Hawaii - James Michener [44]
And when the men climbed aboard Wait-for-the-West-Wind, Marama, with her beautiful hair in the storm, guided them with her spirit and blessed them, and said to young Tehani, "Take care of out husband. Fill him with love." But at the last minute she was thrust aside by a most unexpected arrival. It was the High Priest, come down to the launching with a long retinue of assistants, and he went to the canoe and cried, "Great Oro bids you safe journey!"
Grabbing hold of the bowsprit, he stepped aboard, clutching the mast Tane as he did so. Kneeling before the gods' house, he pushed aside the grass door and deposited inside a sanctified statue of Oro made of sacred sennit woven with his own hands and clothed in feathers. In haunting voice he cried into the storm, "Great Oro, bless this canoe!" And as he stepped ashore, Teroro saw that a smile of enormous relief had come upon the face of his new wife, Tehani. She had been willing to go upon the seas with strange gods, but now that Oro was with her, she knew the journey would succeed.
And so the double canoe, Wait-for-the-West-Wind, loaded and creaking with king and slave, with contradictory gods and pigs, with hope and fear, set forth upon the unknown. At the prow stood Teroro, ill-named the wise one, but at this fateful moment he was wise enough not to look back at Bora Bora, for that would have been not only an evil omen, but folly as well, for he would have seen Marama, and that sight he could not have borne.
When West Wind reached the reef, and stood for a moment in its last stretch of easily navigable water, all in the canoe experienced a moment of awful dread, for outside the coral barrier roared the storm on slashing waves and tremendous deeps. Just for an instant Mato, lead paddle on the left, whispered, "Great Tane! Such waves!" But with prodigious force he led the paddlers into a swift rhythm that bore them directly into the heart of the storm. The canoe rose high in the sea, teetered a moment with its shrouds whistling, then ripped down, down into the valley of the waves. Spray dashed across all heads and the two halves seemed as if they must tear apart. Pigs squealed in terror and dogs barked, while in the flooded grass house women thought: "This is death."
But instantly the powerful canoe cut into the waves, found itself, and rode high onto the crest of the ocean, away from Bora Bora of the muffled paddles, away from the comforting lagoon and onto the highway that led to nothingness.
IN SUCH WEATHER King Tamatoa led his people into exile. They did not go in triumph or with banners flying; they fled at night, with no drums beating. They did not leave with riches and in panoply; they were rudely elbowed off their island with only enough food to sustain them precariously. Had they been more clever, they would have held their homeland; but they were not and they were forced to go. Had they perceived the deeper nature of gods, they would never have fallen prey to a savage deity who tormented them; but they were stubborn rather than wise, and the false god expelled them.
Later ages would depict these men as all-wise and heroic, great venturers seeking bright new lands; but such myths would be in error, for no man leaves where he is and seeks a distant place unless he is in some respect a failure; but having failed in one location and having been ejected, it is possible that in the next he will be a little wiser.
There was, however, one overriding characteristic that marked these defeated people as they swept into the storm: they did have courage. Only if they had been craven could