Book: Ballads
R >>
Robert Louis Stevenson >> Ballads
But the mother of Tamatea threw her arms abroad,
"Pyre of my son," she shouted, 'debited vengeance of God,
Late, late, I behold you, yet I behold you at last,
And glory, beholding! For now are the days of my agony past,
The lust that famished my soul now eats and drinks its desire,
And they that encompassed my son shrivel alive in the fire.
Tenfold precious the vengeance that comes after lingering years!
Ye quenched the voice of my singer?--hark, in your dying ears,
The song of the conflagration! Ye left me a widow alone?
- Behold, the whole of your race consumes, sinew and bone
And torturing flesh together: man, mother, and maid
Heaped in a common shambles; and already, borne by the trade,
The smoke of your dissolution darkens the stars of night."
Thus she spoke, and her stature grew in the people's sight.
III. RAHERO
Rahero was there in the hall asleep: beside him his wife,
Comely, a mirthful woman, one that delighted in life;
And a girl that was ripe for marriage, shy and sly as a mouse;
And a boy, a climber of trees: all the hopes of his house.
Unwary, with open hands, he slept in the midst of his folk,
And dreamed that he heard a voice crying without, and awoke,
Leaping blindly afoot like one from a dream that he fears.
A hellish glow and clouds were about him;--it roared in his ears
Like the sound of the cataract fall that plunges sudden and steep;
And Rahero swayed as he stood, and his reason was still asleep.
Now the flame struck hard on the house, wind-wielded, a fracturing blow,
And the end of the roof was burst and fell on the sleepers below;
And the lofty hall, and the feast, and the prostrate bodies of folk,
Shone red in his eyes a moment, and then were swallowed of smoke.
In the mind of Rahero clearness came; and he opened his throat;
And as when a squall comes sudden, the straining sail of a boat
Thunders aloud and bursts, so thundered the voice of the man.
- "The wind and the rain!" he shouted, the mustering word of the clan, {1n}
And "up!" and "to arms men of Vaiau!" But silence replied,
Or only the voice of the gusts of the fire, and nothing beside.
Rahero stooped and groped. He handled his womankind,
But the fumes of the fire and the kava had quenched the life of their mind,
And they lay like pillars prone; and his hand encountered the boy,
And there sprang in the gloom of his soul a sudden lightning of joy.
"Him can I save!" he thought, "if I were speedy enough."
And he loosened the cloth from his loins, and swaddled the child in the
stuff;
And about the strength of his neck he knotted the burden well.
There where the roof had fallen, it roared like the mouth of hell.
Thither Rahero went, stumbling on senseless folk,
And grappled a post of the house, and began to climb in the smoke:
The last alive of Vaiau; and the son borne by the sire.
The post glowed in the grain with ulcers of eating fire,
And the fire bit to the blood and mangled his hands and thighs;
And the fumes sang in his head like wine and stung in his eyes;
And still he climbed, and came to the top, the place of proof,
And thrust a hand through the flame, and clambered alive on the roof.
But even as he did so, the wind, in a garment of flames and pain,
Wrapped him from head to heel; and the waistcloth parted in twain;
And the living fruit of his loins dropped in the fire below.
About the blazing feast-house clustered the eyes of the foe,
Watching, hand upon weapon, lest ever a soul should flee,
Shading the brow from the glare, straining the neck to see
Only, to leeward, the flames in the wind swept far and wide,
And the forest sputtered on fire; and there might no man abide.
Thither Rahero crept, and dropped from the burning eaves,
And crouching low to the ground, in a treble covert of leaves
And fire and volleying smoke, ran for the life of his soul
Unseen; and behind him under a furnace of ardent coal,
Cairned with a wonder of flame, and blotting the night with smoke,
Blazed and were smelted together the bones of all his folk.
He fled unguided at first; but hearing the breakers roar,
Thitherward shaped his way, and came at length to the shore.
