Housekeeping in Tahiti

Some Illusions Are Destroyed

By Mary Atherton

AFTER I had been a week in Tahiti, I found myself adopting a formula: No European lives in Papeete un less he has to. You should take a house m one of the districts, Punaavia or Paea.

Have you been out there? There are some charming houses, and almost all are empty, as so many of the foreigners have gone home.”

“I ought—l will,” I would reply. “But how does one go about housekeeping?”

I had no car, and the only market is m Papeete—the best market in the Paci fic, I had been told. I had not yet seen the market, which is active at 5 a.m, and by 6 a.m. there is nothing left to buy.

“You needn’t worry. The trucks pass all day long, and Alec or Claret will always bring you what you want from town if you ask them. Then there is always the Chinaman, with bread and vegetables.”

All sights dissolve in a vision of the in scrutable Oriental who dominates the commercial life of Papeete. His slant eyes watch you across every counter. He is the

groeer, the tailor and the sandal-maker. 6 Ho S i°~^ u i th is asic * e —has been known to deal in foreign exchange. He provides y oifl want from a bicycle to a bunch of carrots. Ah Choon, of Papeete ic the guide, philosopher and friend of many a European lost in the intricacies of housekeeping in Tahiti.

HAVING selected a house in the midst of coconut palms fringing the lagoon with a coral beach of my own I transferred myself and my luggage bv camionette (“little truck”) early one morning to my new abode, at the 19th kilometre, in the “wilds” of Paea, taking the precaution of bringing some stores with me. At almost every house along the road the camionette stopped to dis charge a passenger with a marketing basket, or a basket alone without a passenger. fil S ese -£ asket . s ’, of Plaited palm-leaf, are filled with perishables from town which by some mysterious agency, are collected for the country-dweller who cannot get to market, and deposited at his gate-post in the shade of the hibiscus-hedge The truck driver toots his horn and, before the house-holder has even appeared to claim his day’s provisions, moves off to the next kilometre.

In each district there is a ramshackle Chinese store, crowded with children, who stare at you silently, whilst scrawny chick ens and stray, featherless ducks peck at crumbs and dust and insects on the wooden floor. Sugar and tea, cloth for pareus, thread, soap and tobacco, are sold in these grim little stores, where nobody appears to speak French or English, or even Tahitian.

Nevertheless, you are handed what you ask for, the amount you owe being in dicated by coins on the counter. The transaction is carried through in com plete unsmiling silence on the part of the store-keeper, with a superfluity of words and signs from yourself. There is never a flicker of response to your india rubber smiles.

The Chinaman here is the absolute embodiment of indifference; and this Chinese element in Tahiti, where the Chinese have acquired so much land, run all the local commerce, and are a law unto themselves, with their own closely guarded tribal secrets, is a story in itself Wherever you go, from the district of Pare to Tautira or Teahupoo, le Chinois who speaks little even of his own lan guage is an important factor in daily life.

THE place I have rented consists of three separate houses: the main house, a spacious affair open all round, pandanus-thatched in the native style, where I lounge, work, and sleep; the dining-house, with small kitchen attached; and a small guest-house. I seem to be in possession of a miniature estate, which necessitates a good deal of wandering to and fro under the coconuts.

The Chief of the district paid me a call next day, staggering under a load of bananas and a basket of mangoes, for which, after amiabilities had been exchanged, he politely asked five francs (roughly, ninepence). I was delighted.

From him, I also ordered charcoal with which cooking is done on a stove made of a kerosene tin with a grid. My visitor left me with the impression that I had but to say the word and he would see that the abundance of Tahiti was mine.

Since then, though I have repeatedly hinted that I wished to taste the prawns which I had been told were to be found in myriads in all the rivers (and cne runs alongside the Chief’s house), that I would buy any fish he had to spare (and he has several sons who go fishing),

neither prawns nor sea-food have yet appeared.

THE fact is—and now the hard truth must be told —this ease of life, this teeming abundance, this care-free existence where you have but to put out your hands and all the fruits of heaven fall into them, are all part of a tremendous illusion.

True, there are fish, masses of them leaping and jumping in the lagoon; the roads are yellow with mangoes rotting where they have fallen; limes and avocados weigh down the branches of trees in the valleys waiting to be plucked; there are forests of bread-fruit trees, grove after grove of bananas.

