Tamandua

“ TAMARIND.—The Tamarindus Indica is in Ceylon dedicated to Siva, as the god of destruction. The natives of India have a prejudice against sleeping under the Tamarind, and the acid damp from the tree is known to affect the cloth of tents that are pitched under them for any length of time. So strong is the prejudice of the natives against the Tamarind-tree, that it is difficult to prevent them from destroying it, as they believe it hurtful to vegetation. ”

“ Never before had those chiefs seen so weird, so wonderful a sight or heard a voice chant their wild melodies with such strange effect. They all stared. Even the tambu maidens stood as though riveted to the forest floor in envious wonder. A drum began softly to beat out the tribal notes, “Too Woomb! Too Woomb!” in perfect tempo to the girl’s shifting faery-like footsteps. Suddenly the aged high priest, Pooma Malo, fell prostrate before his tambu idol and began to chant, so great was his fear. ”

“ The teachers from Rarotonga had grown into strong, good men and women. Their love for Tamate was like the love of children to a father. The little girls and boys at the village schools rushed to welcome the great white chief and his wife, and shrieked with laughter when they tried to speak the strange words of new tribes.
Many natives too had learned to love Tamate’s Master. All life was changed for them because Tamate had come to New Guinea, and they felt for him a love that was deeper and stronger than their love for life. Often they went with him when they thought it was to death. ”

“ The six tambu maidens had begun to chant an eerie but beautiful pagan psalm as they approached the grave-side; then they laid their burden gently down. The weeping hags and chiefs stood looking up into the branches of the tall coco-palm. It was there that the girl’s body was to rest till her bones whitened to the hot tropic winds. Along one of the lower branches they had fashioned a grave-mattress of twigs and leaves, jungle grass and tough seaweed, the whole being fastened on to the branch by strong sennet. ”

“ When he went away to make peace with new tribes he would have liked to take his wife with him, and she wished very much to go. But she was as eager as Tamate was to think of others first. She was a strong woman. She did not say much, but whenever she saw what was the right thing to do she did it. She knew that the teachers would be lonely if they both went, and that the natives might not be so willing to please them as they now were to please her husband and herself. So when Tamate went away she stayed at Suau. ”

“ But the shame which we may have incurred on our heavenward journey has all been left behind. The Tathāgata, Who has called us, and Who has sent us forth in this life on our heavenward journey, has so contrived that all our shame shall be left behind: and there is no mistake in what He does. It is not with us a question of merely shedding our old skins as the snakes do: we are entirely born again and made new creatures, once and for all. One by one, we throw off our old habits, and, as we do so, we find the new glory of the garment which the Tathāgata gives. ”

“ I thought of home—my mother—the widow—when I should be a captain—and other things equally remote and agreeable.
The tamarind, to my taste, is the most beautiful tree of the East—not even excepting the banyan—the foliage, which is of a delicate green, droops in rich and luxuriant masses, like clusters of ostrich plumes—overhanging a 324piece of water, or half-enveloping some old mosque, durgah, or caravanserai—with the traveller’s horse picketed in its shade, or the group of camels ruminating in repose beneath it—nothing can be more picturesque. ”

“ SHORT NOTICE OF THE INDIAN CHEIFS, TAMANEND AND TADEUSKUND.
The name of Tamanend is held in the highest veneration among the Indians. Of all the chiefs and great men which the Lenape nation ever had, he stands foremost on the list. But although many fabulous stories are circulated about him among the whites, but little of his real history is known. The misfortunes which have befallen some of the most beloved and esteemed personages among the Indians since the Europeans came among them, prevent the survivors from indulging in the pleasure of recalling to mind the memory of their virtues. ”

“ Look where they would, in every direction, this white woman and the two men were completely surrounded by an unbroken mass of wild and armed savages, who stood gazing upon the strange apparitions in their midst.
Tamate, without a pause, perfectly calm, and showing no signs of fear, spoke to Pouta and his men through old Vaaburi and Iko.
"We have come," he said, "so that we may be friends. We have come without weapons. We have brought with us a woman of our tribe, for we come in peace. We are strangers. But we come with great things to tell. ”

