The Simple Life on Tahiti
p. 67 · Read in the full issue
From Our Own Correspondent
Papeete, Jan. 3.
THE volume of noise in and about Papeete is steadily increasing and, inasmuch as an internal combustion motor has been attached to everything movable on the island, this statement applies to the country districts, as well.
The Tahitian loves noise. During in tervals, when his gramophone is not blaring or he, himself, is not smiting a piece of roofing iron with a hammer, an empty petrol tin and some sticks, in the hands of his offspring, supply entertain ment.
The 10 p.m. curfew abates, but does not extinguish, the confusion of noises; for at that hour the Brotherhood of the Bottle begin to circulate in ancient motor-cars, to make the welkin ring with drunken cries.
The procession of trucks, which travel by night through the district with open exhausts and blaring horns, ensure that country-folk shall not sleep too soundly.
The average Polynesian has abandoned all curiosity as to happenings in the out side world. Even the arrival of a ship interests no one —except the proprietors of honky-tonks and the vendors of “curios.”
“Our own problems,” the Tahitians say, “are sufficiently pressing to require all our attention. Why, then, should we trouble our minds with the quarrels of distant peoples?”