ATA AND ATATA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12225, 21 March 1903, Page 1 (Supplement)

ATA AND ATATA.

IN TWO PARTS.

PART I.

CANNIBALISM AND COLONISATION.

[by e. w. fabxeb.] It is impossible, with the help of natives' legends only, to attach a date with exactitude to any event that happened in these wilds before the visits of the great Captain Cook. But it must have been about a hundred and fifty years ago, when the small islet of Atata, which is quite close to Tongatabu, was eajuiiibally raided by a band of anthropophagous Haabai warriors.

Some affirm that human flesh. was never eaten by the brown Friendly Islanders. But it used to be. In any case their descendants admit that they ate tit-bits from the bakola, cooked man, but that it was only done for the sake of revenge. This is unlikely, for anyone who knows and has seen the anxiety displayed by the Tongans of the present day to satisfy the cravings of their palates and stomachs with good things can hardly conceive the possibility of such belly-gods as their ancestors musthave been regaling themselves with portions only of what they must have then thought was "a, good thing," and neglecting "the good thing" in its entirety.

The Haabai warriors landed one day on Atata, and desolated. it. Desolated it by lulling all its inhabitants they could. Some of the unfortunate ones whom they could not catch and immediately took refuge in a cave. But there they were not safe. They were smoked out of it, or it would be more correct to say, that their lives were smoked out of them when they were in it.

Most likely half of the bodies were half cooked by the ignited wood that was thrown into the cavern. The writer has seen the cave, which is not large, and has a small outlet through the roof, while its mouth faces the sea. Therefore, if its entrance was closed up after the fuel had been thrown in, only allowing for an indraught to enter, the fire, owing to the hole at the top of the cave, would be furious in. its burning. Even after this great lapse of time anyone entering the cavern, and knowing what had taken place there long ago, would think that the soot of the smoke was yet clinging to its sides and roof, so black they are. This holocaust perhaps saved some trouble* to the raiders when; they wanted to cook their breakfast next morning. The place where these terrible murders occurred is strewn with bones in multitude, still lying on the dry soil of its floor. They are much charred and broken, and a skull, or even a thigh bone, could not now be found there entire. Part of the population escaped. The legend would even say how many, and the proportion of the sexes that were saved. They took four of their taafaagas, a large sail-less canoe. 1 and sped, paddling to the southward. For they had heard of an uninhabited island far distant from Tonga, which could be reached if during morning the sun was kept to the left, at noon at their backs, and to the right at sundown. They got there, stopped there, called the place Ata, and bred there. It rises precipitously from the deep, a rock with verdureclad summit, nearly circular, five hundred feet high, and about three miles in diameter. Pylstaat Island is its name, as marked on the charts, a modernised form of Piilstreets, by which latter name Tasman distinguished it. .It is in 22.18 S. latitude, 176.8 W. longitude No stream trickles down the face of the precipitous cliffs of Ata, save during rain, and it was too elevated to allow of wells to be dug in its porous rock. So they made lepas, reservoirs. There is a hill near the summit of this rock in mid-ocean formed of red clay, very malleable. This clay they puddled. and with it lined a very large and dee>> hole, and dug trenches towards it, leading from the surrounding hillocks. It was not till very many years had passed that there was a pig or a fowl on the island. These they subsequently got from the whalers, which at a very much later period used to call there. Pigeons in the air, and fish in the water, were in plenty, the first very difficult for them to obtain and the latter easy. Years and years uassed by, how many none can say, during which the islanders of Ata dwelt there, in peace and plenty. No sail of either ship or canoe ever showed itself above the extended horizon. The firstcomers died of old age, and their children and grandchildren but held the tradition of how their fathers had arrived there. No one had ever felt an earthquake at Ata, so the oldest inhabitants did not even know what such a pehenomenon was. But they felt one one night. It was about the year eighteen hundred and forty, when waking up one morning they found not a drop of water in their lepa. A drought was obtaining, which lasted for months after the destruction of the clay lining of the reservoir destroyed by this earthquake. There was, therefore, nothing but cocoanut milk to drink, and the expressed liquid always obtainable from the bolata, the trunk of the banana tree, which is clear, rather bitter, and a strong astringent, good enough if seldom used, but not conducive to health if drank every day. The nuts not being plentiful on this rock were soon exhausted when the thirst of the whole population had to be assuaged by them. The writer has had tile terrors of that awful time narrated to him by an old man, who remembered them well. It was so seldom that there was ever any communication with the outside world that the Ata men never expected assistance from it to alleviate their misery. How glad would they have been then had a ship come to take them all away from a land which for nearly a year was an abode of death! To take them all away to Tonga, as a'ship did twentv years later. Nearly half the population died. Once there was sufficient rain to well moisten the dry, broken clay which lined the lepas, which they quickly puddled again, trusting that the rain would continue. The downpour lasted but sufficiently long to refresh the vegetation. It was practically useless to them as a provision for drink, for no sooner was the hole freshly puddled, than the rain ceased, and the thirsty ones were is badly off for water as ever. Sickness set in,, but it is impossible to know at this distance of time what sickness it was. This is the dark side of the picture. Bain fell; at last, and- a normal state of affairs began again, in which . there was no sickness among the islanders, no contentions among them, no crime, for there was nothing to steal, and theft is the besetting sin of most Polynesians, young and old, and no deaths save from old age, ; Whalers used sometimes to visit the place, lie off and on, and. barter the provisions there for things they had and the islanders had not. And about once in every three or four years a. boat used, to arrive there from Tonga, with a missionary, always a native ■one. y lt was too far off, and the voyage too risky, for a white one to venture. There r was another reason , also, which cogently precluded many mission visits. There was no money; the inhabitants did not make oil or copra, and the landing there is really a feat of much difficulty, not unattended with danger. The natives had not even the smallest of canqes, and when they wanted to fish with a line—nets there were' useless— they would put a log under their arm-pits.; thus equipped they would brave the rolling deep and come home with its spoils. V, Twenty years ater the drought and the consequent sickness a vessel lay off and on there. On board was King George of Tonga and a chief,: Niulala by name. ; Accompanying . them was a missionary who was taking the king to Sydney, for his first and last visit there, His. Majesty having expressed a desire to see,' babalagi—.foreign parts. He had never before seen this rock of At*, which was the southernmost portion of his little kingdom. He would have how made an attempt, to land," had he not