Sound-limbed he was: dry-eyed; but smarted in every part;
And the mighty cage of his ribs heaved on his straining heart
With sorrow and rage. And "Fools!" he cried, "fools of Vaiau,
Heads of swine--gluttons--Alas! and where are they now?
Those that I played with, those that nursed me, those that I nursed?
God, and I outliving them! I, the least and the worst -
I, that thought myself crafty, snared by this herd of swine,
In the tortures of hell and desolate, stripped of all that was mine:
All!--my friends and my fathers--the silver heads of yore
That trooped to the council, the children that ran to the open door
Crying with innocent voices and clasping a father's knees!
And mine, my wife--my daughter--my sturdy climber of trees
Ah, never to climb again!"
Thus in the dusk of the night,
(For clouds rolled in the sky and the moon was swallowed from sight,)
Pacing and gnawing his fists, Rahero raged by the shore.
Vengeance: that must be his. But much was to do before;
And first a single life to be snatched from a deadly place,
A life, the root of revenge, surviving plant of the race:
And next the race to be raised anew, and the lands of the clan
Repeopled. So Rahero designed, a prudent man
Even in wrath, and turned for the means of revenge and escape:
A boat to be seized by stealth, a wife to be taken by rape.
Still was the dark lagoon; beyond on the coral wall,
He saw the breakers shine, he heard them bellow and fall.
Alone, on the top of the reef, a man with a flaming brand
Walked, gazing and pausing, a fish-spear poised in his hand.
The foam boiled to his calf when the mightier breakers came,
And the torch shed in the wind scattering tufts of flame.
Afar on the dark lagoon a canoe lay idly at wait:
A figure dimly guiding it: surely the fisherman's mate.
Rahero saw and he smiled. He straightened his mighty thews:
Naked, with never a weapon, and covered with scorch and bruise,
He straightened his arms, he filled the void of his body with breath,
And, strong as the wind in his manhood, doomed the fisher to death.
Silent he entered the water, and silently swam, and came
There where the fisher walked, holding on high the flame.
Loud on the pier of the reef volleyed the breach of the sea;
And hard at the back of the man, Rahero crept to his knee
On the coral, and suddenly sprang and seized him, the elder hand
Clutching the joint of his throat, the other snatching the brand
Ere it had time to fall, and holding it steady and high.
Strong was the fisher, brave, and swift of mind and of eye -
Strongly he threw in the clutch; but Rahero resisted the strain,
And jerked, and the spine of life snapped with a crack in twain,
And the man came slack in his hands and tumbled a lump at his feet.
One moment: and there, on the reef, where the breakers whitened and beat,
Rahero was standing alone, glowing and scorched and bare,
A victor unknown of any, raising the torch in the air.
But once he drank of his breath, and instantly set him to fish
Like a man intent upon supper at home and a savoury dish.
For what should the woman have seen? A man with a torch--and then
A moment's blur of the eyes--and a man with a torch again.
And the torch had scarcely been shaken. "Ah, surely," Rahero said,
"She will deem it a trick of the eyes, a fancy born in the head;
But time must be given the fool to nourish a fool's belief."
So for a while, a sedulous fisher, he walked the reef,
Pausing at times and gazing, striking at times with the spear:
- Lastly, uttered the call; and even as the boat drew near,
Like a man that was done with its use, tossed the torch in the sea.
Lightly he leaped on the boat beside the woman; and she
Lightly addressed him, and yielded the paddle and place to sit;
For now the torch was extinguished the night was black as the pit
Rahero set him to row, never a word he spoke,
And the boat sang in the water urged by his vigorous stroke.
- "What ails you?" the woman asked, "and why did you drop the brand?
We have only to kindle another as soon as we come to land."
Never a word Rahero replied, but urged the canoe.
And a chill fell on the woman.--"Atta! speak! is it you?
Speak! Why are you silent? Why do you bend aside?
