1957-08-24 — Page 6

•Page 6

THE CHINA MAIL,・・・ SATURDAY, AUGUST 24, 1957, l'

IN EVERY SEVEN THE RAINS FAIL IN THE ISLANDS

ONE YEAR IN

Drought and death go hand in

hand in the islands of the Pacific.

There have been many droughts, but one, above all others, lives in island legond

the drought

that brought with it the Curse of Nakaa.

That grim story is told in today's instalment of RETURN TO THE ISLANDS, by Sir Arthur Grimble, who spent 40 years as a Colonial Office. administrator in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands.

WH

XHEN the rains were regular on Baanaba (the native name for Ocean Island, in the Gilberts), no habitations of man could have been more beautifully bowered than ours in the dark green of forests, the starry white of lilles, the flung foam of scarlet and crimson petals.

But every seven or eight years there came a drought, and things were different then. There were no flowers anywhere after two rainless months. After six, the pawpaws and guavas, the costard apples and soursops were dead, the mungoes and wild almonds dying.

After twelve, half of the island's coconut palms stood heaters, while those that lived on, their leaves burned rusty black, had been fruitless for many weeks, Then, even the mighty deep-rooted forest of calophyllum trees that envered the island's middle was stripped of 15 leaves.

Our 2,000 neres of phosphate and coral rock, left nuked to the sun-blare, lay flinging back the aavage heat in a while-hot. column to heaven.

By Sir Arthur Grimble

Nakaa! The story

In these droughts, whole families would go out in canvеR

Not a drop on to harvest the rain that fell at

the island

THAT Boating shatt of refrne- pitiless tion stood ke a sentinel on guard over the land. It was the barrier against which the rain-clouds beat and were divided.

The clouds would sweep towards the island, bringing a curtain of rain with them,, but at the last moment they would seatter elther side of the island, spilling their torrents into the sea. Not a drop would fail on land.

sen, using sun-shrivelled coconut palms a catchments fo direct the rab:water inlo wooden bowls,

There was, too, one other source of supply; the water that ored itself in the grottoes and caverns in the coral core of the

one

story only

man dared tell

—a consæiction of the trunk at upon the older villagers when meant for them. It was old none to be caught anywhere. Wo the necke where the first fronds ever one mentioned the great Eri, the native magistrate of were already half starved when Baunaba, who spoke of it then, the drought sickness came, that sprouted.

Not that he had visited me white mien coll beriberi.

You could count six Such

drought of the 1870's.

island. To reach this supply corsettings in the stems of the The power of

oldest trees, That carried you buck 40 years or so-about two-

down into her eyes, So, bend ing over her, I whispered the speil called The Lifting of the Head, to make her way straight into the land of our ancestors, "So I brought no daughter to

prey to do so, but his story "Men fell in the pathways sprang naturally from a pathetic request he had been deputed to and died there; and where they make on behalf of the older died their bodies remained, for my mother.

who was strong enough to carry villagers.

corpses homo for burla rites? So the curse of Nakon rested on the land."

the curse OFTEN got the Impression that some shared dreatt

The British Phosphate Com- constrained them never もう

missioners had recently ask- sat Wat

I

Witten with torches would plunge into the murk of the

bysses, squirming through thirds of a coconut's natural miles of tunnels where there span. The record could go no was often only room for the further than that into the past, water-gatherer

on her back from 1924 which happened to llo back clawing at the rock above because the seventh drought talk at it, It her face.

fr the middle 1870's, wiped out un 1030, when I had known cd for a 100-acre extension It was strange to hear a men

Eri, stern old pillar of them for 10 years, that anyone of their diggings, and a party of like An uneasy silence would fall told me of the horrorg, it had council of elders about the price talked of the curse of a pagan

young men

was heckling the the Protestant mission that he

to be demanded for the con- god as if he believed in it, Nakas, so the ancient myth had cepsion.

it, was the all-ceing guardian of the gate between the worlds of the living and the dead, who,

Each draught left its mark on the palm trees of the island

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Eri came to nie deeply Wsturbed. "Nobody will want to pay the your men's price for our

dust

he put it, "and that will be ́the end of our hope of buy- ing a better home than this for our grandchildren to inherit Bo. In the end, the ourse, of Nakaa will rest upon their heads also.”

