Trader's Tales

A Mixed Grill From the Outer Cooks

By Tukapa Koko"

THE combined naivete and nescience of some of my native neighbours is both my joy and my cross, in the humble post I occupy as village trader.

The thatched reed huts where I trade, live, and have my beans (canned) are often sprinkled liberally but entirely un consciously with Attic salt by the dark sons and daughters of Oceania, and if I myself get a few crystals on me during the process, it is not unbeneflcial. Good ness knows, we in our isolation get little to arouse us, except an occasional fam ily row or a dog-fight.

Among my friends was Tara, a dam sel who filled the eye. Entertaining Tara was no bore. She had a bright, inquisitive mind that sought deeply into the whys and wherefores of the white man’s scheme of things, as viewed at second hand in magazines and news papers. I, informing, was in my turn informed: for the natives do not see pictures with our eyes.

As thus; Upon a day, Tara was turn ing idly over the pages of an illustrated magazine, marvelling at the wondrous palaces that are white men’s homes; and she chanced upon a wealthy mansion that had long passed from the hands of its hereditary owner, an English lord, into the tenancy of a wealthy American porketeer, whose superimposed crest dated but from 1918. Nonetheless, he saw

no shame in its superseding one that had adorned the surcoats of belted knights in the thirteenth century.

The house was magnificent; its panel ling, its floors, its tine embellishments enchanted Tara. In one of its salons, was a collection of family silver, in glass cases, that was worth a pretty penny and that even the porketeer’s family could not pluck up nerve to use.

On the wall of that same opulent room, as big as Mangaia’s cargo-shed (the local standard of infinite space) was a beautiful painting, representing the late King Edward VII. in admiral’s uniform.

The potentate dwelt not in Tara’s re collection—which was pardonable, seeing that she had been born long after he passed on to a better sphere.

The portrait was an exact square, and the grave countenance of the late Roy alty gazed down from a background of blue.

“Eti,” said Tara, “You look this. Plenty money he get, that p’leeceman, all time look in window for no man come steal there?” * * * And, by the same token, of a lapsus memoriae.

At the village of Ivirua dwelt another of my customers, a gay buck, and one who made no mathematical error over the necessary number of beans to total five.

He had a lady friend, with whom he was wont —how shall I say it? —to spend late evenings. Such a thing is not en couraged at Mangaia, where Mission rule is a power in the land.

The Ivirua native pastor wooed these two burning brands, and persuaded them to reverse proverbial process and leap out of the fire of promiscuity into the safe frying-pan of matrimony.

On the nuptial night, the village of Ivirua, always tough and turbulent, was paraded by the usual pair of curfew cops, out to impound daring souls on the road aft.er nine.

It belonged not to the bridegroom’s care. He was snoring by the side of his legal partner, with stately and moral rumbelow.

The gendarmerie flashed their torches onto verandahs where a dark corner might harbor sinful wights seeking whom they might morally devour, and the policemen felt it part of their duty to illuminate the exterior of the house where slept two dearly ransomed souls.

The bridal pair were above suspicion now; but beams of light go where they list, like the wind, and a conditioned reflex is a thing that knows no mastery.

A vagrant torch-beam, like a reveal ing fairy searchlight, fell on the bride groom’s face. He awoke. Leaping to his feet, he dashed out of the house into the bush. .

He had forgotten he was married!

Mrs. G. Nelligan, wife of Mr. G. Nelli gan, of the Fiji Post and Telegraph De partment, Suva, died recently in Mel bourne while visiting relations. She had lived in Fiji for over 25 years.

Mr, James Savage, of Pan American Airways’ staff on Canton Island, joined the PA.A. dinner there on its inaugural flight on July 16 and flew to Auckland; the following week he accompanied the clipper back to U.S.A. Mr. Savage spent nine months on Canton.

Mrs. A. Baker, formerly of Fiji, died in New Zealand last month at the age of 75. She went to Fiji 60 years ago, and three of her children —Mrs. Marr and Mrs. Lindsay (Suva) and Mr. C. Baker (Nairai)—are still residents of the Colony.