Hawaii - James Michener [35]
The crowd bellowed, particularly when they saw Teroro applauding the vicious mimicry of his helmsman. "I'll bet she really could steer a canoe!” he shouted.
"You'd be surprised at what I could do!" the lascivious old woman replied. But the crowd left her antics and started to applaud as blunt Malo, from the other side of the island, suddenly wrapped a bit of yellow tapa about his shoulders and made believe he was fat Tatai of Havaiki, executing ridiculous steps to the music and lampooning that chief's pompous ways. To the great joy of the assembly, King Tamatoa nimbly leaped into the smoky arena and took his place beside Malo, and both imitated Tatai, each more foolishly than his competitor, until at last it was difficult to say which was Malo and which the king. The foolish little dance ended with Tamatoa sitting exhausted in the dust, laughing madly as if he had no cares.
Again the crowd looked toward a new clown, for shark-faced Pa had grabbed a leaf-skirt and was crying in a shrill high voice, "Call me Tehani!” And he pirouetted grotesquely but with uncanny skill, evoking the Havaiki girl, until Teroro asked himself, "How could he have seen her dance? But his preoccupation with Pa was broken when he saw his own wife, Marama, leap into the dance in hilarious burlesque of her husband. "It's Teroro!" the crowd applauded as the skilled woman ridiculed her man, gently and with love, but also with keenest perception. As she danced Teroro wondered: "Who told her about Tehani?"
Marama and the shark-faced man were the night's success. Pa was so ugly and his features so preposterous that he could make them seem like those of any man; and he could be both gentle, as in his mimicry of Tehani, and savage, as in his next burlesque of the High Priest. With a bit of black tapa for a wig and a breadfruit branch for a staff, Pa gyrated furiously in demented manner, whirling about and pointing his stick at first one islander and then another. As he did so, Marama, dancing behind with a feather bag, played the burly executioner, clubbing down one victim after another. Finally, in a mock frenzy, the crazy dancer Pa gyrated directly up to King Tamatoa and pointed his stick at him, whereupon Marama rushed alongside, swung her feather bag, and brought it within an inch of the king's face. The victim fell as if his skull had been crushed, and lay in the sand, laughing, laughing.
As the long wild night progressed, every item of island life was brought under ridicule, with chinless Pa as the ringleader. He possessed what islanders loved: a child's sense of fairy tale, and to watch his amazing pointed face move from one characterization to the next was endless joy. Toward dawn, when the fears and repressions of the past weeks were dissipated, a group of old women approached King Tamatoa and began pleading with him, obviously seeking some special boon for the people, until at last he gave assent, whereupon the delegation's leader leaped withered-legged into the center of the crowd, screaming the good news: "Our great king says tonight we play the gourd game!" With hushed excitement the men and women separated into facing groups as King Tamatoa ceremoniously tossed toward the men a feathered gourd which glistened in the firelight. A chief reached out and caught it, danced a few ritual steps, then pitched it in a high, shimmering arc toward the eager women. A young girl who had long lusted after this man leaped into the air, snatched the gourd and dashed with it to the man who had thrown it. Clutching