Taupo

“ One of the curiosities of the Taupo wilderness is the flat-topped mountain Horo-Horo. Steep, wooded slopes lead up to an unbroken ring of precipices encircling an almost level table-top. To the eyes of riders or coach-passengers on the road between Taupo and Roto-rua, the brows of the cliffs seem as inaccessible as the crown of Roraima in British Guiana in the days before Mr. Im Thurn scaled it. The Maori own Horo-Horo, and have villages and cultivations on the lower slopes where there is soil fertile beyond what is common thereabout. ”

“ She is a celebrated dancer, being only surpassed on the island by one other taupo—Vao, who is not appearing to-day. You would never think, as her little brown feet twinkle over the grass, and her statuesque brown arms wave above her head, while the merry smile ceaselessly comes and goes, that Fuamoa is suffering positive agonies all the time, from the splendid war-helmet that adorns her head; yet that is the truth. One must indeed suffer to be beautiful, as a Samoan taupo. ”

“ She may go as a near relative of the taupo in which case she will be caught up in a whirl of entertainment with which the young men of the host village surround their guests; or she may travel as the only girl in a small travelling party in which case she will be treated as a taupo. (All social occasions demand the presence of a taupo, a manaia, and a talking chief; and if individuals actually holding these titles are not present, some one else has to play the rôle.) ”

“ The taupo's badge of office is a three-feet-high headdress called a tuiga. It is a composite affair, part wig, part frontlet of nautilis shell and part a scaffolding of three flower-decked sticks. It is not an easy thing to put on, for it must be assembled piece by piece each time it is wanted. It is producive of constant pain while it is worn and is taken off with a feeling of relief, yet the custom of wearing it on official occasions is so old and rigid that the taupo would scarcely feel properly clad without it. ”

“ What a beautiful youth! almost too young, one would have thought, for the smart black moustache that curves above his upper lip—wonderfully active, supple, and alive in every movement—a skin like brown Lyons silk, limbs—— Why, it is a girl! the taupo Fuâmoa, dressed (or rather undressed) as a Samoan warrior, and full to the brim of mischief, sparkle, and fun. She wears a fringe of coloured bark-strips round her waist, and a very big kilt of scarlet and white striped cotton underneath. ”

“ Samoan talking men, or tulafale, are noted for their eloquence, but it is the wearisome part of a malaga to have to listen to hours of high-flown discourse. At last, however, with a final burst of oratory, our relief came, and then the taupo made and served the kava. In later years the Samoans learned to grate the root for brewing, but on that occasion it was prepared in the good old-fashioned island way. The taupo and her girls first washed their mouths out several times with fresh water and then chewed the roots—nibbled them, rather, very daintily—until there was enough for a brew. ”

“ These he perfunctorily inspects, pronounces prime, and tosses to the taupo—the official virgin of the village whose duty it is to look after the entertainment of strangers—who forthwith commences the preparation of the drink. It is at this point in the original kava ceremony that the taupo proceeded to masticate the bits of root and stem to a proper consistency to be dissolved in water, but this part of the "recipe" is no longer followed amongst the enlightened natives of the coastal villages, to whom the risks of spreading infection by such a practice have been thoroughly brought home. ”

“ The prestige of the village is inextricably bound up with the high repute of the taupo and few young men in the village would dare to be her lovers. Marriage to them is out of the question, and their companions would revile them as traitors rather than envy them such doubtful distinction. Occasionally a youth of very high rank in the same village will risk an elopement, but even this is a rare occurrence. For 101tradition says that the taupo must marry outside her village, marry a high chief or a manaia of another village. ”

“ Plump without being fat, muscled without being muscular, all contour, softness and dimples, no fitter or fairer instruments of physical expression were ever fashioned. The taupo takes the lead and her motions are followed by the others as though reflected in mirrors. ”

“ In each village one or two high chiefs have the hereditary right to name some girl of their household as its taupo, the ceremonial princess of the house. The girl who at fifteen or sixteen is made a taupo is snatched from her age group and sometimes from her immediate family also and surrounded by a glare of prestige. The older women of the village accord her courtesy titles, her immediate family often exploits her position for their personal ends and in return show great consideration for her wishes. ”

“ The taupo or "village maiden" is a functionary as indispensable to a Samoan village as a chief, or even a missionary. She is, in fact, usually the daughter of the chief; or, if that dignitary has no girl in his family, the most attractive maiden chosen from among his near relations. Her duties are the traditional ones of making the official kava, leading the official dances called siva-sivas, and looking after the entertainment and personal comfort of distinguished visitors. ”

“ This may seem an irreverent simile for the great crater lake, with its deep waters and frowning cliffs, held so sacred and mysterious by the Maori of old. Seldom is its surface flecked by any sail, and only one island of any size breaks the wide expanse. The glory of Taupo—apart from the noble view of the volcanoes southward of it—is a long rampart of cliffs that almost without a break hems in its western side mile after mile. At their highest they reach 1100 feet. So steep are they that in flood-time cascades will make a clean leap from their summits into the lake ”

“ It is an exceptional girl who can give her great-grandfather’s name, the exceptional boy who cannot 83give his genealogy in traditional form for several generations. While the boy of sixteen or seventeen is eagerly trying to master the esoteric allusiveness of the talking chief whose style he most admires, the girl of the same age learns the minimum of etiquette. Yet this is in no wise due to lack of ability. The taupo must have a meticulous knowledge, not only of the social arrangements of her own village, but also of those of neighbouring villages. ”

“ Most Samoan villages possess a taupo, or mistress of the ceremonies, who has many duties, and many privileges as well. She is always young, pretty, and well-born, being usually the daughter of a high chief. ”

