While in town today, I found in a second-hand shop a somewhat dog-eared copy of T.L. Richards' "White Man, Brown Woman - The Life Story of a Trader in the South Seas". Just reading the foreword had me captivated:
| "Even as I write, my comely dark-eyed Tahitian woman fishes off the reef, and my three half-caste children play on the white sand of the beach, naked as the day they were born, and I am happy, for my earthly desires are few. I love all that is beautiful, and all around me are the charms of Tahiti, "Isle of Dreams." One day I will be buried in this foreign land that has adopted me as one of its own children. The South Sea Island trader has always been described as an arrant scoundrel. Let me say that no one who has been in the Islands for any length of time would make such a misleading and ridiculous assertion. The Island trader is, generally speaking, a man who has been disappointed with civilisation. He has come Islandwards, seeking sympathy in the song of the surf, and finding everything to his liking has lived on, in the eternal summer of the tropic seas. Today, in their cool homes, on the many islands of the South Sea, they live, and are as happy as I. They, too, have their women and children and are far more contented with their lot than men who sit in office chairs engrossed in the questionable honesty of business. It is said that the Islands break men's spirits. More often it is a case of "where the spirit is weak, the flesh is willing," and the men who come Islandwards to indulge in an orgy of drink and debauchery with native women mostly are responsible for the thousands of unwanted little half-caste waifs who roam the small towns and beaches. These men are merely vultures who prey upon the simple native races. Happy as I am, I sometimes long for the companionship of a woman of my own race. But I realise that I have lived a life beyond the pale, and my experiment in endeavouring to hold a while woman's love was a ghastly failure. Sheer force of circumstance has made me take a native woman for a companion. But once I endeavoured to play the game. Now I am a human derelict, who has made an unholy mess of life. The least I can do is to stay by the woman who has mothered my children, and who adores me as only an Island woman can." |
The evocative prose took me right back to my own years spent in the islands:
| "From my bedroom I could see the lagoon through the coconut groves and the stars hung low over the reef. Far out on the peaceful waters two native fishermen sang a plaintive Island melody to the accompaniment of the soft murmur of the reef. Then a change in the wind drowned their voices in the thunder of great rollers. The wind died away again, the song of the surf came to me as a soft whisper, and I slept." |
It has stories in it about real life encounters with Buly Hayes, Graf von Luckner's Seeadler, the legendary Captain Andy Thompson, and a landfall on Suwarrow which is far more descriptive than anything in Tom Neals's book:
| "Suwarrow was uninhabited, for the reason that no natives would live there for any time as it had a gruesome history, and was supposed to be haunted by evil spirits of murdered people. It was thickly populated by many varieties of tropical seabirds. A labour gang stayed there for five months in the year and then returned to Manahiki. In the great lagoon, which is studded with small islets, fish literally swarmed. Great gulls wheeled over the chooner's masts and screamed defiance at us. Ashoe, in the coconut groves and tangle of tropical foliage, seabirds fought for nesting-places, and when disturbed soared aloft in a cloud, completely obscuring the sky. The noise was deafening, as if all the birds in the world had been liberated at once and were crying in unison. On a slender branch, a ring-tailed booby bird covered its fluffy chick with one wing, and as we approached arched its wings, opened its beak, and added to the clamour of the bird colony. The chick was snow-white and for all the world like a lady's powder puff. On the ground the eggs of the bos'un birds hatched in the sun. On a thin branch three birds of different varieties were nesting. The bird colony was mixed, but happy and harmonious. Our Manahikians plundered the nests, and omelettes provided a welcome change to the canned menu of the Tiare Taporo. Great sharks swam round the schooner, the dreaded striped tiger shark appearing in scores. Suwarrow teemed with fish. Millions lived in those pellucid depths and flaunted their gay colourings as the shafts of sunlight penetrated to their haunts. In the clearest lagoon in the Pacifc, we observed from our whaleboat, in twelve fathoms of water, a huge Moray eel fully twenty feet in length crawl from its hiding-place within the coral and dart venomously at passing fish. .... But there were other things in Suwarrow - the spirits of the dead, who walked the beach by night. Out on the reef the bones of many a vessel had found their last resting-place. Bolts and rusty iron littered the beach for miles. Ships had come from the Pacific Coast to plunder these islands and abduct and imprison the inhabitants. Those who survived the voyage in the evil-smelling holds were sent to labour on the nitrate felds of Chile and Peru. Many of these ships had been wrecked upon Suwarrow, and the ghosts of their crews walkbed by night. These reports were not confined to the superstitious natives who had lived from time to time upon Suwarrow, for white overseers had sworn that Suwarrow was haunted." |
However, what made the book even more invaluable to me was the mention of the famous American writer Robert Dean Frisbie in chapter XXXIX:
| "At Puka Puka a well-known American writer came aboard. Ours was the first vessel which had called at his island for two years, and he was glad of the opportunity to talk in his own language, as he was the only European resident on the island. He had graduated from one of the largest American universities, and was not communicative. He had married a Puka Puka woman and settled down to the isolation of the last place on earth - unlovely, unwanted Puka Puka. He was coming back to Rarotonga with us for a brief vacation. His name was already well known in the short-story world, but his ambition was to write three books. He was the type of man one often meets in the islands. He hated his environment, and always talked lovingly of Kentucky, but never hinted that he might go back some day. Something kept him, and even Viggo could not drag that reason from him. No one could understand why he married a Puka Puka woman, as they are the lowest type of natives in the Eastern Pacific. They wear scarcely any clothes, and have appalling habits. They are a curious race, and speak little, making themselves understood by movements of the lips. The American's dusky wife was no exception to the rule, but he adored her. On the voyage to Rarotonga, I watched her closely. She displayed her affection for her husband by taking the lobe of his ear between her teeth, and biting it until the blood ran freely. The American would yell out sharply and she would laugh until she cried at his discomfort. She indulged this habit particularly at mealtimes. Viggo taught her to use the cutlery. Her husband sat next to me. A favourite diversion of his was to count the ants as they ran from the galley to the scullery and food locker, and he seemed quite perturbed when the tally failed to agree with that of the preceding day. At Rarotonga, he had bought his wife her first boots and shoes. She liked them so much that she refused to take them off at bedtime and they had to be removed by force." |
Frisbie's books have attained something of a cult status and the original editions are very expensive collector's items. I first became interested in his writing after having read Tom Neale's book An Island to Oneself, as it was Frisbie who had given Neale the idea of living on remote Suvarov Atoll. In fact, they had planned to live there together, albeit on different islands, until Frisbie's untimely death in 1948 spoilt that plan and Neale went there on his own in 1952.
