Log of Sloop RED WOLF
5/4/36

At harbor, NW cost of Meeting Island. Nearly midnight. Hook holding well. Winds mild SSE. War Canoes still drawn up on beach by village & drums still sounding from up the hill, but I’m over-due for some bunk time! 

      In the old days, the captain of a square rigger sailing down to the tropics knew as a simple fact of life that he’d be loosing crew member to tropical diseases.  That still didn’t make the fact of their deaths any easier.  And it’s not any easier now.

 I’d agreed to hire on with Inter Island Tours again after a movie company had waved a huge bundle of money in their faces to convert their Schooner “Liki-Tiki” to a square rig.  As the only skipper nearby with experience sailing a full rigged ship, I agreed to take her out on a shake-down cruse before turning her back to Andy, her regular Captain.  Voyage went well enough until we were ready to head back to home port and found that the two Sturdey boys, sons of the Movie Producer who’d chartered the “Tiki,” had jumped ship!  Dumb lubbers had snuck off to go “treasure hunting” in some of the Cannibal Island’s Taboo areas!  None of the native islanders were about to go into any of those places, so, duty being duty, I asked for volunteers from my crew to go out & fetch the pups back!  One of the parties sure enough found them, but unfortunately they’d chosen a fever swamp to get themselves lost in, and we weren’t halfway home before all members of the search party were down with some bad jungle fever.  We got them all back to hospital on Spontoon OK, and old Chief N’Kualita and I kept our eyes on them till all but one of them were out of danger.  That one, Hinewehi, a native coyote girl from a village on Meeting Island, didn’t make it.

About a day later I got a message to meet N’Kualita at the Inter Island offices.  He and the other Chiefs and Shamans of Albert Island had been holding a big pow-wow by wireless.  While at first there was some idea the girl had brought it on herself by going into the Taboo area in the first place, that was hooted down pretty quick!  Upshot was, the Sturdey Boys may have been obnoxious fools, but they were still paying customers of the Inter Island Tour Company, which is itself the communal property of the Albert Islanders themselves. As such, they were the Islanders' responsibility.  As a crew member of the “Liki-Tiki”, Hinewehi was their employee & by going where none of the islanders would go themselves to do what had to be done, her death was to be seen as in defense of the Islander’s honor and treated as such!  That agreed, the Shamans put their heads together & decided the only proper thing to do was to hold a “Hautoa”, or “Warrior Ceremony”.  N’Kualita explained that this was an ancient ritual from the days of inter-island warfare, to mourn the death of a warrior from an allied tribe who had fallen in battle while accompanying an Albertian war party.  Some Inter Island seaplanes were on the way now to fetch a ritual team from the Island, & he was in negotiations to rent some ceremonial war canoes from Main Island, but as the fallen girl’s Captain, it would only be fitting if I were to be there too.  While it wasn’t common to allow a non-native to see a native’s funeral ritual, much less participate in it, I could only agree.

Three days later “Red Wolf” lay at anchor off the main village of Meeting Island.  I’d already rowed ashore in my own dingy and was able to watch the spectacle of four massive War Canoes, filled with Albert Islanders in full ritual finery of paint and feathers, and singing sadly at the top of their lungs, pull up on the beach.   As the warriors and women, all carrying baskets of gifts, approached the village, they were met by a Priestess in her own full Meeting Island ritual regalia, who guided them up the steep trail to where the villagers had been keeping watch over Hinewehi’s grave. Reaching the site, the two parties each formed lines of dancers and warriors on either side of the grave.
What followed can best be described as a wordless “dialog in dance” between the Albert Islanders and the Meeting Island villagers.  The Islanders first expressed deep grief and mourning over the fallen girl. The Villagers replied with their own grief, but questioned why the Islanders would also feel so sad?  Now the Island dancers recounted the story of the heroic woman warrior who sailed a great winged canoe from a far island to save the Albert Islanders from a grave danger and shame that their own fiercest warriors trembled to face!  Although knowing beyond any doubt that her own life would likely be forfeit, the “Hautoa Wahine” had pressed on to victory, but at such a dreadful cost!  They now began to dance the praise of the villager that had produced such a warrior, while the village dancers added their thanks that their daughter had died in such a noble cause and for such an honorable people.

Here came my own small part, where as the girl’s Captain I came forward to say a few words in praise of her as a skilled and brave sailor who it had been my honor to command.  Fortunately, it had been agreed before hand that I could say my say in simple English!  My last duty was to call up two Island warriors who dragged two carved wooded effigies to the gravesite.  Supposed to represent Hinewehi’s enemies, I noted a more than passing resemblance to the two Sturdey Boys before the warrior’s war clubs reduced them to splinters.
The final part of the ritual was what I was told was called the “Kotahitanga” or “Union”.  The Islanders laid out their baskets of gifts before the Villagers, and then one of the young women dancers, of about the same age as Hinewehi, was led forward.  As the Islanders and Villagers danced, she was piece by piece divested of all her Albert Island regalia and clothing, and in that state conducted by the Head Shaman to the line of Villagers, where their High Priestess took charge of her and presented her to Hinewehi’s mother and family.   That lady now proceeded to hold the girl closely to her, and then slowly dressed her in Meeting Island clothing and ritual regalia to show she’d been adopted as a replacement for the daughter she’d lost.  Both sides now gave a great happy cheer, and the dancing became more festive as food was brought out for the feast to follow!

I stayed on till nightfall, and as I noticed pairs of Villagers and Islanders beginning to slip out of the firelight towards the jungle, I decided it was about time for this old Sailor to slip off back to his ship!  Comfortably back on board “Red Wolf”, I smoked a last pipe before turning in.  While I’ll count myself lucky if someone reads a few kind words over me before I go over the side for the last time, I had to admit that little Hinewehi had been given a fair launching for her own final voyage.