Death Of Paul Gauguin's Tahitian

Mistress

ERIC RAMSDEN, well-known writer on Polynesian subjects, describes the unimpressive end of an Islands romance.

A BRIEF reference in a letter from my good friend, Oscar Nordman. of Tahiti, told me recently of the death of Taurua, the one-time vahine of Paul Gnuguin, the French painter.

It recalled a summer’s day at Punauuia when, with Oscar as my guide, I called on the old lady. Taurua’s passing is of interest to the many who have been either fascinated or repelled by the work of that strange genius, Gauguin (or Koke, as the Tahitians called him).

In the withered, sad-faced old woman, clad in a shabby black Mother Hubbard, it seemed difficult to reconcile Gauguin’s description of the golden-skinned, glam orous creature, his enchanting Tahitian mistress. One realises, of course, that beauty fades quickly in Tahiti, that love liness is soon gone. . . .

Taurua (The Evening Star) was the companion of the Frenchman in that dis trict for ten years. To remain with one’s lover in Tahiti for a decade is something of a record.

To-day, Punauuia is only a short motor drive from Papeete. But in Gauguin’s time it was comnletely rural. The cottage in which he dwelt with Taurua still stands on the shore, facing Moorea, a

truly enchanting spot. Robert Keable and Alec Waugh, the English writers, lived there in recent years.

It has long since reverted to its original owners, the family of Nordman. There is nothing to suggest that it was once occupied by a genius. But Oscar, volatile as ever, had ambitious plans for the “Villa Ventura.” ... As a boy he had helped collect some of the carvings left around the fale by the mad Frenchman.

For a time his father did not know what to do with them. Gauguin, by then, had left for the Marquesas: no one knew whether he would return to Punauuia.

Finally, the carvings were incorporated in a fence to keep the pigs out of the garden. As the posts rotted in the ground they were thrown by young Oscar on a fire, with other rubbish.

Long before he had departed for Hiva-Oa, the painter had been an admirer of the art of the Marquesans.

Hard wood of the type he required for carving was exceedingly difficult to pro cure in Tahiti. Therefore, he had ex perimented with staves from wine barrels.

In subsequent years, agents for col lectors searched the district for Marquesan designs touched by the magic fingers of

Paul Gauguin. “And we had nothing to show them,” Oscar confided to me. “Not a single piece of carving. I could have kicked myself for burning that stuff. But who, at that time, was to know that it possessed any commercial value?’’ * * * TAURUA had long since returned to her native village.

It is little more than a mile from the home that she shared with Koke (as she still referred to her old lover). It nestled among the niau palms at the foot of the mountains. We had to scramble through the undergrowth to approach it. Natur ally enough, Taurua objected to being an object of curiosity to tourists.

An old woman, her hair tightly scraped back from her wrinkled brow, appeared in the doorway of a thatched hut. Several pots stood on the open hearth outside.

Obviously, she had been disturbed at her cooking. Like any housewife in any part of the world she was not, I recall, in the best of humours that day. Yet like a true Polynesian she was not impolite to her visitors. . . . Her poverty was

pathetic.

If I had not been with Oscar it is possible that Taurua would not have ex changed more than a dozen words. Some of her visitors, she told me later, had asked impertinent questions. The old lady was glad to know that I was not French. The British, as a rule, she com mented, did not ask her to describe Koke’s love habits.

IT was apparent that time had softened the memory of Gauguin. Local tradition had it (and it is invariably correct in such matters in Tahiti) that Koke and Taurua were not on the best of terms when the former shook the dust of the Punauuia road from his feet and left his young mistjess for ever. But who was Koke to accuse Taurua of a flighty nature?

“Yes, Koke was kind,” remarked the old woman as she smoothed the folds of her threadbare black gown. “When he had money he gave it to us. More often than not he had no money at all. ... I always intended going to the Judiciary, and, in accordance with the law, declar ing myself as the wife of Koke. Yet, somehow, I did not do it. I do not know why. Now % it is too late.

“I often* wish that Marae-Atai and I had some of the many thousands of francs that I am told were received for Koke’s pictures. Just a few francs would have made all the difference to us. Life has been hard. It was difficult enough, even in those days when we had him with us. Always he would sit painting, paint ing. . . . But when he had money he would give it to us.”

