and how
quickly he gives in to energetic pressure.
Finally he confided to me. If the fish is
caught with the hook in the lower jaw —
and both my tunnies were thus caught — it
signifies that the vahina is unfaithful dur
ing the tone's absence.
I smiled incredulously.
And we returned.
Night falls quickly in the tropics. It is
important to forestall it. Twenty-two alert
oars dipped and re-dipped simultaneously
into the sea, and to stimulate themselves the
rowers uttered cries in rhythm with their
strokes. Our pirogues left a phosphorescent
wake behind.
I had the sensation of a mad flight. The
angry masters of the ocean were pursuing us.
Around us the frightened and curious fish
leaped like fantastic troupes of indefinite fig
ures.

140 NOA NOA
In two hours we were approaching the
outermost reefs.
The sea beats furiously here, and the pas
sage is dangerous on account of the surf.
It is not an easy maneuver to steer the
pirogue correctly. But the natives are
skillful. Much interested and not entirely
without fear I followed the operation which
was executed perfectly.
The land ahead of us was illumined with
moving fires. They were enormous torches
made of the dry branches of the cocoanut-
trees. It was a magnificent picture. The
families of the fishermen were awaiting us
on the sand on the edge of the illumined
water. Some of the figures remained seated
and motionless; others ran along the shore
waving the torches; the children leaped
hither and thither and their shrill cries could
be heard from afar.
With powerful movement the pirogue ran
up on the sand.

GIRLS UNDER TREES

NOA NOA 141
Immediately they proceeded to the divi
sion of the booty.
All the fish were laid on the ground, and
the master divided them into as many equal
parts as there were persons — men, women,
and children — who had taken part in the
fishing for the tunnies or in the catching of
the little fish used for bait.
There were thirty-seven parts.
Without loss of time, my vahina took the
hatchet, split some wood, and lighted the
fire while I was changing clothes and put
ting on some wraps on account of the eve
ning chill.
One of our two parts was cooked; her
own Tehura put away raw.
Then she asked me fully about the vari
ous happenings of the day, and I willingly
satisfied her curiosity. With child-like con
tentment she took pleasure in everything,
and I watched her without letting her sus
pect the secret thoughts which were occupy-

142 NOA NOA
ing me. Deep down within me without any
plausible cause, a feeling of disquietude had
awakened which it was no longer possible
to calm. I was burning to put a certain
question to Tehura, a certain question . . .
and it was vain for me to ask of myself,
"To what good?" I, myself, replied, "Who
knows?" The hour of going to bed had come, and,
when we were both stretched out side by side,
I suddenly asked,
"Have you been sensible?"
"Yes.""And your lover to-day, was he to your
liking?" "I have no lover."
"You lie. The fish has spoken."
Tehura raised herself and looked fixedly
at me. Her face had imprinted upon it an
extraordinary expression of mysticism and
majesty and strange grandeur with which I
was unfamiliar and which I would never have

NOA NOA 143
expected to see in her naturally joyous and
still almost child-like face.
The atmosphere in our little hut was trans
formed. I felt that something sublime had
risen up between us. In spite of myself I
yielded to the influence of Faith, and I was
waiting for a message from above. I did
not doubt that this message would come;
but the sterile vanity of our skepticism still
had its influence over me, in spite of the
glowing sureness of a faith like this rooted
though it was in some superstition or other.
Tehura softly crept to our door to make
sure that it was tightly shut, and having
come back as far as the center of the room
she spoke aloud this prayer:
Save me! Save me!
It is evening, it is evening of the Gods!
Watch close over me, Oh my God!
Watch over me, Oh my Lord!
Preserve me from enchantments and evil
counsels.
Preserve me from sudden death,

144 NOA NOA
And from those who send evil and curses;
Guard me from quarrels over the division
of the lands,
That peace may reign about us!
Oh my God, protect me from raging war
riors!
Protect me from him who in erring threat
ens me,
Who takes pleasure in making me tremble,
Against him whose hairs are always brist
ling!
To the end that I and my soid may live,
Oh my God!
That evening, I verily joined in prayer
with Tehura.
When she had finished her prayer, she
came over to me and said with her eyes full
of tears,
"You must strike me, strike me many,
many times."
In the profound expression of this face
and in the perfect beauty of this statue of
living flesh, I had a vision of the divinity

NOA NOA 145
herself who had been conjured up by Te
hura. Let my hands be eternally cursed if they
will raise themselves against a masterpiece of
nature !
Thus naked, the eyes tranquil in the tears,
she seemed to me robed in a mantle of
orange-yellow purity, in the orange-yellow
mantle of Bhixu.
She repeated,
"You must strike me, strike me many,
many times ; otherwise you will be angry for
a long time and you will be sick."
I kissed her.
And now that I love without suspicion and
love her as much as I admire her, I murmur
these words of Buddha to myself,
"By kindness you must conquer anger;
by goodness evil; and by the truth lies."
That night was divine, more than any of
the others — and the day rose radiant.
Early in the morning her mother brought
us some fresh cocoanuts.

146 NOA NOA
With a glance she questioned Tehura.
She knew.
With a fine play of expression, she said
to me,
"You went fishing yesterday. Did all go
well?" I replied,
"I hope soon to go again."

*
* *

I was compelled to return to France.
Imperative family affairs called me back.
Farewell, hospitable land, land of de
lights, home of liberty and beauty!
I am leaving, older by two years, but
twenty years younger ; more barbarian than
when I arrived, and yet much wiser.
Yes, indeed, the savages have taught many
things to the man of an old civilization ; these
ignorant men have taught him much in the
art of living and happiness.
Above all, they have taught me to know

NOA NOA 147
myself better; they have told me the deep
est truth.
Was this thy secret, thou mysterious
world? Oh mysterious world of all light,
thou hast made a light shine within me, and
I have grown in admiration of thy antique
beauty, which is the immemorial youth of
nature. I have become better for having
understood and having loved thy human soul
— a flower which has ceased to bloom and
whose fragrance no one henceforth will
breathe. As I left the quay, at the moment of go
ing on board, I saw Tehura for the last time.
She had wept through many nights.
Now she sat worn-out and sad, but calm, on
a stone with her legs hanging down and her
strong, lithe feet touching the soiled water.
The flower which she had put behind
the ear in the morning had fallen wilted
upon her knee.
Here and there were others like her, tired,

148 NOA NOA
silent, gloomy, watching without a thought
the thick smoke of the ship which was bear
ing all of us— lovers of a day — far away,
forever. From the bridge of the ship as we were
moving farther and farther away, it seemed
to us that with the telescope we could still
read on their lips these ancient Maori verses,
Ye gentle breezes of the south and east
That join in tender play above my head,
Hasten to the neighboring isle.
There you will find in the shadow of his
favorite tree,
Him who has abandoned me.
Tell him that you have seen me weep.

THE END

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