Revelry

July 14

Tahiti’s Week of Colourful Revelry

From a Special Correspondent

Papeete, July 30.

THE fete’s the thing! Throughout the year, eyes in French Oceania are directed toward the July carnival which celebrates the founding of the Re public.

Horse racing, illuminated Battle of Flowers on the lagoon, public dances and athletic contests add their excitement to the glorified fair which claims the week for its own.

As the Fourteenth approaches, in the country districts of Tahiti, the night vi brates with the throb of tom-toms in viting performers to practise their native dances for the strenuous contests in which they are about to engage.

Meanwhile, alongside Papeete lagoon, stalls decorated with palm fronds, flaming bougainvillea and alamanda flowers are hastily run up to accommodate the gaming wheels and drinking booths with out which no Tahiti holiday would be com plete. Shooting galleries, merry-go rounds and toboggan slides are also being equipped which, together with the raucous clamour of barkers and phono graph amplifiers, will add their hubbub to the babel of the fete.

Two weeks earlier, along Papeete water front, booth-sites are auctioned to aspiring renters. Last year the record amount of 400,000 francs was realised from this source. Due to a profitable copra season and the commencement of a break in the long tourist “drought” throughout French Oceania, the take this year was well over 600,000.

THE evening of the festivities was signalled on the afternoon of the thirteenth by a salvo of cannon across the lagoon. At the first boom of guns, drinking booths and shooting gal leries were thrown open, gaming wheels and merry-go-rounds began to spin, barkers began speiling, and an uproar as of pandemonium broke out.

All Tahiti, and the sister islands of Bora Bora, Raiatea, Huahini and Moorea, seemed present. French, Tahitians, Americans and Chinese, a happy, ex pectant, jostling crowd, thronged the streets, eager to take part in the revels.

Now, to the blare of barbaric music, almost drowned by shouts of spectators’ there passed through Papeete streets a parade as bizarre and colourful as that of an American circus.

Troupes of performers, clad in pic turesque tribal finery, marched in re view; canoe paddlers bearing their pirogues aloft on their shoulders, himene

singers, hula dancers, flute players and javelin throwers. All were brilliantly clad in scarlet, yellow, blue or green pareus, from waist to knee, with nodding head-dress of constrasting colour.

That evening, before an immense con course, at La Place du Marechal Joffre, a public entertainment was given when troupes of himene singers demonstrated their skill in preparation for the contests.

Seated on the ground, unaccompanied by musical instruments, groups of men and women sang without words. Men’s voices boomed resonantly as the notes Of a grand organ in support of the women.

Commencing on a few shrill notes, female voices rose in impetuous, staccato melody.

Other singers from time to time added to the volume until the himene burst forth in one unbridled torrent. Its effect, akin to the abandon of a football yell mingled with the skirl of bagpipes, was at once barbaric and emotional, producing an un forgettable impression on the hearer. (Continued Next Page)

PROCEEDINGS next morning, the Fourteenth, the principal day of the fete, were ushered in at 7.30 by the salute of cannon. A review of garrison troops by Governor Anziani followed. At 9.30 a full programme of bicycle races for both men and women was run off.

Pari-mutuel horse-racing and javelin throwing occupied the afternoon. In the evening a grand public ball was held, and

a Vin d’Honneur (cocktail party) given by the Governor to which civil and mili tary officials and other distinguished residents were invited.

Friday evening an illuminated Battle of Flowers was held on the lagoon.

Beautifully decorated pirogues thronged with singers and accompanied by guitar and accordion players, floated in review, affording on the moonless night an en trancing and gorgeous spectacle to be holders on shore and swarming the rails of trade schooners. Later that evening, hula dancers gave a preliminary demon stration of their art, as himene singers had done before them.

Saturday morning was devoted to a regatta when races for paddle canoes, sail canoes and whale-boats took place. A score of schooners moored along the waterfront, gaily trimmed with colours and fluttering bunting, afforded vantage points for eagerly cheering onlookers.

The programme provided events for double canoes manned by 20 or more pad dlers and single canoes manned by three.

Similar races were also scheduled for women. By regulation, all contestants wore brilliant red and yellow pareus, the torsos of the men being bare.

As a dozen or more canoes crowded with paddlers assembled at the starting line, a faint indication was caught of that sight witnessed by Captain Cook long ago, when a fleet of 200 canoes, manned each by nearly 100 warriors, set out from Tahiti on its ill-starred invasion of Moorea.

At the bark of the starting gun, to the honk of automobile horns and the frenzied plaudits of spectators, the sleek canoes skimmed down the course, the bronze arms of the contestants and their paddles flashing rhythmically in the sun.

Amid great excitement, the four paddle races were all won by the distant little district of Tautira.

In the afternoon, a soccer football match was played at the race track, when a cash prize of 12,000 francs was distri buted among the winners, the losers being solaced with an honorarium of 8,000 fr.

The last evenings of the fete were de voted to final competitions among troupes of himene singers and hula dancers rep resenting the ancient tribal districts of Tahiti.

In all events money awards were at stake which intensified the rivalry of con testants and evoked the genius of the native who trajects the whole of his emo tional and physical equipment into his diversions.

The frenzy of the himene singers, in the abandon of their wild chants, was only surpassed by the fiery gyrations of the hula dancers whose flashing, colour ful garments flared from their revolving bodies and produced an explosive effect, which at times, was even startling.

The fete terminated with a grand torch light procession of all participants in the week’s festivities.

And now, again, a surfeited and jaded Papeete has relapsed into its accustomed somnolence, to dream placidly of the al luring revelry of July, 1950.