Wherefore steer to the seaward?" thus she panted and cried.
Never a word from the oarsman, toiling there in the dark;
But right for a gate of the reef he silently headed the bark,
And wielding the single paddle with passionate sweep on sweep,
Drove her, the little fitted, forth on the open deep.
And fear, there where she sat, froze the woman to stone:
Not fear of the crazy boat and the weltering deep alone;
But a keener fear of the night, the dark, and the ghostly hour,
And the thing that drove the canoe with more than a mortal's power
And more than a mortal's boldness. For much she knew of the dead
That haunt and fish upon reefs, toiling, like men, for bread,
And traffic with human fishers, or slay them and take their ware,
Till the hour when the star of the dead {1o} goes down, and the morning air
Blows, and the cocks are singing on shore. And surely she knew
The speechless thing at her side belonged to the grave. {1p}
It blew
All night from the south; all night, Rahero contended and kept
The prow to the cresting sea; and, silent as though she slept,
The woman huddled and quaked. And now was the peep of day.
High and long on their left the mountainous island lay;
And over the peaks of Taiarapu arrows of sunlight struck.
On shore the birds were beginning to sing: the ghostly ruck
Of the buried had long ago returned to the covered grave;
And here on the sea, the woman, waxing suddenly brave,
Turned her swiftly about and looked in the face of the man.
And sure he was none that she knew, none of her country or clan:
A stranger, mother-naked, and marred with the marks of fire,
But comely and great of stature, a man to obey and admire.
And Rahero regarded her also, fixed, with a frowning face,
Judging the woman's fitness to mother a warlike race.
Broad of shoulder, ample of girdle, long in the thigh,
Deep of bosom she was, and bravely supported his eye.
"Woman," said he, "last night the men of your folk -
Man, woman, and maid, smothered my race in smoke.
It was done like cowards; and I, a mighty man of my hands,
Escaped, a single life; and now to the empty lands
And smokeless hearths of my people, sail, with yourself, alone.
Before your mother was born, the die of to-day was thrown
And you selected:- your husband, vainly striving, to fall
Broken between these hands:- yourself to be severed from all,
The places, the people, you love--home, kindred, and clan -
And to dwell in a desert and bear the babes of a kinless man."
NOTES TO THE SONG OF RAHERO
INTRODUCTION.--This tale, of which I have not consciously changed a single
feature, I received from tradition. It is highly popular through all the
country of the eight Tevas, the clan to which Rahero belonged; and
particularly in Taiarapu, the windward peninsula of Tahiti, where he lived.
I have heard from end to end two versions; and as many as five different
persons have helped me with details. There seems no reason why the tale
should not be true.
{1a} "The aito," quasi champion, or brave. One skilled in the use of some
weapon, who wandered the country challenging distinguished rivals and taking
part in local quarrels. It was in the natural course of his advancement to
be at last employed by a chief, or king; and it would then be a part of his
duties to purvey the victim for sacrifice. One of the doomed families was
indicated; the aito took his weapon and went forth alone; a little behind him
bearers followed with the sacrificial basket. Sometimes the victim showed
fight, sometimes prevailed; more often, without doubt, he fell. But whatever
body was found, the bearers indifferently took up.
{1b} "Pai," "Honoura," and "Ahupu." Legendary persons of Tahiti, all
natives of Taiarapu. Of the first two, I have collected singular although
imperfect legends, which I hope soon to lay before the public in another
place. Of Ahupu, except in snatches of song, little memory appears to
linger. She dwelt at least about Tepari,--"the sea-cliffs,"--the eastern
fastness of the isle; walked by paths known only to herself upon the
mountains; was courted by dangerous suitors who came swimming from adjacent
islands, and defended and rescued (as I gather) by the loyalty of native
fish. My anxiety to learn more of "Ahupu Vehine" became (during my stay in
Taiarapu) a cause of some diversion to that mirthful people, the inhabitants.