“ They contain a sweetish astringent pulp of a bright brown hue. When crushed and exposed to the heat of a water-bath, they emit a pleasant odour like sandal-wood. The pulp is coloured dark blackish green by perchloride of iron.
TAMARINDI PULPA.
Tamarindus, Fructus Tamarindi; Tamarinds; F. Tamarins; G. Tamarinden.
Botanical Origin—Tamarindus indica L.—The tamarind is a large handsome tree, growing to a height of 60 to 80 feet, and having abruptly pinnate leaves of 10 to 20 pairs of small oblong leaflets, constituting an abundant and umbrageous foliage. ”

“ The horses alluded to by old writers appear to be extinct, nor are there any cassowaries, notwithstanding the statement of Wellsted to the contrary. The local fauna is, in fact, very poor, comprising no species of rapacious beasts, though reptiles, including some venomous snakes, are common enough. The birds belong exclusively to African species, whereas the molluscs for the most part represent Arabian types. Topography. Taman'da, towards the middle of the north coast, is the chief village in the island. ”

“ All the time that Tamate was in Rarotonga he was longing to be at more dangerous work amongst those who lived to fight and kill each other, and who had no one to teach them.
His thoughts were so much with these wild tribes that he made others think of them too. Many of his students had caught his spirit, and longed, as he did, to go to the island of New Guinea, where very wild men lived and fought. Some of the teachers he had trained went before him. They knew it was dangerous, but they went with joy, [Pg 29] because they too had learned how great and glad a thing it is to live for others. ”

“ Tambusami had laid in food supplies at Mandalay, and dividing ourselves and our belongings between two bullock-carts at the top of the bank, we jolted along the road through Nyaungoo. The higher clouds were just caught by the new daylight as we passed under the tamarind trees of the village. The walls of the houses were mere screens of plaited bamboo, though often there was also an outer fence of bamboo posts 6 feet high. ”

“ Taman is Two in One and rides the sky,
Curved like a stallion’s croup, from dusk to dawn,
And drums upon it with his heels, whereby
Is bred the neighing thunder in the hills.
This is Taman, the God of all Er-Heb,
Who was before all Gods, and made all Gods,
And presently will break the Gods he made,
And step upon the Earth to govern men
Who give him milk-dry ewes and cheat his Priests,
Or leave his shrine unlighted—as Er-Heb
Left it unlighted and forgot Taman,
When all the Valley followed after Kysh
And Yabosh, little Gods but very wise,
And from the sky Taman beheld their sin. ”

“ But that night Mantua, as though jealous that a stranger from beyond the snowy mountains on the Lombard frontier should have come there to seize its secrets from out of its dark old palaces, that have seen so many crimes and kept so many mysteries untold, Mantua, as though angered against him, poured into his throat the poison of her subtle vapours, of her fever mists, that lurk for ever amidst her long fields of reeds and her pale-gleaming water-meadows. ”

“ IN time the natives grew friendly again. Then Tamate thought of other places. He had not come to New Guinea to teach and help the people of one little island on its shore only.
He wished to go here and there and everywhere, that far and wide he might let men know that he and those who followed him meant peace and friendship. So he would open the way. Later he would go back to leave teachers with the chiefs whose friendship he had won. In many villages his students would have been killed at once if they had gone alone. It needed a man of strong courage, quick wit, and great heart to go first. ”

“ Tamatoa, instructed by the Holy Spirit, and aided by others who had learnt something of the truths of Christianity, had for some time been labouring among his fellow-islanders. He had himself been converted by what might well be considered a providential circumstance. Two years before, a small vessel, having on board the king, Pomare, Mr Wilson, the missionary, and several Tahitians, had been driven by a storm from her anchorage at Eimeo down to Raiatea. ”