very rightly been dissuaded from doing so. Two or three natives had swum off, notknowing that the king was on board.' When they discovered the fact they struck out for the shore to tell Baula Ata, the chief of the place, of the august arrival. ;.".■* This nobleman at once swam off with six others, each guiding a pig in front of him, striking out, and rising and falling on the swells of the ocean, in the rear of his pig, -whose nose he every now and then directed towards the ship which was their mutual destination. Sharks are not rare at Ata, but the natives were fearless regarding them, whether because they are not of a ravenous species, or because they have not yet tasted human flesh, the writer knows not.

The king, desirous of an additional companion during his exploration of what to him was a new world, told Baula Ata to remain on board, and accompany him to Sydney. The man was but scantily clothed with one wet garment and felt the difficulty. But he was rigged out at once in native tappa, of which article there was a plentitude on board, and was promised a suit of warm clothes when the weather got chilly; also that when he arrived in Sydney he should be dressed out as a missionary— neck-tie, boots, and all. In those days, and to a more or less extent even now, black coat and trousers were to the native mind the acme of all that was most elegant and aristocratic. It must have been a source of much gratification to the Europeans who were then among them that the . Tongans wore these garments but seldom, keeping them in their boxes to be ready for Sabbatic emergencies. Even had this magnificent promise been made to him by other than his liege lord he would hardly have been able to resist the tempting inducement; but when made by the king hi person he gladly jumped at the opportunity of seeing the outside world in the company of royalty. ■ When, after a few months' absence, Baula arrived at Ata he made improvements in the church there; and though this native building was of a much mere sufficient size necessary to contain all the congregation that was ever likely to congregate for worship in it had a gallery built at one end, supported by rough posts from the bush. " For," said he, "all the churches I went to in Sydney had one. I have also brought a new clock which we will place in it, so that our preachers may not finish their sermons too soon." .

Thus the gallery and the clock were, for about a year, a great source of interest at Ata. There were generally two preachers to preach at each service, giving a sermon each.

As in Longfellow's village of Grand-Pre a few happy j'ears passed monotonously on for the people of Ata.' But a change came.