{1c} "Covered an oven." The cooking fire is made in a hole in the ground,
and is then buried.
{1d} "Flies." This is perhaps an anachronism. Even speaking of to-day in
Tahiti, the phrase would have to be understood as referring mainly to
mosquitoes, and these only in watered valleys with close woods, such as I
suppose to form the surroundings of Rahero's homestead. Quarter of a mile
away, where the air moves freely, you shall look in vain for one.
{1e} "Hook" of mother-of-pearl. Bright-hook fishing, and that with the
spear, appear to be the favourite native methods.
{1f} "Leaves," the plates of Tahiti.
{1g} "Yottowas," so spelt for convenience of pronunciation, quasi Tacksmen
in the Scottish Highlands. The organisation of eight subdistricts and eight
yottowas to a division, which was in use (until yesterday) among the Tevas, I
have attributed without authority to the next clan: see page 33.
{1h} "Omare," pronounce as a dactyl. A loaded quarter-staff, one of the two
favourite weapons of the Tahitian brave; the javelin, or casting spear, was
the other.
{1i} "The ribbon of light." Still to be seen (and heard) spinning from one
marae to another on Tahiti; or so I have it upon evidence that would rejoice
the Psychical Society.
{1j} "Namunu-ura." The complete name is Namunu-ura te aropa. Why it should
be pronounced Namunu, dactyllically, I cannot see, but so I have always heard
it. This was the clan immediately beyond the Tevas on the south coast of the
island. At the date of the tale the clan organisation must have been very
weak. There is no particular mention of Tamatea's mother going to Papara, to
the head chief of her own clan, which would appear her natural recourse. On
the other hand, she seems to have visited various lesser chiefs among the
Tevas, and these to have excused themselves solely on the danger of the
enterprise. The broad distinction here drawn between Nateva and Namunu-ura
is therefore not impossibly anachronistic.
{1k} "Hiopa the king." Hiopa was really the name of the king (chief) of
Vaiau; but I could never learn that of the king of Paea--pronounce to rhyme
with the Indian ayah--and I gave the name where it was most needed. This
note must appear otiose indeed to readers who have never heard of either of
these two gentlemen; and perhaps there is only one person in the world
capable at once of reading my verses and spying the inaccuracy. For him, for
Mr. Tati Salmon, hereditary high chief of the Tevas, the note is solely
written: a small attention from a clansman to his chief.
{1l} "Let the pigs be tapu." It is impossible to explain tapu in a note; we
have it as an English word, taboo. Suffice it, that a thing which was tapu
must not be touched, nor a place that was tapu visited.
{1m} "Fish, the food of desire." There is a special word in the Tahitian
language to signify HUNGERING AFTER FISH. I may remark that here is one of
my chief difficulties about the whole story. How did king, commons, women,
and all come to eat together at this feast? But it troubled none of my
numerous authorities; so there must certainly be some natural explanation.
{1n} "The mustering word of the clan."
Teva te ua,
Teva te matai!
Teva the wind,
Teva the rain !
{1o} "The star of the dead." Venus as a morning star. I have collected
much curious evidence as to this belief. The dead retain their taste for a
fish diet, enter into copartnery with living fishers, and haunt the reef and
the lagoon. The conclusion attributed to the nameless lady of the legend
would be reached to-day, under the like circumstances, by ninety per cent of
Polynesians: and here I probably understate by one-tenth.
{1p} See note "1o" above.
THE FEAST OF FAMINE
MARQUESAN MANNERS
I. THE PRIEST'S VIGIL
In all the land of the tribe was neither fish nor fruit,
And the deepest pit of popoi stood empty to the foot. {2a}
The clans upon the left and the clans upon the right
Now oiled their carven maces and scoured their daggers bright;
They gat them to the thicket, to the deepest of the shade,
And lay with sleepless eyes in the deadly ambuscade.