District

Officer's transit quarters on Tübitenes, in the Central Gilberts.

This house war built by my predecessor, George Murdoch, in a grove of coconut palms 100 yards from the Island prison.

It was at

alrily bulit, two- roomed sheller. 1 found it u cheerful place all through the daylight hours.

It changed. though, when darkness fell and the village lept. I couldn't pass night there without being haunted by a thought that something was on the edge of happening.

Had this been all I shoulà never have had the place pulled down. Not even the horrifying odour that visited me there one night would have suffleed of Itself to drive mc to that

We lay in pools extreme,

on the reef

It was what George himself said to me afterwards, when I told him how ny dog had be haved, that set me looking for another alle.

ME went on. The water- I holes were dry but the The dog was my terrier, ratnelouds at sen had returned. Smith, He was lying in the Also, we of Uma village went draught of the roadside doorway down to the rect at low tide and one night, while I sat reading,

wasn't

deeply absorbed, In the beginning of time, had lay covered with mats in shallow- I decreed eternal torture by im- pools so that our sidins drank in because I was worried about Anterea, an old friend of mine, palement his pit for those

who lay in the village-es I was sure he wouldn't last the night.

who neglected the funeral rites the wetness. of their own kin. "But Eri," I protested?, "A Christon like you can't fear Nakna or his curses any longer,"

Nakaa?" Walk in our.

hearts

"The CUTED OL echoed blankly_"What are you talking about, Eri?"

"BESS,

Д becoming

+

me,

was aware, also, of

"And on a day, I took my mother with me to a pool under the lee of certain rocks, Wo lay Perhaps that made me par- there our heads resting on theularly susceptible to what- wooden pillows which I had ever it was. Anyhow, I felt brought, and soon we fell asleep. myself suddenly gripped as i sat by a more than usually disturb- "I did not wake until the ing Schoo of that Imminent rising tido Goated the pillow something: from under me, so that my head "About the great drought,"

was spilled into water. That It had never had any parul- he sald, and that lunched him

nearly drowned

but cular direction before, but now. on his story: "I was a young

GƊTAKAA 1s a spirit of dark- at last I was able to kneel, and it seemed to impend from the

he answered then man then, and my parents, who

remembered, my mother, fuadway. lived in Uma village, had earnestly. "Shall any man She was not beelde me, I looked having to fight a definite dread arranged for me to take a wife do away with him by out to sea; she was not there. of it this time instead of greet-

Christian? And

ing it with a kind of incredu from Buakonikal,

how shall we forget eur "I turned my eyes to the lous expectancy, "Sho Was o gül named unburled dead? Those walk beach; she was floating there;

She I sprang up, staring nervously Marawa, very beautiful in my like ghosts in our hearts for- on the edge of the tieë,

had drowned begde me na I out into the dark beyond the cycs and we were to be ever." married at the full of the fourth the middle of the third year, called ine,

And then, after a long silence: slept. How many Umes had she door. And then I noticed Smith, and I dent to her Hackles bristling, guma bared, at, the season of the

WOR backing step by step Piclades,

away from the door, whimpering A ship arrived-not-long and trembling as he backed..

umding ship from New Zealand. The captain. no rain had fallen, her father "Things were a litle better took my father and me, with said to mine, You will need for us in Uma than in Buakoni- most of the others who remained your son to fish for you and we kal; Uma iz by the sea; we had alive, to the land of Oahu, shall need Marawo to fetch found seaweed to suck, end

near Honolulu. There we lived water for us now that a drought some aid that this protected until my father died, six years has pet in,* And my father us against the sickness. But later, and then I returned to this answered, 'Even so, Let there we were very weak. I was the place, because I owned no land te no marriage until the rains only one of our house who anywhere else. return."

could walk a hundred paces. So my mother said to me, 'Go now "Others returned with me, but as it I had kicked him, through the seaward door. I heard him to Buakonikal. Speale to the none of us has ever been happy begin to how on the beach just

moon

from

when the waterholes were criest nearly dry, word "cume moon Buakonikai that Marawa's after

"But when the third went out, and for three months parents had died.

