Show Me the Sky - Nicholas Hogg [11]
Has the Lord not created us in His image? If so, why is this a shape to be ashamed of?
27 October 1834
Dead calm. Fearing a vertical sun’s ‘sickening effects’ the missionaries have untied their hammocks, and along with the bedding, brought it upon the decks to be aired, thus affording the benefit of fresh air to their berths once the smoke had cleared from fumigation with tobacco and sulphur.
How the white body shrivels before the burning globe! It makes one think of pale worms dug from the dank soil. Blessed are we with skin cured dark from the glorious sun, free to enjoy its rays without layers of cloth and hats of straw!
2 November 1834
The torpor of a dead calm has finally passed, and not soon enough, as neither seaman nor missionary finds comfort with idle hands.
It is this incessant attention to time that I fear will frustrate my dear pilgrims the most. My Fijian brothers and sisters, and the ancients gone before them, were content to reckon time from the rising of the sun. Yet of all the unnatural obsessions of the West, even beyond the accumulation of power and status through money, the measure of success by metal and paper, it is time, the thing that cannot be held, kept, or driven by any will but that of the stars and the moon, of which the white man makes constant commotion.
The idea that each moment in each day can be divided and numbered, sliced into so many pieces like a sweet papaya, then again multiplied by the amount of days, weeks, and months in a year, will be a mystery to even the wisest chief.
When asked my age, I could only answer with a guess at the number of moons I have walked this earth, for the Fijian does not countdown his death in such a fashion. The enquirers duly felt sorry I had not a day reserved on the calendar to celebrate my birth, yet it was I who felt pity for them, a lament for the soul waiting to expire.
Time escapes the white man like a slippery fish, clutched too hard by the hungry hand. By not chasing something that cannot be caught, my brothers can live without haste and fear of a ticking clock. God has not enslaved us to his pocket watch. My people should be wary of the white man and his sickness of the passing day. We do not need more than what is between the rising and the setting of the sun.
5 November 1834
Further work on the dictionary has kept me from this journal, along with preparation for the Fijian lessons due to commence with Rev. Stevens, the only one of the brethren on-board to be stationed in my homeland.
I am both nervous and excited about assuming the role of teacher. The Rev. Lilywhite took me to one side this morning and reminded me of the responsibility invested in those with knowledge.
17 November 1834
Once again I have neglected my journal. I have missed this dialogue with the page, a chance to give form to thoughts I could not share with acquaintances considered more professional than friend.
Regardless, a dedicated teacher must be fully committed to his pupils, and much time has been spent preparing lessons for the Rev. Stevens, which normally would have been dedicated to this diary.
The rev. has been a model student, benefiting greatly from his studies of Hawaiian and the wider origins of the languages known as Malayo-Polynesian, of which Fijian is a member. On first learning that my mother tongue had cousins dotted across the Pacific, from Formosa to New Zealand, Easter Island to Madagascar, I was thrilled to hear how far our family had spread. There are chiefs who will deny this truth as malicious rumour. ‘Fijian is pure,’ they will bellow. ‘A single kingdom with a single tongue.’ Following which exclamation will be mistrust and suspicion of the white man, with only the magic of the musket, or the Gospel, to enforce the truth.
This bleak prediction of the future aside, it is with great pleasure that the Rev. Stevens and I sit and study, most generously offered the captain’s quarters while he