FESTIVAL AT PUKAPUKA

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22593, 24 December 1938, Page 21

FESTIVAL AT PUKAPUKA

Where Celebrations Last for Weeks

CD (SPECIALLY WHITTEN 708 THE PRESS.) [By ERNEST BEAGLEHOLE] any moment. The rattle of wooden gongs and empty cans was kept up continuously, and, though physically safe, the continuous hammering rhythm sometimes made one apprehensive for sanity. Women and girls were not backward in cricket practice either. No sooner did the men lay down the bat than the women snatched it up and the game swung along in full force. Activity worked up to fever heat as December days slipped by. I recalled that one visitor to Pukapuka had complained that the people were physically and mentally sluggish. I shuddered. If this activity was sluggishness, I prayed that I might never meet a really active Pukapukan. After the Christmas dancing there was a pause while extra food supplies were prepared. New Year’s Eve came round, and with it a visit from the Seventh Day Adventist pastor. We exchanged elaborate courtesies while I wondered whether I was to be rebuked for cardplaying or some other sinfulness. But no, there seemed no purpose to the visit beyond the merely social. Just as he left, the pastor hauled from his pocket a huge timepiece and inquired the time. I casually glanced at a clock on the table and helped him set his watch to the right hour. Fifteen minutes later. Wetu rushed inside to announce that the London Mission pastor was in sight and evidently-headed for our house. Two parochial visits on the same day, I reflected. Perhaps there was a combined campaign on foot to convert us.

CHRISTMAS at Pukapuka comes but once a year, but there, unlike other parts of the world, Christmas lasts for three or more weeks. The celebrations stop not because the Pukapukans are tired of celebrating, but merely because they have been celebrating so hard that all the surplus food is eaten up. They must stop to fish and cultivate so that they may be alive to celebrate next year. Christmas and New Year thus run into edch other and far beyond with one grand orgy of cricket, sports contests, and wrestling that barely leaves them enough time and energy to recuperate before May Day occasions another extravaganza of fun. In the old days, legend tells us, the Pukapukan New Year commenced with the morning rising of the Pleiades towaijds the end of May. The previous six months was a time of scarcity and worry, chiefly because no one knew when some hurricane or tidal wave might sweep devastatingly across the low atoll, taking with it most of the people, all the houses, and probably also the coconut trees. The rising of the Pleiades was a sign that this season of danger was over once more, and that the people could look forward to six months of good fishing and cool, safe trade winds. What better reason was needed then for commencing the new year with feasting, dancing, and merrymaking that lasted for a whole moon or more? For a New Purpose The London Mission showed wisdom iti adapting this old pattern of rejoicing to the Christian New Year. It gave needed istimulus to the people for remembering the birth of their Saviour. It also put the onus on God, however, to prevent hurricanes and tidal waves. So far He seems to have failed the Chosen only once, and no doubt the missionary was not hard put to it to explain that event.

We talked with Kare, the Society missionary, on the back porch. Still I was in doubt about the precise honour conferred on our house. When Kare left to visit elsewhere in the village, he inquired casually about the time. I looked at my watch, oblivious of the fact that it was 20 minutes ahead of the table clock. I set Kare’s watch for him, wound it, and off he went. I thought no more about the time for the rest of the day, beyond deciding vaguely that I should be able to tell in some way from the sun whether the clock or the watch gave the more accurate time. Then I decided that correct time did not really matter in Pukapuka and there would be cause enough to study the sun when every clock on the island had stopped. Native Eloquence The New Year itself was ushered in with a four-hour meeting in each village meeting house. All men and women of the village were present. The meeting was conducted by a deacon. Each man present was supposed to rise in turn, confess his faults for the year, and make public avowal of his good resolutions for the new year. The women were present apparently to make an audience and jury and panel of witnesses all combined. No one seemed to take the speeches very seriously, indeed, all those not speaking took frequent time out to collapse on the floor in slumber. But it gave an opportunity to the men to show their virtuosity with Bible quotations and the stream of eloquence continued unabated throughout the evening. I introduced a note of realism into the proceedings by> a public state-

Dancing, not heathen dancing, but the polite Tahitian style, and long-drawn-out cricket matches, are the traditional Pukapukan way, hallowed by 60 years of missionary pressure, of seeing in the new year. I suggested to the deacons in all humility that they might care to revive some of the old sports—dartthrowing and spear-throwing, for instance. I meant, instead of cricket. But the deacons could not lose this opportunity for prolonging the fun, so they accepted the idea with enthusiasm, and put the sports on the programme along with cricket and everything else they could think of. Punctually at the beginning of December practice began. The young men hurried to the bush and chopped down trees, from which they fashioned cricket bats and cricket balls, spears and darts, and wooden gongs. They fished early each morning. The rest of the day they gave themselves to preparation and practice, with dart-throwing in the morning, cricket in the afternoon, and dancing in the evening twilight. So energetically did they work that it was positively dangerous to venture out of doors during the day. Darts zipped through the air, coming apparently from all directions at once; the crack of ball against bat either assured you that the bat was split to pieces or else a ball would land at your feet at

ment of my own account. It was no confession, however, merely the expression of a wish that the village make a public resolution never to forget the rock of tradition from which the past amfc present were hewn, for, although their forefathers were heathens, they were probably a pretty decent lot of people all the same. The deacon looked slightly pained at my remarks, but the audience applauded strenuously, principally, I think, because the deacon frowned, and because I had not stalely repeated how many times I had lied to my mother-in-law. during the last 12 months. Towards midnight there was a sudden booming and beating of gongs. I looked round in expectancy for joyful expression that the new year had come. There were none but blank faces, and my neighbour whispered scornfully that that was only the Seventh Day Adventist new year that had begun. The booming died down. I looked at my watch. Twenty minutes, to the second, another booming and beatjng carried across the lagoon. “There,” said my neighbour, “this is the real new year begun, this is the L.M.S. new year,” and everyone stirred himself and congratulated friend and foe alike on the arrival of 1935. I was a little worried that a 20-minutes difference in the new year between two Christian sects might give rise to acrimonious theological dispute. The Seventh Day Adventist pastor looked at me sourly next time we met, but I knew he would never believe that a difference in time of 20 minutes could be explained away as carelessness. I am sure he feels to this day, his church members being a minority, that I was secretly in league with the Mission to make fun of him. Kerosene Tin Drum We all drifted outside from the meeting house. It was a dark, moonless night. Some of the young men proposed to dance, so I hung up our hurricane lantern from the eaves to throw a glimmer of light on the village road. Someone began to rattle away on an empty kerosene tin, and in a moment the men were dancing with all the energy repressed by a four-hour confessional meeting. They were dancing with vigour and spirit when . Makirai suddenly rushed into the middle of the group, pulled down the lantern, and walked off with it to our house. We protested. Makirai replied curtly: “Pukapuka men all damn fools. I make drum for them, they bang tins. No drum, no dance.” The men stopped short with their dance, cast as they were into the immediate blackness of the night. The drummer gave a resounding bang to his tin and walked home. (To be continued.)