But unless you go after these things yourself—an occupation which would take up three-quarters of your existence—you must procure them from the market, or do without. The natives appear to have the minimum of energy to expend, even upon themselves, much less for you.

If it were not for the Chinamen, who travel the roads, blowing a conch-shell to announce their passing with baskets of bread, and vegetables which with great labour they force from the over-burdened earth, you must renounce all hope of balanced meals. The übiquitous coconut may stay hunger, but as a steady diet, may prove monotonous and indigestible.

Certainly, the trucks go up and down, morning and afternoon, and for a small consideration the drivers are willing to do your marketing in Papeete and see that you receive supplies; but, when you live off the highway, as I do, you some how never catch the trucks, unless you plant yourself by the side of the road with a book, resigned to waiting anything from 20 minutes to an hour. And, then, if you order meat or fish, you must be home to eat it, since neither will keep more than a few hours, if you are one of the unfortunates who cannot afford ice.

This can be delivered, every day, if you are willing to pay an enormous amount for stuff of which half has entirely melted before it reaches you.

THERE are mango-fed cows on the island, but they produce hardly any milk, and this ingredient must be banished from your recipes. Cream is obtaining by grinding the flesh of a coco nut and squeezing it in a piece of muslin; it is quite pleasant with coffee and as a basis for salad dressing. Cheese does not Butter is imported in well-sealed tins from New Zealand. For this, there is an immensely long waiting-list; the last ship brought only four cases, and this supply soon ran out. In place of butter, we make a paste of avocado pear, faintly flavoured with garlic—a damnable substitute. Flour and rice are unobtainable without a permit.

The pork is good, and an enterprising Czech in town manufactures bacon and sausages which are an excellent stand-by.

The fish is coarse, but very nourishing.

Clams, wrested from the reef, pickled in lime and coconut milk, and sold in hollow sticks of green bamboo, sealed with a bit of banana leaf, are available locally.

The native coffee is good and cheap (roughly, ninepence a pound).

Beer brewed from melons and pine apple is refreshing and surprisingly po tent. There is rum, no longer so much of the good Martinique variety, but a native mixture that is adequate. The stocks of French wine have run dry and there is no hope of any more.

So much for housekeeping in Tahiti; a strenuous business calling for the utmost patience, ingenuity and a sense of humour.

In all fairness it must be admitted that the war and consequent shortage of supplies have enhanced the complications.

The native women avoid working when

they can. They, have not always had the necessity; for can they not squat in the sun outside their little huts the whole day through, nourishing themselves on the ever-present bread-fruit and the coconuts which fall around them?

HERE is my experience of Tahitian hospitality. I had read of a certain native’s reputation as a cook, and decided to visit him. He received me cor dially, in his bamboo house, by the water’s edge. I found him charming, hospitable and intelligent, but a sick man.

He turned his daughter out of her house to provide me with shelter on a rainy night, and the next day ordered his family to prepare a special luncheon.

There was melon, and raw fish done in the native manner—pickled in lime-juice and soaked in coconut milk; and there was sucking-pig baked on hot stones,

b^\? a £ h la , yer after layer of banana leaf, with bread-fruit and hot bananas to go with it.

There was poi, the native pudding, a glutinous, yellow mixture concocted of local tapioca, sweetened with coconut cream.

The preparation of this meal occupied the whole family for an entire morning, and was proffered with the same spon faneous generosity which Captain Cook ana sailors found so irresistible in this people. Indeed, it is a surprising tribute to the Tahitians that a minute r £ mi^ nt of their former civilisation should exist at all, when confronted by such mixed enemies as the influence of money-squandering Anglo-Saxons, dance halls, bars, canned goods, raw spirits and a spineless religion foisted on them by the early missionaries. For so often, in their ready smiles and kindly greetings, an impulsive invitation to you, a stranger to enter their homes and partake of the choicest fruits of their store, you may glimpse vestiges of an old cult of friend ship and hospitality.

* f^ ny have become shiftless and H e s! c we have to remember that the blame lies with us. Attenuated slaves of an indiscriminate industrial system we have, by imposing our traders and our trade upon them, helped them to forget the ancient lore by which their fore ar*d their hunting-grounds, their fields and forests and fishing-places flourished, increased and multiplied .It is a strange commentary on our civilisation that in the Tahitians we have practically destroyed a once independent and splendid cross-section of the human race.