"Trader Tom", the author of "White Man, Brown Woman", remains in the islands. Having lived with several native women, and then finally settling with a Tahiti- Polynesian, Babette, in Papeete by whom he has two children, he still meets a white woman with whom he falls madly in love.
He abandons his Polynesian mistress and lives with his white woman, Mary, who eventually finds out about his past life with native women and in turn abandons him. In desperation, he goes back to his Polynesian mistress.
Here's the book's very poignant last chapter:
| "A few weeks after Mary's departure, I was summoned before the company's branch inspector from Auckland. There was a leer on his face that exasperated me. "Is it correct that you are living with a native woman?" he asked. "Yes." "The company is not in favour of having an employee who lives like that." I was silent. "You will have to leave that woman, or ---" "It's all right. There's no necessity to continue," I retorted decisively. He looked at me, picked up a paper-weight, and endeavoured to conceal his embarrassment. I felt sure, in the silence that followed, that he was conscious he should not have cast that stone. He was not such a very clean potato himself. "I'm going to stand by my girl. That means immediate dismissal, I suppose?" "Well - er - yes. I am afraid so." "Thank you. Good-bye." That official incident happened many months ago. Not being able to afford rent, I had a native hut erected at Tautira, far from the noise and glamour of Papeete. It is a pretty hut of coconut leaves, hidden from the road by a coffee hedge. The sea breeze comes in through the tiny windows, and the boom of the surf lulls me to sleep. I see few of my old European friends. Now that I have no money, most of them seem to have forgotten that I ever existed. I still hear from Viggo and one or two others, all far away on other islands. The natives of the village bring fish and root crops knowing that we possess little. They do not, kindly souls, even linger to be thanked, but deposit their offerings in the kerosene-case letter-box which is nailed to the post by the roadside. Babette is within the hut. Margarita now goes to Father Gardier's Mission School, and David is able to swim. I call out to Babette that I am nearing the end of this manuscript. She laughs happily. After all, my plight is no worse that that of many other Europeans now living as I am doing. In the majority of cases the influx of Cantonese traders is responsible, for even the big European companies are finding it impossible to retain the services of their old employees who have lived in the South Seas so long that to migrate would bring disaster. They cannot take their French-Tahitian wives and children to the homes of their parents and relatives. Nor can they withstand the rigours of a more temperate climate. After having been "good spenders" indulging themselves to the utmost, they are reduced to living on the island mat and eating native food with their fingers. But, like all old islands identities, they accept it as inevitable and without whining. I often visit comrades in distress. We discuss old times, and the books we have read. These friends of mine are happy enough in a way, because they are resigned to their lot. In some degree I am content. I have a loyal mate in Babette, two lovely children and good food. All the joys of living cannot be purchased with money. I realise the current of prejudice is far too strong for me to swim out of a murky past to a cloudless future. My only attempt ended in disaster. Some time ago I wrote to Mary, asking her permission to include in this story of my life that of our tragic association. She replied: "You have my permission. It may serve to help others. Perhaps they will think a little before going too far, and realise that behind the song of the surf there is something which drags good men to the depths of despair, and magically draws good women towards these men." The moon is hiding behind a bank of clouds. The lagoon is as silent as the infinite. Far out on the reef the surf croons, luring one to peace and forgetfulness. In the Mission the bells toll the hour of seven. Babette has said her prayers and gone to bed. Stars come out in myriads. The moon climbs higher and sheds its path of silvery radiance acress the sea. Crckets cheep to each other, and a dying breeze stirs the brushwood. I walk down to the beach gleaming silver white under the moon. The lights of the fishermen on the reef glow like harbour beacons. Tahiti, you are a poisoned paradise. Tahiti, I curse you. I warn others to stay away from your shores, and yet, if I did escape from your fascination, I know I should never know content until I nestled close to your heart again! A white man passes on horseback, a planter returning home along the beach. "Good night, Tom." "Good night, Emmanuel." "No work yet, Tom?" "No, Emmanuel." "Ah! The bloody islands are going to hell!" |
