Читать книгу The Far Lands - James Norman Hall - Страница 6

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I tell the story of our ancestors of the Tongan Clan from the time when they reached the Land of Kurapo. The Tongans were only a small part of the great race that lived ages ago in a land far to the west of the Sea of Kiwa. No memory of that time remains except the names of the land. By some it was called Hawaiki; by others, Irihia. Why our people left it and when, even the earliest of the legends do not say, but it is believed that, fifty generations ago, they had come to the western borders of the Sea of Kiwa and were moving out upon it. And so they became a scattered people, tribe lost to tribe and clan to clan. Some vanished in one direction, some in another, but as far back as memory goes the Tongans had sailed in the direction of the rising sun, searching for the Far Lands of Maui; for they were lovers of peace and those lands had been promised them by Tané, the god whom they worshiped. At the time of this story the search had brought them to the Land of Kurapo.

Of the voyage which ended there nothing is known except that they sailed from a land far to the west, in nine ships carrying more than eight hundred persons. Three of these ships were lost on the voyage. Two others, whether lost or not, became separated from the fleet and were seen no more. In the four ships that reached Kurapo were four hundred and twenty persons, counting an infant born at sea on the day the land was sighted, but this child, with its mother, died on the evening of that day.

These few in the four ships approached the land but could not reach it because their last strength was gone. Not a score of them could stand and they, half crazed by thirst, doubted that land was there. It is told how Téaro, high chief of the Tongans,^[1] clung to the mast of his ship to view the faint blue outlines against the eastern horizon; then, even as he looked, the land blurred and faded before his eyes and he believed that only the empty sea lay before them.

Téaro remembered nothing more until it was deep night. The land heaved and rocked beneath him, but it was land, not the sea. He lay on a mat and his people near him, many at the point of death, and some of the weakest did not live through the night. By the light of fires on the beach and torches that seemed to be moving of themselves from place to place, Téaro saw his ships riding at anchor in the lagoon. A great crowd was gathered there; he heard the murmur of many voices and felt cool sweet water poured between his lips and spilling over his bare chest; but he did not know if this were water in very truth or the dream of it that comes to mock the last moments of a dying man. Then came sleep, and when once more he opened his eyes it was the afternoon of the following day.

So it was that these Tongans reached Kurapo, as their ancestors, sailing eastward over the Sea of Kiwa, had found other lands; and here, as had happened before, they were not the first to reach it. The people of Kurapo were a clan called the Koros because they worshiped Koro, the god of war. Their numbers were above three thousand; they had lived long in this land, and their villages were in two valleys that opened upon the lagoons of the western side. Vaitangi was their high chief, and the priest of Koro was named Puaka.

The Tongan chiefs who lived to reach Kurapo were Téaro, the high chief; Rata, his brother; Métua, the priest of Tané; and three others, Tavaké, Tuahu, and Paoto. Maéva, wife of Téaro, survived, but they had lost two of their children; there remained Tauhéré, a daughter of eight years, and their small son, Maui, whose story is to be told here. At this time Maui was an infant of two years, and, with his mother, was near to death when the ships were brought to land by the Koros. His life was saved by the daughter-in-law of Vaitangi, high chief of the Koros: she suckled Maui with an infant daughter of her own, then three months old. This child was named Hina.

Ten days passed while the Tongans recovered their strength. They were lodged in the House of Strangers, and Vaitangi showed them nothing but kindness. Thanks to the care of Hina’s mother, who had fed him at her breast, Maui was soon strong and full of health; but his own mother recovered slowly. The Tongans were deeply grateful, but their hearts were troubled, not knowing how matters would go with them when the time came for telling who they were.

Now came the meeting of ceremony between Vaitangi and Téaro, when the first questions are asked of strangers and the answers given. Téaro knew what he would say, for never did the Tongans fail to speak boldly of the god they worshiped, let come what might.

The assembly ground of the Koros lay by the river. It was three hundred paces long by one hundred wide. The council house of the ariki was there, but this meeting was held in the open. Vaitangi, with Puaka, priest of Koro, and all the lesser chiefs of the Koros, awaited the coming of Téaro. Vaitangi was sixty years old at this time. He was a man of great dignity, courteous in manner and slow to anger. Puaka, priest of Koro, was forty-five; huge in stature, with an evil face, and the arrogance common to priests of Koro whose power is great by reason of their office, sometimes exceeding that of the high chief himself. The older chiefs of the Koros were loyal to Vaitangi, but the younger ones, the warriors, looked to Puaka for leadership. Around three sides of the assembly ground thronged the people of the Koro Clan. At the far end stood the Tongans, so small a group in that great company.

Now came Téaro with Métua, priest of Tané, and the four lesser chiefs of the Tongans. They walked the full length of the assembly ground, while the Koros enclosing it looked on in silence. They halted before the Koro chiefs, and when the greetings were ended Vaitangi rose from his seat and stood facing Téaro.

