Atiu As She Is

Wedded

By “Tukapa Koko”

ON this island (Mangaia, Cook Group; where at present I live and have my beans, faute de mieux, there is a small colony of native folk from the neighbouring, gayer isle of Atiu.

The Ngati-Atiu are of Tahitian ex traction, and less stolid than their Mangaian hosts, so an Atiu wedding on Mangaia was quite a show. The con tracting parties, honest Taokiia and fair Rimaiti, were “popped off” in the style customary on the spicier shore.

Nothing less than veil and gown of fair white silk sufficed for the bride. The rig-out represented a prodigious feat of family effort, aided by a few items from European well-wishers chiefly Mrs.

Oswald Savage, wife of Donald’s manager at the local branch, who is also on Atiuan.

The bringing of the bride to the mis sion was a queer mixture of artistry and quaintness. Her veil and dress ' were beautiful indeed; and she arrived in a sort of sedan-chair, carried on poles by brawny young men, high over the heads of the admiring crowd.

The palanquin was a stout form equipped with shafts, and the bearers were ten in number. The bride was not alone in her aristocratic convevanc' 1 , though the groom had to walk to the slaughter.

The bride sat under a shade of green ery up aloft, with two little twelve year-old bridesmaids on each side of her.

The humour came in when the bearers put down and picked ud the bride. They were totally unaccustomed to this way of doing things—the first Atiu-style wed ding at Mangaia—and in th-ir enthusiasm handled the incoming and outgoing bride rather like the little boys do a certain effigy on the glorious Fifth, up in New Zealand. It was this, perhaps, that led some Rosencrantz or Guilden stern to remark, “Now, we only need a few crackers!”

Be that as it may, the hoisted, shoulder high bride was the Belle of the Day.