Kitchen Tales In

Rotuma

By “Amel”

rEN,” said the cook-cum-gardener- “there is the pool at Lopta. If a black man goes into it, he comes out white,”

“Now, now,” I remonstrated, “this is getting a bit thick. You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can’t put a swift one over me like that.”

“It’s true,” he said, stubbornly. “You can ask any Rotuman.”

“I suppose I can. And each one will give me an even more glamorous version of the tale.”

“It’s true,” he insisted. I emitted an unbelieving snort. I had listened to quite a number of these tales and each succeeding one served but to confirm my secret belief that the cook was a stranger to the truth.

He had told me, in all seriousness, of the two fish that swam up when called, and who swam away in a great rage if you spoke harshly to them. With some scepticism, I heard the tale of the row of rocks that represented a hen with her chickens, and how, if you struck any of the chicken rocks, the tide rose with a mighty rush and covered the rocks, and you, too, if you weren’t careful.

I learned, with increasing disbelief, that if a certain little bird went “Heh!

Heh!” outside your window one dark night, somebody in your household would surely die, and that a woman would die in childbirth if a pink cloud of very defi nite shape, size and colour was observed in the sky at sunset.

And now, to cap it all, came this story of the pool containing the water that made black people white.

I didn’t believe it, and, if I had been sure that he wouldn’t put poison in our coffee, I would have called him a liar to his face. However, I satisfied myself by indicating that the story exceeded the bounds of probability, and went off to make a few private inquiries.

Yes, I was told by Those-Who-Knew, it was true about the fish that came

when called, and the hen-rock certainly got in a towering rage if you hit a chjcken-rock. The little bird’s “Heh!

Heh!” always preceded dire misfortune, and the pink cloud had never been miss ing when a woman died in childbirth.

But to say there was a pool that turned black persons white was undiluted bunkum. The truth was, they only looked white when in the water.

“There you are!” I crowed to the imaginative cook.

“Oh, yes,” he admitted sheepishly.

“That’s what I meant to say. But I can tell you that . . .”

“That will be enough of your fairy tales,” I said firmly. “Go and chop some wood.”

An old resident of New Caledonia, M.

Edouard Leroy, died recently at Onegoa, at the age of 71.