He said: “Whence do you come? What is your lineage, and where is the marae of your ancestors?”

Then Téaro spoke. Step by step, generation by generation, he followed the road back to the far source of his blood. Long was the telling, but Vaitangi and his chiefs listened with deep attention; for when clans of our race chanced to meet after long separation from the time when we became a scattered people, it was a matter of great importance to know from what ancestors their chiefs were descended.

At last Téaro said: “And now I come to the sacred founder of my line, whose blood flows in my veins: Maui-Ataranga.”

Nothing could have favored the Tongans more than their high chief’s recital of so proud a lineage, for few could claim descent from nobler ancestors. Maui-Ataranga was among the earliest of the ariki who came after the age of the demigods. What favored them even more was that Vaitangi himself was descended from a collateral branch of that same family. His clan, like the Tongans, had once been lovers of peace and worshipers of Tané, but many generations earlier they had renounced their allegiance and had become followers of Koro, god of war.

Then Vaitangi said: “Long has it been since any word has come of the Tongans. It was believed that the last of your clan had perished.”

Téaro said: “We Tongans shall never perish.”

“And you still seek the Far Lands of Maui?”

“We do,” said Téaro.

Vaitangi let his glance rest upon Métua. “This chief and no other must be your priest of Tané.” Métua inclined his head, without speaking. He was even then an old man, but with undiminished vigor of body and mind. He was tall and spare of frame, and in the sunlight his white hair seemed to radiate a faint light. His father, grandfather and great-grandfather had been priests of Tané, leaders and teachers of the Tongans—men of serene courage and unshakable faith.

“You seem to me a brave but foolish people who learn nothing by experience,” said Vaitangi. “What would you do now?”

“If there is room for us we would gladly stay in this land,” Téaro replied. “We would build up our strength and our numbers before proceeding once more on our quest.”

“We have land here and to spare,” said Vaitangi.

Puaka, priest of Koro, now spoke. “We have land in good measure, but none for the worshipers of Tané.”

Vaitangi glanced quietly at his priest. “Do you think Koro so weak that he need fear Tané and these few who worship him? They shall stay here as I have said.”

“Then they shall first acknowledge that the power of Tané is nothing, compared with that of Koro,” said Puaka.

Rata and Paoto turned toward their chief as though they would counsel him to make this acknowledgment, but Téaro was looking at the priest.

“That we cannot do,” he said, and now was the moment he feared, for this was a bold and trouble-stirring thing to have said. A murmur of anger was heard among the younger of the Koro chiefs; but as no one spoke, Téaro added: “If you tell us that we must go, we ask only that we may be allowed to go peaceably, with time given us to repair and provision our ships.

“You would sail on eastward?” Vaitangi asked.

“If we must go—yes.”

“There are no lands eastward,” said Vaitangi. “We ourselves have sailed six days in that direction and found only the empty sea.”

“A short way was that to the distance we shall go,” said Téaro.

Puaka now sprang to his feet, grasping the haft of his great war club. “Then go you shall, and quickly!” he thundered, harshly. “For food you shall have such shellfish as you find for yourselves on the reefs! If more is needed beg Tané for it! You shall have none from us!”

As though Puaka had not spoken, Vaitangi rose and with great courtesy dismissed the Tongan chiefs, thus quietly shaming the priest of Koro before them all for his breach of the sacred law of hospitality. He then went with his ariki to the council house, where they spoke further of this matter. The younger ariki sided with Puaka because Téaro had refused to acknowledge the greater power of Koro, but the older ones agreed with the high chief.

Vaitangi said: “To us who know Koro’s greater power what does it matter that this handful of wanderers hold fast to their own belief? They would be less than men if they did not. Furthermore, we can make use of them. You have seen their ships; they are the work of master craftsmen. We have no such shipwrights among ourselves. Though lovers of peace, they shall build our war canoes in payment for the land we shall give for their use.” It was then decided that the Tongans should stay. Puaka held out against this for a time, but at last he too agreed, though sullenly. He was bitter because the others followed the counsel of the high chief rather than his own.

Vaitangi went to the House of Strangers where the Tongans waited to learn their fate.

“You shall stay here on these terms,” he said to Téaro. “First, the ships in which you came here shall be converted to war canoes for our use, and as long as you remain on Kurapo your shipwrights shall build and keep in repair the vessels of our war fleet.”

This was a hard condition for the Tongans but they were forced to accept it.

“There are few of us left,” said Téaro, “but we will do what we can. You have enemies hereabout?”

Vaitangi then told him that at a distance of five days’ sail to the north were two islands whose people worshiped a god of war that was opposed to Koro and his followers. The Koros were the stronger but they had not been able to conquer those people, though they raided them often, bringing home prisoners who were used for sacrifice.

“The second term is this,” said Vaitangi. “Our valleys on the western side of Kurapo shall be tabu to your people. I make this condition for your own sakes, lest some small trouble grow to a great one and you suffer heavily for it.”

“To this I gladly agree,” said Téaro.

