Pawpaw

“ Miss Pappoo. Here she is—​Miss Pappoo—​all the way from New Guinea—​a specimen of humanity which shows the lovely, fascinating, bewitching effect of an exuberant quantity of hair. It is all her own, too! not purchased at Gilbert’s, nor forced by beef marrow, antique oil, bear’s grease, or Macassar ointment! No; it is pure, genuine nature.
It may be that there are some persons who cannot appreciate the loveliness of Miss Pappoo’s locks; but every day, we see in our streets, certain young and middle-aged men, who strike us as kindred spirits. ”

“ Paup-Puk-Keewiss then took three arrows, and after having performed a ceremony to the Great Spirit, he shot one into the air, crying, with a loud voice,
"You who are lying down, rise up, or you will be hit!" The bones all moved to one place. He shot the second arrow, repeating the same words, when each bone drew towards its fellow-bone; the third arrow brought forth to life the whole multitude of people who had been killed by the manitoes. Paup-Puk-Keewiss then led them to the chief of the village who had proved his friend, and gave them up to him. ”

“ Here, for a time, Paup-puk-keewiss appeared to be content, until one day a message came for him in the shape of a bear, who said that their king wished to see him immediately at his village. Paup-puk-keewiss was ready in an instant, and, mounting upon the messenger’s back, off he ran. Toward evening they climbed a high mountain, and came to a cave where the bear-king lived. He was a very large person, and, puffing with fat and a sense of his own importance, he made Paup-puk-keewiss welcome by inviting him into his lodge. ”

“ As he journeyed on in search of further adventures, Paup-puk-keewiss came to a lodge in which were two old men, with heads white from extreme age. They were very fine old men to look at. There was such sweetness and innocence in their features that Paup-puk-keewiss would have enjoyed himself very much at their lodge if he had had no other entertainment than such as the gazing upon the serene and happy faces of the two innocent old men, with heads white from extreme age, afforded. ”

“ The blending of two sets of ideas, the advance of the new and the remains of the old, are curiously conspicuous at Palapwe, and perhaps the women illustrate this better than the men. On your evening walk you may meet the leading black ladies of the place, parasol in hand, with hideous dresses of gaudy cottons, hats with flowers and feathers, and displaying as they walk the airs and graces of self-consciousness. ”

“ These powwows are persons who are believed to have performed extraordinary cures, either by the application of roots and herbs or by incantations. When an Indian wishes to be initiated into the order of a powwow, in the first place he pays a large fee to the faculty. He is then taken into the woods, where he is taught the names and virtues of the various useful plants; next he is instructed how to chant the medicine song, and how to pray, which prayer is a vain repetition offered up to the Master of Life, or to some munedoo whom the afflicted imagine they have offended. ”

“ To all such persons, we present Miss Pappoo, not doubting that there will be a sympathy—​a fellow-feeling between her and them. They truly can appreciate a character so eminently distinguished for hair. She is a native of the great island of Papua, or New Guinea, lying in the Pacific Ocean, near New Holland. ”

“ Pappus of Alexandria, a Greek geometer of the third or fourth century, author of “Mathematical Collections,” in eight books, of which the first and second have been lost.
Papuans, the name of the members of the negro race inhabiting certain islands of Oceania, including New Guinea, New Hebrides, New Caledonia, Fiji Islands, &c.
Papy`rus, the Greek name of the Egyptian papu, is a kind of sedge growing 10 ft. high, with a soft triangular stem, the pith of which is easily split into ribbons, found still in Egypt, Nubia, Abyssinia, &c. ”

“ Distinctive and significant as the virtues possessed by the papaw are, yet because of its universality and because it yields its fruits with little labour, it gets but scant courtesy. It is tolerated merely; but if we had it not, if it were as far as that vast shore washed by the farthest sea, men would adventure for such merchandise—and adventure at the bidding of women. How few there are who recognise in the everyday papaw one of the most estimable gifts of kindly Nature? ”