A year-and still no rain

OUR

UR hearts were Gore at that and my mother tried

to comfort us, saying: 'Patience. The drought will soon end.”

Turned tail and bolted

CMITH!" I called.

He gave me one quick piteous look. turned tall, and bolled, yelping,

brother of Marawa's father and, here. And since the Kambana as an unspeakable odour came

to us

if he will let her go, bring her (Company) came and began to sweeping into the room from the

here. So, from this pay us for our dust, we have drought you shall have a wite hoped that, one day, it may direction of the read. and I a daughter,"

buy all the rest together for a Thare wvusn't a clue in the great prlee, With that money, darkness under the palms. I "At her words, the strength the Government came back to my legs. I made happier home for our children's my running fect brought me to could buy a found nobody and nothing until nothing of the long walk to children to dwelt in. Help us in the fringe of Uuzaa village, and Buakanikai. I came to the this, we beg you."

there I heard a sound that house of Marawn's father's

"But it did not end: and even brother. My heart said to me, He sat in silence a full minute stripped me of all my anger. when the sun showed a full Now you will see her." But staring over my shoulder into It was the noise of women [year gono we knew that it alas! when I lified the screen the past. Then he rose. "A walling and men chanting would hot break yet, for the enter, she was not there. Only home for our children's children mixed with the rhythmic thud- rainclouds at sea, from which her father's brother was within, not haunted by the ghosts of thud of heavy staves on the we had contrived to collect en hy was dead. And the unburied dead," ho whis ground. water up to then, ceased to dead were everywhere around pered, more to himself than to Through the me, and left without another como near us, Then our council me as I walked

village to her father's house, word.

of elders issued on elet

'From Hate on, let no house- hold take more than one COCONUS siell of weder a day from the

caverns,"

"I found her with her

couldn't unistake it.

parents. She, had fakt the ghost ever then that my old frend Antorea

and

bodies slide by vido herself at their feet. The

sickness was heavy upon her,

"But she was still beautiful

square yard.

A Gilbertesa bomaki ceremony was in full swing; some villager's departing soul was being rituuliy sped on its difficult road tram earth to paradiso. I know

had not lasted the night.

There was no taint on the alr of tho house when I get back. I fell asleep untroubled by

"So tho water was made to inst for another whole year. But long before the next solstice in for me. I think she had been the south our food trots were sleep before entered; but URSES and ghasts were the anything but my own sadness cone, not one stood living when I

in

Iped the screen sho ▼ staple ingredients of island But Smill stayed out on the awoke and smiled at me saying, folklore, Almost every square bench, and I couldn't persuado "We had nothing but fish to knew I should are you agal yard was the lurking place of him to remain indoors after daric cat, and the fish often stayed as and tried to sit up, but fell back and fond or another; you just for the dow more days I spent far from our shores that for looking into my eyes as I sat had to take them as you found on Tablicuea.

down, boslic. her. Lying there, them. many days together there was she smiled again and sighed, very

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slaw and deep, The similo, stayed on her lips. She was dead,

• This series to adopted from laid her beside her mother. Return to the Telanide,: By Sir her foot towards the west.. I Arthur: Crimble, to be published lifted her head from behind be

tween my hands and looked by John Murray,

According to the islanders, pretty well ovary house builé › for the Government alart had Ita`own_apeofal ghost. I had permonal experience of only one; the strange affair as the

The rest of the story George Murdoch's, after I had told him of my feelings about the house and Smith'a quoor behaviour, and the footid smell › someone had put across me. (Continged on Pago 7.)