And oft in the starry even the song of morning rose,
What time the oven smoked in the country of their foes;
For oft to loving hearts, and waiting ears and sight,
The lads that went to forage returned not with the night.
Now first the children sickened, and then the women paled,
And the great arms of the warrior no more for war availed.
Hushed was the deep drum, discarded was the dance;
And those that met the priest now glanced at him askance.
The priest was a man of years, his eyes were ruby-red, {2b}
He neither feared the dark nor the terrors of the dead,
He knew the songs of races, the names of ancient date;
And the beard upon his bosom would have bought the chief's estate.
He dwelt in a high-built lodge, hard by the roaring shore,
Raised on a noble terrace and with tikis {2c} at the door.
Within it was full of riches, for he served his nation well,
And full of the sound of breakers, like the hollow of a shell.
For weeks he let them perish, gave never a helping sign,
But sat on his oiled platform to commune with the divine,
But sat on his high terrace, with the tikis by his side,
And stared on the blue ocean, like a parrot, ruby-eyed.
Dawn as yellow as sulphur leaped on the mountain height:
Out on the round of the sea the gems of the morning light,
Up from the round of the sea the streamers of the sun; -
But down in the depths of the valley the day was not begun.
In the blue of the woody twilight burned red the cocoa-husk,
And the women and men of the clan went forth to bathe in the dusk,
A word that began to go round, a word, a whisper, a start:
Hope that leaped in the bosom, fear that knocked on the heart:
"See, the priest is not risen--look, for his door is fast!
He is going to name the victims; he is going to help us at last."
Thrice rose the sun to noon; and ever, like one of the dead,
The priest lay still in his house with the roar of the sea in his head;
There was never a foot on the floor, there was never a whisper of speech;
Only the leering tikis stared on the blinding beach.
Again were the mountains fired, again the morning broke;
And all the houses lay still, but the house of the priest awoke.
Close in their covering roofs lay and trembled the clan,
But the aged, red-eyed priest ran forth like a lunatic man;
And the village panted to see him in the jewels of death again,
In the silver beards of the old and the hair of women slain.
Frenzy shook in his limbs, frenzy shone in his eyes,
And still and again as he ran, the valley rang with his cries.
All day long in the land, by cliff and thicket and den,
He ran his lunatic rounds, and howled for the flesh of men;
All day long he ate not, nor ever drank of the brook;
And all day long in their houses the people listened and shook -
All day long in their houses they listened with bated breath,
And never a soul went forth, for the sight of the priest was death.
Three were the days of his running, as the gods appointed of yore,
Two the nights of his sleeping alone in the place of gore:
The drunken slumber of frenzy twice he drank to the lees,
On the sacred stones of the High-place under the sacred trees;
With a lamp at his ashen head he lay in the place of the feast,
And the sacred leaves of the banyan rustled around the priest.
Last, when the stated even fell upon terrace and tree,
And the shade of the lofty island lay leagues away to sea,
And all the valleys of verdure were heavy with manna and musk,
The wreck of the red-eyed priest came gasping home in the dusk.
He reeled across the village, he staggered along the shore,
And between the leering tikis crept groping through his door.
There went a stir through the lodges, the voice of speech awoke;
Once more from the builded platforms arose the evening smoke.
And those who were mighty in war, and those renowned for an art
Sat in their stated seats and talked of the morrow apart.
II. THE LOVERS
Hark! away in the woods--for the ears of love are sharp -
Stealthily, quietly touched, the note of the one-stringed harp. {2d}
In the lighted house of her father, why should Taheia start?
Taheia heavy of hair, Taheia tender of heart,
Taheia the well-descended, a bountiful dealer in love,
Nimble of foot like the deer, and kind of eye like the dove?
Sly and shy as a cat, with never a change of face,
Taheia slips to the door, like one that would breathe a space;
Saunters and pauses, and looks at the stars, and lists to the seas;
Then sudden and swift as a cat, she plunges under the trees.
