A Trader's Tale

By “Tukapa Koko”

WHAT is, a six-months-long Hurricane Season to you, dwellers on those islands where a monthly steamer calls! And what, even, to you, safe and salaried Europeans on the isolated outer isles, where funds suffice for a laying-in of six months’ necessary luxuries landed from the final schooner of the year!

The Polynesian is not so well off. His, by grace of Nordic civilisation, the taste for such white-man’s “kai” as tinned meats, salmon, and sardines; his the “kaki” for biscuits, the “yen”, so to speak, for butter; but he has to “kaki” in vain, in such times as funds are not.

And, at Mangaia, since copra became a cypher in the market, the days of poverty run through half the year.

Wherefore, of Tokoroa.

Tokoroa was one of those natives, old seeming but not even really elderly, who pass from the “mapu” stage, the strut ting Don Juan-ism of village youth, to the stodgy middle-age of matrimony at 20; and, at 40, rank as elderly nonentities, without that dignity that goes with a recognised patriarchy. Consider it well, ye who begrudge the Polynesian his brief hour of glorious life around the “bush beer” bowl, and the delights of nocturnal adventure.

Tokoroa was not very old. Hard work was his lot, up to the waist day after day in a stinking taro-swamp, and he realised there was a price to pay when he developed a cough that pained his chest and left him weak.

He worked some more, ignored the handicap. The years went by. He packed and shipped oranges, earning the case money in the sweat of great labour, and

spending it on the needs of his family, for he had many children.

There were clothes to buy; taxes to

pay; European food, at stiff prices, to be got for those days when the dan gerous reef of Mangaia was a locked

door to the Ocean of Kiwa, and fish not to be had.

Came the hurricane season and the opening months of the year proved cruelly lean. One cannot live by taro alone; I doubt if even the heathen of ancient days enjoyed the rubbery root as a whole menu from soup to nuts. It may be for that reason they were cannibals!

Tokoroa, their modern descendant, would have died rather than eat the “long pig”, for he was a devout Ekalesia, or native Church - Member. Tokoroa worked, fished, and tried all he could to feed his family well; but there were short-commoned days, and rough seas for weeks at a time.

The cough, reaching a climax, went on to haemorrhage; and Tokoroa realised he had “TB”. No more fishing, no more hard work; but, yet, no other means of living.

I don’t know how the family lived; but, with their head hors de combat, it is likely they went short.

I would have liked to help; but my finances were as strait as theirs, until a ship should arrive—and that was not to be till April.

Tokoroa went through January; en dured February, with its rains; survived March, with its minor hurricane. The coughing and haemorrhages were worse; he found it hard to speak.

The April boat came, and Tokoroa was nearly above the palms; but he hung on, inspired by the desire to taste once more his favourite “kai”—cabin biscuits, with butter on them.

I, deep in debt, was hard up; but, as soon as the ship arrived, I hastened to buy two-shillings’-worth of the luxury, and a tin of butter, out of the newly unpacked cases. Leaving my mail, my parcels, I rushed up the rocky stairway, the Jacob’s ladder that leads from the beach to the inland village, the planta tions and the mountain.

Come what might to-morrow, or next day, or next week, Tokoroa’s little luxury was secure to him—after the long, dreary hurricane-months that cut Mangaia off from all shipping communication.

As I climbed, the hooting from the steamer’s whistle rang inland, arousing all Mangaia to the joyful news of plenty after dearth—lashings of money, tons of food, a good time. Till funds ran out again! But it mattered little, for the steamer was to call every month till at least July.

I reached the peak of the inland road; paused, panting, at the door of the little, dark hut that Tokoroa called his home.

The door, of reeds in a wooden frame, was shut. The sunshine, perhaps, worried the sick man’s weakened eyes. I knocked.

The frame door opened. Mrs. Tokoroa looked out. She was pitifully ragged; her black, expressionless eyes, round as a moth’s, looked into mine.

“Here are the butter and biscuits for Toko,” said I, in my best vernacular.

The dark, moth-like eyes blinked, the brown woman burst into a wail of “Aue, aue, aue!”

“Here, cheer up,” said I. “Give some to Toko, and have a few yourself—happy days are here again.”

“Tokoroa, my man, he die,” said the widow of fifteen minutes, weeping.

Koitaki Para Rubber Estates Ltd., of Papua, earned net profit of £6,755 for the vear ended June 30, compared with £12,156 for 1939-40. Ordinary dividend has been reduced from 121 to 10 per cent., and requires £7,501. Prefer ence dividend amounts to £l9. The carry forward is £3, against £768 brought for ward. The report states that, owing to drought conditions, output fell to 503,827 lb. of dry rubber, which was 36,149 lb. less than the preceding year.