“ When a girl is of age, two or three years past puberty, varying with the village practice, her matai will send an offering of food to the house of the chief taupo of the village, thus announcing 77that he wishes the daughter of his house to be henceforth counted as one of the group of young girls who form her court. But while the Aumaga is centred about the Fono, the young men meeting outside or in a separate house, but exactly mirroring the forms and ceremonies of their elders, the Aualuma is centred about the person of the taupo, forming a group of maids of honour. ”

“ So great is the prestige won by the village, one of whose young men succeeds in eloping with a taupo, that often the whole effort of a malaga is concentrated upon abducting the taupo, whose virginity will be respected in direct ratio to the chances of her family and village consenting to ratify the marriage. As the abductor is 103often of high rank, the village often ruefully accepts the compromise. ”

“ This distinction is usually conf erred on a girl of good family, and has many honours and emoluments in the way of presents attached to it. In some cases a taupo will not marry till she reaches middle age, and occasionally will remain single.
In all the many years that I had spent on Manono, I had not once seen the boy Manaia—he who had taken me from the water—though I had heard of him as having been tattooed and grown into a tall man. ”

“ Where parents of lower rank complacently ignore their daughters’ experiments, the high chief guards his daughter’s virginity as he guards the honour of his name, his precedence in the kava ceremony or any other prerogative of his high degree. Some old woman of the household is told off to be the girl’s constant companion and duenna. The taupo may not visit in other houses in the village, or leave the house alone at night. When she sleeps, an older woman sleeps by her side. Never may she go to another village unchaperoned. ”

“ There were many tall and powerfully-built men among the Waikatos and Ngatimaniapotos, but the women of the two latter tribes were not as sturdy in frame, nor as robust in appearance as those of the Ngatituwharetoa tribe of Taupo. ”

“ There is scarcely a sound in a tropical forest which is joyous and cheering. The birds are usually silent; those that have voices utter a plaintive song, or hoarse, shrill cry. Our door-yards are far more melodious on a May morning. The most common birds on the Napo are macaws, parrots, toucans, and ciganas. The parrots, like the majority in South America, are of the green type. The toucan, peculiar to the New World, and distinguished by its enormous bill, is a quarrelsome, imperious bird. It is clumsy in flight, but nimble in leaping from limb to limb. ”

“ When I found out that there was no disinclination on the part of the natives at the village to lend me a canoe, but that only my own natives wished to throw obstacles in the way of going, I soon got over all difficulties by a few figs of tobacco judiciously applied.
I was told, just as I was thinking of starting, that the chief of Towpo wanted to see me, and was waiting for me. I accordingly went to a place where they pointed out three men sitting very gravely; the one in front was the chief. He was a remarkably fine man, upwards of six feet high, and very strongly built—a complete giant. ”

“ Even Duppo, in spite of his late fright, could not help bursting out laughing. The colour of the big toad was a brownish-olive and white below; but the head was most extraordinary, as it had a snout almost pointed, the nostrils forming a kind of leathery tube. The creature was, I at once guessed, the Surinam toad—Pipa Americana—which I knew was found, not only in Surinam, but in other parts of this region. It is, though one of the ugliest of its race, one of the most interesting. The male toad, as soon as the eggs are laid, takes them in its paws, and places them on the back of the female. ”

“ Guapo had been a keen tapir-hunter in his time, and understood all the habits of that strange animal. It was a tapir, then, which they had heard taking his regular nightly bath, and regaling himself on the roots of the flags and nymphae.
Have you ever seen a tapir? Not a living one, I fancy; perhaps the skin of one in a museum. He is an interesting creature, for this reason—that he is the largest land animal indigenous to South America. ”

“ Solitary toucans are sometimes met with, hopping silently up and down the larger boughs, and peering into the crevices of tree trunks. When the gapo is flooded, they fly to the drier ground, assembling in large flocks, when they are easily shot by the hunters. The birds are then very fat, and their flesh sweet and tender.
In some species the bill is nearly as large and as long as the body itself. It is light, cellular, and irregularly notched at the edge, having both mandibles arched towards the tip. ”

“ Phineas showed the girls how to bait their hooks with the soft bodies of the scallop, warning them to cover the point of the hooks well, and to pull quickly if they felt the least nibble.
“The tautog is a small-mouthed fish–smaller, even, than the bass the boys are going to cast for. So, when he touches the hook at all, you want to grab him.” ”

“ I don't mean when they are so small that it seems a kindness to call them tadpoles at all, but when they are quite a good size, with great fat heads and shiny little eyes and squiggly little tails. And how many of you can tell me the number of different kinds of tadpoles which one can find in England in the springtime? Most of you, I am sure, know a tadpole when you see one (sometimes he is called "pot-ladle,"or "polly-wog," {30} or "horse-nail,") and some of you may know that a fat frog-tadpole is brown with little specks of gold, while a fat toad-tadpole is black all over ”

“ You will be at a loss to conjecture for what ends nature has overloaded the head of this bird with such an enormous bill. It cannot be for the offensive, as it has no need to wage war with any of the tribes of animated nature; for its food is fruits and seeds, and those are in superabundance throughout the whole p. 159year in the regions where the toucan is found. It can hardly be for the defensive, as the toucan is preyed upon by no bird in South America, and were it obliged to be at war, the texture of the bill is ill adapted to give or receive blows, as you will see in dissecting it. ”

“ I feel sure that everybody, at least everybody who is anybody, really knows, in the bottom of his heart, just what a taupe is. But in case there should be any person with such weighty world affairs on his mind that he could not possibly move them around to discover hidden among them an insignificant matter like a taupe, I will say that a taupe is a small furry thing that burrows in the ground. ”