“ The tambu is too convenient an institution to drop when the original sanction of it has ceased to operate; a native Christian teacher therefore does not hesitate, as a man of position in society, to set a tambu; thieves he says are afraid of a man if not of a tindalo. ”

“ In the midst of the awful stillness with which such a burst of feeling, coming as it did, from the two most renowned warriors of that region, was received, Tamenund lifted his voice to disperse the multitude.
“It is enough,” he said. “Go, children of the Lenape, the anger of the Manitou is not done. Why should Tamenund stay? The pale faces are masters of the earth, and the time of the red men has not yet come again. My day has been too long. ”

“ One morning he set sail on the Nieu, which had taken the place of the Harrier, for Cape Blackwood. The natives there, and on the large island near, were very strong and fierce. Tamate knew that he might be killed, but then he knew, too, that if he could win those wild men, he would take away the great barrier between Christ and the tribes who lived round the gulf of water into which the Fly River flowed. If these men were to stop fighting and to listen to the story of Christ, other tribes would be glad to do so too. They would be grateful to be free from the fear of these cruel warriors. ”

“ Tamarinds are prodigiously common and as cheap; the people however either do not know how to put them up as the West Indians do, or do not practise it, but cure them with Salt, by which means they become a black mass so disagreable to the sight and taste that few Europeans chuse to meddle with them. ”

“ For the last-mentioned purpose a red variety is the most esteemed, both the timber and the fruit being of a sanguine hue. The tamarind, however, is chiefly planted by the roadside, or on the rising banks of a tank; and in the lower parts of Bengal, where it grows in the natural forests of the Sunderbunds, it is the most common kind of firewood, being never used for any more dignified purpose. The native never chooses this beautiful tree, as he does the palm, the neem, or the mourungosh, to overshadow his hut ”

“ Tamenund held him long at the length of his arm and read every turn in the fine lineaments of his countenance, with the untiring gaze of one who recalled days of happiness.
“Is Tamenund a boy?” at length the bewildered prophet exclaimed. “Have I dreamed of so many snows—that my people were scattered like floating sands—of Yengeese, more plenty than the leaves on the trees! The arrow of Tamenund would not frighten the fawn; his arm is withered like the branch of a dead oak; the snail would be swifter in the race; yet is Uncas before him as they went to battle against the pale faces! ”

“ The Hot Springs near Tambia.—These extensive springs, situate 11⁄2 to 2 miles inland, and rather under 100 feet above the sea, lie near the Mathuata or north coast of the island, some four miles west of the Wailevu river. They rise up in the midst of level country about a mile from the town of Tambia, and near the village of Ngovungovu. Although situated in the valley of the Tambia river, these springs are not adjacent to the river, and in this respect they differ from nearly all the inland hot springs. ”

“ It was watched but not fed or worshipped; the natives believed that it came at call, and that the life of the man was bound up with the life of his tamaniu, if a living thing, or with its safety; should it die, or if not living get broken or be lost, the man would die. Hence in case of sickness they would send to see if the tamaniu was safe and well. This word has never been used apparently for the soul in Mota; but in Aurora in the New Hebrides it is the accepted equivalent. ”

“ The aborigines, whatever may be said against them, enjoyed natural beauty, and their habitations were often made in this delightful region, their councils being attended by chief Tamanend, or Tammany, a Delaware, whose wisdom and virtues were such as to raise him to the place of patron saint of America. The notorious Tammany Society of New York is named for him. When this chief became old and feeble his tribe abandoned him in a hut at New Britain, Pennsylvania, and there he tried to kill himself by stabbing, but failing in that, he flung burning leaves over himself, and so perished. ”

“ The Tathāgata is like unto a powerful king who rules his kingdom with righteousness, but being attacked by envious enemies goes out to wage war against his foes. When the king sees his soldiers fight he is delighted with their gallantry and will bestow upon them donations of all kinds. Ye are the soldiers of the Tathāgata, while Māra, the Evil One, is the enemy who must be conquered. And the Tathāgata will give to his soldiers the city of Nirvāna, the great capital of the good law. ”