Hawaii - James Michener [68]
The sexual life of the king was much too important to be conducted in darkness and hidden glades, so on the next day, after the fishermen had brought in their first substantial catch and women had boiled their unpromising pandanus drupes, Tupuna announced that his wife Teura had ascertained that the time of the month was propitious and that their king, Tamatoa, would that afternoon lie with his wife Natabu. That grave and stately woman was then brought forth from beneath a tree, where she had been secluded, and a temporary shelter, made of cut saplings stuck into the ground and covered with the most consecrated tapas, was erected according to ancient custom.
When the tent was completed, sedate Natabu, who rarely spoke and who was, by a peculiar combination of omens and good circumstances, the most holy of all the voyagers, was blessed by Tupuna and led into the nuptial area and placed according to ancient custom upon the woven mats. The king was then blessed, and the entire company, including even the five slaves, surrounded the tapa house and chanted. Then, with the prayers and blessings of all the community, the king was taken to the sanctified house, placed inside by the priest, and hidden by the lowered tapa. At this point the prayers mounted in frenzy.
The woman with whom the king lay was his sister Natabu. It had been discovered anciently in the islands that for a king to breed a proper heir to the throne, one who would combine the finest lineage and the utmost sanctity, he must mate only with his full-blood sister, and although both Tamatoa and his sister Natabu might later take other spouses, their principal obligation was the production--under circumstances of the most intricate propriety, and under the surveillance of the entire community--of royal descendants.
"May the union be fruitful," old Teura chanted as her niece and nephew lay inside the tapa tent. "May it produce strong kings and princesses blessed with godlike blood." The crowd prayed: "May this union produce for us a king," and although they had prayed thus on occasion in the past, when the nuptial tent had been raised over Tamatoa in hopes of breeding an heir, they had never prayed with equal fervor, for it was apparent that in a strange land an heir of the most impeccable lineage was essential, for who else could represent them before the gods if Tamatoa died.
In the late afternoon, when the king and his sister left the rude tent, the eyes of the people followed them, and the chants continued, and all prayed that a good thing had been accomplished on that auspicious day.
When the nuptial tent was taken down and all omens pertaining to it examined, King Tamatoa faced another major obligation, for he was led by Tupuna to a field into which the farmers had diverted a small stream. This would become the taro bed upon which the community would depend for its basic food, and already the mud walls surrounding it imprisoned a foot of water, making the bottom of the field a deep, soft mass of mud. Standing at the edge, where the stream entered, Tamatoa cried, "May the mana of my body pass through my feet and bless this field!” Whereupon he stepped knee-deep into the muddy water and began trampling the bed. He was joined by Tupuna, Teroro, Mato and Pa, the men with most mana, and for hours they passed back and forth over every inch of the taro patch, hammering the mud into a watertight basin, sealing it with their mana. When they were done Tamatoa shouted, "May this bed be forever sealed. Now plant the taro!"
And according to customs more than two thousand years old, the people planted not only the taro, but the breadfruit and the bananas and the pandanus; but for no crop were they as fearful of failure as when they planted coconuts, for to a large extent their entire manner of life was intertwined with this extraordinary tree. When the nuts were young they gave delicious water; when old, a precious oil or a sweet milk. Palms from the coconut thatched many of the houses; hard shells formed cups and