WOMAN - LIKE, Taurua seemed anxious to protect the memory of the man she called her tane, the man who had deserted her and her small

son. The first child that she had to the Frenchman was a daughter: she had died in infancy. Marae-Atai (or Emile) was a mere toddler when his father left Punauuia. He had no recollection what soever of him. Though quite uneducated, Gauguin’s son, when I last saw him, was a fine physical specimen of the French- Tahitian cross. Then in his early thir ties, he strongly resembled the well known self-portrait of his famous father.

He speaks little French, and no English at all.

No, Taurua had never again heard from Koke. “He did not even send us a letter,” she said, dispassionately.

Marae-Atai, who resided not far from his mother, kept her supplied with fish.

He had a considerable reputation as a fisherman, “A good son? Indeed, he is a good son,” she replied.

No, he was unmarried; there were no grand-children of Taurua and Gauguin.

“Someday, perhaps,” the old woman smiled, displaying her decayed teeth. Like all Tahitians, she was sensitive on the point of teeth.

THOUGH Taurua was careful not to say so, it is apparent that Gauguin abandoned his little Tahitian family —Just as, in an earlier period of his life, he had left his French offspring.

It seems, too, that his departure for the Marquesas was not entirely of his own volition. One who had known him told me that, with his caricatures of prominent personalities in Papeete, and his vitriolic outbursts from his printing press, Gauguin had made himself so un popular in official quarters that Tahiti had become a little unhealthy for him.

Though Gauguin loved and understood the natives, with his own countrymen on the island he was anything but popular.

The majority, like poor Taurua, had never understood him. How could they?

Not one person with whom I spoke who had known him (with the solitary excep tion of his old mistress), had a good word to say concerning the painter.

“If he wanted anything from you he was servile in manner; if he did not want anything he was a bully and a braggart —just as it suited him. I did not care for Paul Gauguin!” The speaker, a Frenchman, told me how on one oc casion Gauguin had brought him a fuel stove to repair. As was so often the case, he was penniless when he called to collect it.

Gauguin, by way of payment, offered one of his pictures. “I told him to take the stove and get out of the shop,” my informant said. “I had seen some of his daubs and I did not care for them.

Neither did anyone else.” * * * THE following was written in my diary following the visit to Taurua with genial Oscar:— “Life moves along without much effort at Punauuia—just as it did in Gauguin’s day. The only apparent difference is that a honking motor-bus. crowded with sightseers or happy, laughing Tahitians, careers through the leafy lanes that- once knew Gauguin. The Tahitians pass the ‘Villa Ventura’ with a song on their lips.

For all they care he might never have existed. With the tourists it is different. . . . Over in the village in her hut beneath the mountain side an old woman sits before a fire stirring a pot. Does she still think of Koke, her strange French lover, or of the others that came after?

Does she think at all?

“Out on the reef a muscular, bronzed figure is fishing. He is silhouetted against the setting sun. Marae-Atai, the son of Taurua and Gauguin, is earning his daily bread. The sun is sinking behind Moorea, so lovely and remote, a thousand

pinnacles on fire, every crag outlined. The peace of the tropical evening descends Vahine, softly laughing, are returning from the evening bathe in the mountain fed stream.

“As the motor-bus, its passengers shrieking with delight as an old China man is forced off the road with his horse and cart, careers on towards Papeete, the girls pause and wait until the dust settles. ... In the distance can be heard the strumming of a guitar.”

“Yes, sir,” commented Oscar. “If any more people come here and ask to see the son of the French painter Paul Gauguin I am going to point to that!” By that he indicated a wizened, decrepit, ancient Chinaman who, balanced on his hams, was weeding the garden of the “Vila Ventura.”

Well known as a member of the LMS in the Pacific during the closing years of last century and the beginning of this, the Rev. A. E. Hunt died in Wel lington, NZ, on October 27, aged 82. He was born in the Channel Islands and was ordained in 1887, going immediately to New Guinea. Three years later, with Robert Louis Stevenson, a personal friend, he went to Samoa, there to learn the Samoan language with a view to taking charge of Samoan teachers serving in New Guinea. Later he returned to New Guinea and worked there until about 1911, when he settled in Timaru, New Zealand. He retired from the active ministry in 1933, after 46 years’ service.

The death has occurred in Wellington, NZ, of Mr. W. S. Cooper, aged 61. In he was appointed to the Cook Islands Administration, being Resident Agent at Mauke until 1918, and then at Aitutaki. He was for a period Assistant Secretary of Native Affairs, Samoa, and Resident • Commissioner at Savaii.