“ And besides,” said Mr Papingay, “it isn’t wise to linger in this wood just now. The Pumpkin has spies about all over the place. Of course, they never touch me—Percy wouldn’t let them—but you two—! And I’m quite certain the Leaf isn’t in this wood—or I’d have had it before now.”
The children had not much faith in Mr Papingay’s careful searching, but glancing through the window they saw that it was now getting too dark to search the wood that night. They had better get out of it as quickly as possible, even if they had to return and search it in the morning. ”

“ Invitations were immediately sent out for a grand feast. The women took him out into the snow to skin him; but, as soon as his flesh got cold, his Jee-bi went off.
Paup-Puk-Keewiss found himself standing near a prairie, having reassumed his mortal shape. After walking a distance, he saw a herd of elk feeding. He admired the apparent ease and enjoyment of their life, and thought there could be nothing pleasanter than the liberty of running about and feeding on the prairies. He asked them if they could not turn him into their shape. ”

“ Just as her convenience may prompt, the squaw hangs her pappoose, thus cradled, on her back while walking, or in a tree when working about the tent, or on [16] the saddle pommel as represented in the picture. From the protecting headboard hangs suspended the doll composed of feathers, beads and red cloth, perhaps representing an Indian warrior. The little pappoose looks at this dangling image all day long, and [17] this monotonous endeavor often causes a horrible squint from which the little Indian never recovers. ”

“ I will take you over to Pa ́howa.” The man slept and the elk took him on its back and carried him while asleep, and the next morning he found himself on that point of Pa ́howa.
That night the messenger bird came to him and said, “Now, my friend, follow me, and what you see me do, that do yourself. When I dive down into Pa ́howa, you follow me.” ”

“ Soon after this, Papeiha one day heard shrieking and shouting and wild roars as of men in a frenzy. He saw crowds of people round the gods offering food to them; the priests with faces blackened with charcoal and with bodies painted with stripes of red and yellow, the warriors with great waving head-dresses of birds' feathers and white sea-shells. Papeiha, without taking any thought of the peril that he rushed into, went into the midst of the people and said:
"Why do you act so foolishly? Why do you take a log of wood and carve it, and then offer it food? It is only fit to be burned. ”

“ To see so many of his little friends shut up in a glass case annoyed and grieved Popopo, who had no idea they had purposely been placed upon the hats by the milliner. So he slid back one of the doors of the case, gave the little chirruping whistle of the knooks that all birds know well, and called:
“Come, friends; the door is open—fly out!”
Popopo did not know the birds were stuffed; but, stuffed or not, every bird is bound to obey a knook’s whistle and a knook’s call. So they left the hats, flew out of the case and began fluttering about the room. ”

“ The Popadya went frequently visiting and spent hours at a stretch in the house of the deacon’s wife, but even there she failed to find rest, as though from the idiot’s side came forth threads of cobweb thinness—and stretched out towards her, binding her to him indissolubly and for all eternity. ”

“ What I really loved, however, was to go off with Papoty, our head-man, when he set out with the plough behind the two mules.
“Come on, youngster, and I’ll teach you to plough,” he would call enticingly.
Then and there off I would go, bareheaded and barefooted, briskly following in the furrow, and as I ran, picking the flowers, primroses and blue musk, turned up by the blade.
How joyous it was, this atmosphere of rustic life. Each season in turn brought its round of labour. ”

“ Pappina exclaimed, peering down the winding road. A young girl came around a bend, leading a small pig, and the child darted toward her. A few yards from the singer she paused, uncertain whether to continue or not, but being reassured by a bright smile from the girl, she hastened on. Reaching the maiden, she stopped, and looked wonderingly at the pig. ”

“ Knowing as she did all the by-ways, lanes, and pent roads of the entire township, the very last thing she thought of was to follow the highway or any of its cross-roads. So when Hugh was peering among the shadows of the walls and bushes that hedged them on either side, Poppea was crossing the graveyard toward the Northeast gate by which they had entered, flitting swiftly behind the larger stones for concealment. ”

“ Poppea was looking into the fire, watching the little flock of sparks creep up and burn a pathway through the soot. "Folks going to meeting," Satira Pegrim had called them when she had watched the same procession, born of the wood embers, in the foreroom chimney. Without looking up, she could feel Miss Emmy's eyes upon her face and knew that the question in them was a double one. ”