They waited for the third condition which they feared was now to be told. The worship of Koro required many human sacrifices throughout the year. In other lands where they had lived the Tongans were forced to pay this endless tribute of blood and they expected no less a condition on Kurapo. But Vaitangi told them that, as a return for building the war canoes, no Tongan man would be taken for sacrifice as long as the Koros were able to secure victims from their enemies on the islands to the north. “This promise I shall hold fast to,” said Vaitangi; “but if any of your people break the tabu spoken of, then it shall fall.”

Great was the relief and joy of the Tongan ariki at having so generous a concession made them by the high chief of a Koro-worshiping clan, for it was one they could not have hoped for. That it was made was due in part to the fact that Vaitangi and Téaro were distantly allied in blood. The Tongans were certain that the promise had been given without the consent of Puaka, and they believed that Vaitangi wished to test in this manner the weight of his authority against that of his priest. Their doubts as to what might come of this the Tongan ariki kept to themselves, not wishing to cloud the happiness of their people; for, with the memory of the dangers and bitter losses at sea freshly in their minds they had a great longing for rest in this fair Land of Kurapo, and now they could live without the shadow of death darkening their spirits from day to day.

With their ships they sailed around to the eastern side of the land still unpeopled, which the Koros had set aside for their own use when the growth of population should require it. Here Vaitangi gave them a deep wide valley untouched by men’s hands. It was filled with dense jungle divided by a river that flowed quietly beneath great trees and into the lagoon, a mile wide at this place. Across the lagoon was a fine passage through the reef with a small islet on either side. At that time of year the rising sun was in a direct line with the passage and the mouth of the river and they first saw their valley, the green hills enclosing it and the mountains beyond in the golden light of early dawn.

As he stepped from his ship Téaro stood facing the passage, the land at his back. “Surely, it is the will of Tané that we rest here,” he said. “We are an eastward-faring people, and when the time comes for us to leave this land, there lies our gateway to the sea.” But his people, so weary of voyaging, had eyes only for the land itself. They hoped that the day was far distant when they would be compelled to resume the quest for the Far Lands of Maui.

Then followed a time of deep content for the Tongans. They cleared the jungle, planting as they cleared and leaving many of the trees cherished for their fruits and fragrant blossoms, and those most ancient ones that dappled the river with their shade. Through the lower part of the valley, one third of the distance from the lagoon to the head wall, the river flowed quietly; canoes could ascend it to the place where Téaro’s dwelling and the council house of the ariki were built. Here too was the assembly ground, like that of the Koros though not so large. Some of the houses bordered the river; others lay up the slopes and paths led down from them to the main path, which followed the river for the most part, from the lagoon beach inland.

The marae for the worship of Tané was built at the eastern extremity of the high land enclosing the valley on the south; it looked across lagoon and sea to the far horizon. Never before had the Tongans found so high and pleasant a place for the building of their temple. There, within a casket black with age, were kept the four small sacred stones from their ancestral marae, carried from land to land all the long way over the Sea of Kiwa since first the quest began for the homeland promised them by Tané. Although many ships had been lost on their voyages, the casket containing the stones from their first temple had always reached land, and the Tongans believed that as long as they kept them safe, the finding of the promised homeland was sure.

When the valley had been cleared and the people settled in their dwellings, they were required to widen and improve the path leading to the valleys of the Koros. In loops and turns it climbed the head wall of the Tongan valley to the open lands above. It followed fern-covered ridges, crossed grassy plateaus and entered the forests farther inland. In some places it skirted deep shadow-filled gorges where tree ferns of great beauty throve in the cool moist air; at others it lay along the brink of towering cliffs that fell sheer to the sea along the northern coast of the land. From there it turned inland once more, descending the long slopes that led to the main valley of the Koros. To speak of the distance from the east coast to the west, a sturdy man, taking no rest, could leave the valley of the Tongans at dawn and reach that of the Koros by mid-afternoon.

When the Tongans had finished work on the path the tabu was established. A great tree bordering the path was marked by the tabu sign. The Tongans could go no farther, but the Koro chiefs were free to come and go as they chose, though few among them visited the Tongans save Vaitangi, who came often to watch the shipwrights building canoes for his war fleet. He held them fast to their agreement, nor did he fail in his promise that no man of the Tongans should be taken for sacrifice. Never did Puaka come with him on these visits. Téaro and his chiefs well knew his ill will toward them, but as he never displayed it openly their minds became easier as time passed.

The story tells no more of those early years on Kurapo, but passes now to the time when Maui, son of Téaro, was in his tenth year. Some of the Tongans feared it would prove unlucky that Maui, as an infant, had been fed the milk of a Koro woman, the daughter-in-law of Vaitangi. Others believed this would mean long friendship between the clans, and so it had proved throughout the years of Maui’s childhood. The lives of the Tongans were so little troubled that many of them thought no more of the quest for the Far Lands of Maui.

[1]	For characters in the story, see Glossary.