Swift as a cat she runs, with her garment gathered high,
Leaping, nimble of foot, running, certain of eye;
And ever to guide her way over the smooth and the sharp,
Ever nearer and nearer the note of the one-stringed harp;
Till at length, in a glade of the wood, with a naked mountain above,
The sound of the harp thrown down, and she in the arms of her love.
"Rua,"--"Taheia," they cry--"my heart, my soul, and my eyes,"
And clasp and sunder and kiss, with lovely laughter and sighs,
"Rua!"--"Taheia, my love,"--"Rua, star of my night,
Clasp me, hold me, and love me, single spring of delight."
And Rua folded her close, he folded her near and long,
The living knit to the living, and sang the lover's song:
Night, night it is, night upon the palms.
Night, night it is, the land wind has blown.
Starry, starry night, over deep and height;
Love, love in the valley, love all alone.
"Taheia, heavy of hair, a foolish thing have we done,
To bind what gods have sundered unkindly into one.
Why should a lowly lover have touched Taheia's skirt,
Taheia the well-descended, and Rua child of the dirt?"
"--On high with the haka-ikis my father sits in state,
Ten times fifty kinsmen salute him in the gate;
Round all his martial body, and in bands across his face,
The marks of the tattooer proclaim his lofty place.
I too, in the hands of the cunning, in the sacred cabin of palm, {2e}
Have shrunk like the mimosa, and bleated like the lamb;
Round half my tender body, that none shall clasp but you,
For a crest and a fair adornment go dainty lines of blue.
Love, love, beloved Rua, love levels all degrees,
And the well-tattooed Taheia clings panting to your knees."
"--Taheia, song of the morning, how long is the longest love?
A cry, a clasp of the hands, a star that falls from above!
Ever at morn in the blue, and at night when all is black,
Ever it skulks and trembles with the hunter, Death, on its track.
Hear me, Taheia, death! For to-morrow the priest shall awake,
And the names be named of the victims to bleed for the nation's sake;
And first of the numbered many that shall be slain ere noon,
Rua the child of the dirt, Rua the kinless loon.
For him shall the drum be beat, for him be raised the song,
For him to the sacred High-place the chaunting people throng,
For him the oven smoke as for a speechless beast,
And the sire of my Taheia come greedy to the feast."
"Rua, be silent, spare me. Taheia closes her ears.
Pity my yearning heart, pity my girlish years!
Flee from the cruel hands, flee from the knife and coal,
Lie hid in the deeps of the woods, Rua, sire of my soul!"
"Whither to flee, Taheia, whither in all of the land?
The fires of the bloody kitchen are kindled on every hand;
On every hand in the isle a hungry whetting of teeth,
Eyes in the trees above, arms in the brush beneath.
Patience to lie in wait, cunning to follow the sleuth,
Abroad the foes I have fought, and at home the friends of my youth."
"Love, love, beloved Rua, love has a clearer eye,
Hence from the arms of love you go not forth to die.
There, where the broken mountain drops sheer into the glen,
There shall you find a hold from the boldest hunter of men;
There, in the deep recess, where the sun falls only at noon,
And only once in the night enters the light of the moon,
Nor ever a sound but of birds, or the rain when it falls with a shout;
For death and the fear of death beleaguer the valley about.
Tapu it is, but the gods will surely pardon despair;
Tapu, but what of that? If Rua can only dare.
Tapu and tapu and tapu, I know they are every one right;
But the god of every tapu is not always quick to smite.
Lie secret there, my Rua, in the arms of awful gods,
Sleep in the shade of the trees on the couch of the kindly sods,
Sleep and dream of Taheia, Taheia will wake for you;
And whenever the land wind blows and the woods are heavy with dew,
Alone through the horror of night, {2f} with food for the soul of her love,
Taheia the undissuaded will hurry true as the dove."