a Polynesian

Tangata Dies

The Colourful Career of a Polynesian

From Our Own Correspondent

Rarotonga, Jan. 10.

A REMARKABLE life for any man, much less a simple native of the South Seas, ended tragically in Rarotonga recently. Te Tangata Kere kere, a native of Atiu, had a chequered career in the Cook Islands, Tahiti and America, and was deported from nearly every country he visited.

Born in Atiu, he went at an early age to Tahiti, where he learned to play a dashing guitar and to sing the racy native “ute” (songs in a high voice, peculiar to this part of Polynesia). Even at this early age, he was considered abnormal, a long, swaggering, swarthy Don Juan, always out for a fight or to attract attention.

About 1930, Tangata caught the fancy of a Spanish-American visitor to Tahiti, who took him back to the United States, and thence on to Mexico. The swagger ing Polynesian, who could play the guitar and who sang at the least encour agement, was a great hit there, and he stayed several months, receiving in exchange for his artistic efforts an ele mentary education in the use of the knife.

One night, while staying at a small hotel, Tangata was smitten with home sickness. He took a suitcase of his bene factor, containing a suit of clothes and some important papers, and fled across the border to San Francisco. Being then without any means of support, in the depth of the depression, he was deported by the authorities to Tahiti.

In Tahiti he was now a much-travel led man and, after spending a short time learning to be a boxer, he spent four years raising many sorts of trouble —until at last, in 1936, after some ugly rumours concerning the death of a Chinaman, he was again deported, this time to Rarotonga.

A few months of brawling and gaol soon earned him a free ticket to his home island of Atiu, where it was thought he might calm down. Within a few days, he was imprisoned in Atiu for wife-beating and fighting, and even tually he was returned to Rarotonga as a hopeless case. After another few months of gaol, he was freed, and settled down to a comparatively peaceful life as a shoemaker. He was married to Vic toria, a pretty native girl, of Mangaia.

Last August, however, he was again prosecuted for galloping a horse through the main settlement of Avarua. Another prison term ensued and, during this, he was taunted by his fellow-prisoners con cerning his wife’s infidelity. Becoming at last desperate, he managed to borrow money to pay the rest of his fine, and hurried back to his home in the village of Parekura, a colony of natives of Manihiki and other outer islands.

On arriving home, Tangata was coldly received by Victoria, who had apparently grown tired of him, and he left her. A period of pathetic serenading with the guitar followed, the woman refusing to listen to his plaintive love songs, until at last, on December 4, she told him in plain language that she was finished with him and added insult to injury by addressing him by his last name of Kerekere (a dark-skinned man, consid ered an insult amongst the light-brown Polynesians).

Infuriated, the man took his leather cutting knife from his belt, made a rush

at Victoria and stabbed her several times in the breast and neck. Victoria’s elder sister, who was in the native house, ran to the rescue, and also received severe stabs, although she succeeded in landing a blow with a reap-hook in the pit of his back.

A nearby youth, Koteka, rushed to the scene of the screams, but was caught in the arm by the knife of the now insane Tangata, who then ran to the bush, about 200 yards distant, and disappeared.

A search was immediately instituted by the police, helped by the Union Steam Ship Company labour gang, but with no result. Rumours, all unreliable, came in from all parts of the island that he had been sighted; many of the natives living in the remote valleys came into the settlement, as Tangata was obviously by now desperate.

At last, on the afternoon of December 10, the unfortunate man was found, hung, on a small hill behind Avarua, called Tua Kata. He had used the bark of the “au” tree for his suicide. Appar ently he killed himself on the same day as he ran amok, probably on account of the pain of his wound and the Poly nesian fear of “tupapaku” (evil spirits of the night).

Such instances of homicide are most rare amongst these islanders. All those wounded were taken to hospital, and have recovered.

Monsieur Oscar Meyer, the French anthropologist, who worked in Tahiti, Marquesas, and in New Guinea, is now with the French forces in Indo-China.

In a recent letter, M. Meyer states that he was actually on a New Caledonia-bound vessel for six hours, and was then, with other soldiers, ordered off by the authori ties. He hopes to return to Australia when permission can be obtained.