“ They came home on a Sabbath day, and the Powaw that kneeled upon the deer-skin came home (I may say, without abuse) as black as the devil. When my master came home, he came to me and bid me make a shirt for his papoose, of a holland-laced pillowbere. About that time there came an Indian to me and bid me come to his wigwam at night, and he would give me some pork and ground nuts. ”

“ When everybody's a-tellin' him, 'Yo' pap's so kind, yo' pap does everything for you; look like you cain't be good enough to him,' he 'bleeged to find some way to shake off all that thankfulness 'at's sech a burden to him. And so when Pappy come a-totin' milk, an' a-totin' pork, an' a-ploughin' his co'n outen the weeds, w'y, Sammy jest draw down his face an' look black at Pappy, and make like he mad at him—like he don't want none o' them things—like Pappy jest pesterin' round him fer nothin'. ”

“ The papaw (Carica papaya) thrives luxuriantly on most soils. The natives are always fond of it, and I found it a most palatable fruit, but the Europeans in the East generally consider it a too coarse or common fruit to be placed on the table. It was evidently introduced by the Portuguese and Spanish from [86] the West Indies, and the Malay name papaya comes from the Spanish papayo.
At the height of one thousand feet ferns appear in very considerable numbers, and here also the useful bamboo grows in abundance, though it is found all the way down to the level of the sea. ”

“ You must be careful in flying not to look down, for if you do something may happen to you.”
“Be it so,” said he, and soon the flock rose up in the air, for they were bound for the north. They flew very fast with Pauppukkeewis behind. One day, while going with a strong wind, and as swift as their wings would flap, while they passed over a large village, the Indians below raised a great shout, for they were amazed at the enormous size of Pauppukkeewis. They made such a noise that Pauppukkeewis forgot what had been told him about not looking down. ”

“ By which he meant that the Spawer was at liberty to occupy any pew that caught his fancy, without fear of trespassing upon rights or being disturbed. Not a soul, so far, was in church. The Spawer picked his favorite pew, with its faded green cushion and family of hassocks—the grand patriarch standing a foot and a half high, and sloped for the knees to rest on without unnecessary bending; with others of various shapes and sizes, down to the baby sawdust-stuffed buffet, no bigger than a bath bun. ”

“ To camp 'longside of an ice pond isn't marriage. I never did like lizards, real or human, since brother Cotton Mather put one down my neck in Sunday-school the day sister Clarissy Harlow 'sperienced religion and I screeched so folks thought I had it too."
On May Day itself, Poppea emerged from the hands of Satira Pegrim clad in the first attempts for many a year of that good woman in fashioning clothes for a child. ”

“ But quite apart from such external marks of dignity, the Pawang is a person of very real significance. In all agricultural operations, such as sowing, reaping, irrigation works, and the clearing of jungle for planting, in fishing at sea, in prospecting for minerals, and in cases of sickness, his assistance is invoked. He is entitled by custom to certain small fees; thus, after a good harvest he is allowed, in some villages, five gantangs of padi, one gantang of rice (bĕras) , and two chupaks of ĕmping (a preparation of rice and cocoa-nut made into a sort of sweetmeat) from each householder. ”

“ Pap was practicing the political trick of looking like he belonged to the great common people, and had come up from the commonest of them all. He was a grave-digger and well-digger by profession, and he looked to-night like he had just finished the job of digging all the graves and wells that would be needed in Tickfall Parish for many years to come. There was fresh clay on his clothes and hat and shoes; clay streaked his yellow baboon face, and was plastered thick upon his horny hands. ”

“ Also, it occurred to him that Peppajee, usually given over to creature comforts and the idle gossip of camp and the ranches he visited, was proving the sincerity of his manifest uneasiness by a watchfulness wholly at variance with his natural laziness. On the other hand, Peppajee loved to play the oracle, and a waving wisp of smoke, or the changing shapes in a wind-riven cloud meant to him spirit-sent prophecies not to be ignored. ”