Spinners of Pacific Tales

By Edwin Gold

MANY tides have washed over the reefs of the Central Pacific Islands since the days when Charles Warren Stoddard, American writer and man of mystery, came down from the Sandwich Islands to French Oceania, writing as he came—to each island a sketch or story that fixes it in the reader’s mind indelibly. 11 0 . , , ard + £ vrote wa j 1 be pr |P a u od oSa y^^aS fS wl T te J of the pre-Frisbie £ b( L indubitable romantic 0f p *f£ lyn |? la d®ss the im- » th€ L stac P oole jMaugham vein), Stoddard s books, probably long out of print now, show him to have been . s y n JP a J betl 9. towards natives and responsive to the life of the Islands.

A certain mild misogyny, plus long rhapsodies concerning various island youths featured in his tales has placed this author under suspicion of a homosexual tendency. Stoddard actually appears to have been a poetic and retiring whom women, were merely hp dl pnmniSpiv £r^mm t lltoy ri hn? Ju rio completely immersed himself. The middle*a^ P^rsr» n a 0 r prmnn & ' lat^ 6 German monastery, is the last touch of mystery that surrounds nis career.

The tales range from the Hawaiis and Samoas to Tahiti and the Tuamotus; the Marquesas also receive some treatment.

Hawaii and related islands were then much less publicised than they are today. The Hawaiian who could play a

native-made jew’s-harp was a genius. As to hula-girls and the steel guitar, Stod dard makes no mention of them at all.

Aue Hollywood! Of course, filmplays and the gramophone had, when those books were written, still a number of years to make their public appearance, , .

None of the tales stram for dramatic effect, though a few may appear to. The tragic story of “Hua Manu,” nicknamed after the seabirds’ eggs he peddled, has a grim denouement: Hua Manu and the author are marooned upon a barren islet, and soon, starvation and thirst have brought the white man to delirium, though the hardier Polynesian endures the torment patiently. The rescuing ketch arrives; finds Stoddard, raving, still alive, and the native dead. The writer, recovering, wonders how he survived where the stronger brown man went under. He finds that “Hua Manu,” open in 8' a vein in bis arm, had kept the delirious white man alive with his own blood!

Then there is the account of a troupe of native entertainers taken by Stoddard tn the USA ADnareritlv a mimbpr nf brown toddlers, who performed infantile dances, were included. “Tiger,” an adult native—island of origin not stated—ap pears to have died in the States. Stod dard speaks of burying him in the garden. like a kitten or puppy. I found this hard to believe. It is not so easy to dispose of a body, whether native or European, in civilisation as all that, without legal formalities.

I found Stoddard’s description of the night-wandering maidens of Papeete as “besetting sins” apt. Virtuously, Charles closed the door of his hut upon them . . . such self-denial reads more like fiction than does the “Hua Manu” episode!

ALTHOUGH now “dated,” Stoddard’s books make attractive reading for those fortunate enough to find them in some collector’s library, and as a mirror of Island life and conditions in the pre-lipstick, pre-talkies-cum-“flivver” era that now seems so long ago and far away, they are of great historical value.

IT would be interesting to know just who first developed the South Sea theme in literature. Neither “Robinson Crusoe” nor “The Coral Island” merit serious consideration, as records of native life; in them, the hero(s) occupy all the stage, and the Island scene is merest back-drop for their struttings. “Cannibal Jack” was published fifty years too late; “The Blue Lagoon” is entirely absurd, Miss Grimshaw’s effusions too manly or too-facetious, and, indeed, from Stoddard to Robert Dean Frisbie is almost one long, straight stretch of lonely highway. The casual notes of Robert Gibbings are too superficial to merit comparison with these two men’s work; moreover, some of Gibbings’ information does not appear to have been authentic regarding the Cook Islands.

Who will the new Stoddard, the new Frisbie, be? Whoever he may chance to be, it is not to-day very probable that the writer will find “omnia Polynesia,” in three or more parts divided waiting for him on the Beach with a brass band and an illuminated address of welcome—unless he arrives with a note of introduction from film star Jon Hall, the Valentino of present-day Polynesia, the hula maidens’ hero.