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- 2026-01-30T20:48:25.200Z
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- another, would become entangled beneath the water, threatening to
capsize the canoes, when a scene of confusion would ensue that baffles
description. Such strange outcries and passionate gesticulations I never
certainly heard or saw before. You would have thought the islanders were
on the point of flying at each other’s throats, whereas they were only
amicably engaged in disentangling their boats.
Scattered here and there among the canoes might be seen numbers of
cocoanuts floating closely together in circular groups, and bobbing up
and down with every wave. By some inexplicable means these cocoanuts
were all steadily approaching towards the ship. As I leaned curiously
over the side, endeavouring to solve their mysterious movements, one
mass far in advance of the rest attracted my attention. In its centre
was something I could take for nothing else than a cocoanut, but which
I certainly considered one of the most extraordinary specimens of the
fruit I had ever seen. It kept twirling and dancing about among the rest
in the most singular manner, and as it drew nearer I thought it bore a
remarkable resemblance to the brown shaven skull of one of the savages.
Presently it betrayed a pair of eyes, and soon I became aware that what
I had supposed to have been one of the fruit was nothing else than the
head of an islander, who had adopted this singular method of bringing
his produce to market. The cocoanuts were all attached to one another
by strips of the husk, partly torn from the shell and rudely fastened
together. Their proprietor inserting his head into the midst of them,
impelled his necklace of cocoanuts through the water by striking out
beneath the surface with his feet.
I was somewhat astonished to perceive that among the number of natives
that surrounded us, not a single female was to be seen. At that time I
was ignorant of the fact that by the operation of the ‘taboo’ the use of
canoes in all parts of the island is rigorously prohibited to the entire
sex, for whom it is death even to be seen entering one when hauled on
shore; consequently, whenever a Marquesan lady voyages by water, she
puts in requisition the paddles of her own fair body.
We had approached within a mile and a half perhaps of this foot of
the bay, when some of the islanders, who by this time had managed to
scramble aboard of us at the risk of swamping their canoes, directed our
attention to a singular commotion in the water ahead of the vessel. At
first I imagined it to be produced by a shoal of fish sporting on the
surface, but our savage friends assured us that it was caused by a shoal
of ‘whinhenies’ (young girls), who in this manner were coming off from
the shore to welcome is. As they drew nearer, and I watched the rising
and sinking of their forms, and beheld the uplifted right arm bearing
above the water the girdle of tappa, and their long dark hair trailing
beside them as they swam, I almost fancied they could be nothing else
than so many mermaids--and very like mermaids they behaved too.
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