Beyond the Coral Sea: Travels in the Old Empires of the South-West Pacific. Michael Moran

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      ‘Why didn’t you bury her here on Samarai?’

      ‘I can see you haven’t been here long! Her soul must go to Tuma, the erotic paradise in the Trobriands where departed spirits dwell. It’s a pláce where you stay beautiful and there’s no old age. You might call it Heaven. You can hear the spirits crying there at night. It’s the mirror of the world.’ People so rarely speak in this way I lapsed into silence for a time, turning over these poetic images.

      ‘Is sorcery still strong?’

      ‘It absolutely rules the lives of everyone living on Samarai, particularly the women! Everything is explained by sorcery, particularly losses at sea – people taken by sharks or crocodiles. Dinghies often sink in the savage currents. We lost six drowned over there a few weeks ago, and four over here the other day. They try to take the boats as far as Port Moresby!’

      I reflected grimly that all my travels through these infested waters would be without a life jacket or radio.

      ‘There’s a launch pad for yoyova just along the path. Did you see it?’

      ‘No. What are yoyova? Strange word.’

      ‘They’re the flying witches. They spread destruction and flame from their … well, you know! They can change shape into birds or flying-foxes, even appear like a falling star or fire-fly.’

      ‘But they aren’t real, surely. What’s this launch pad look like?’

      ‘A frangipani tree sticks out from the wall over the sea. It’s an odd shape. You can’t miss it.’

      ‘Yes! I did see it.’

      ‘They represent the malevolent magic of women, my boy. You must’ve experienced that. They’re real women all right. Some have sex with tauva’u, those malicious beings who bring epidemics.’

      ‘Yes, but what do they do exactly? How do they catch you?’

      ‘They pounce from a high place and rip out your entrails, eyes and tongue. They snap your bones then they devour the rest of your corpse.’

      Those inflamed, leaden eyes might well have witnessed such ghoulish instincts in action.

      ‘When does this happen?’

      ‘Usually when there’s a storm. If you smell shit when you’re fishing out at sea, watch out! Then the flying witches will attack by the squadron! They stink!’ he laughed out loud, but without conviction.

      ‘They’re objects of real terror to these people. It’s no joke because their powers are inherited, carried in their belly. Sometimes the spirit leaves them when they’re asleep and goes marauding.’

      I tried to imagine a world where such beings were an everyday part of consciousness. The books of J. R. R. Tolkien approached such a phantasmagoria, but his cruelty was of a different order.

      ‘Sorcerers don’t have the power they did in the old days!’ and he looked dreamily out to sea.

      The boys had begun diving for pebbles and shells.

      ‘Have you lived here long?’

      ‘Only about sixty years. I came here when I was five.’

      ‘Sixty years on tiny Samarai! I think I would have gone mad.’

      ‘Well, I did. I live over there now. On Ebuma.’

      He pointed to a perfect tropical islet surrounded by glittering sand lying a couple of miles offshore.

      ‘It belongs to the Prime Minister. I’m just the caretaker. My name’s Ernie, by the way.’

      I introduced myself … ‘Ebuma looks like everybody’s dream island.’

      ‘Why don’t you come over for a few weeks? We could talk. I could show you the fishing rats. They come down to the shore at night and dangle their tails in the water as bait. Small crabs catch hold and they whip it quickly round to their mouth and fasten onto the crab. Munch, munch!’

      ‘You’re having me on, Ernie!’

      ‘There are strange things around here all right. If you see a swordfish leaping out of the water and going crazy, they have a borer in the brain.’

      ‘What the hell is that?’

      ‘A sort of parasite drills into the sword and works its way up the shaft into the brain. The fish goes mad.’

      ‘What a place! Look, Ernie, I’m going to Kwato tomorrow, so I might call in on the way back.’

      ‘It’s up to you.’

      I could not quite leave this mine of information without a last question.

      ‘A lot of interesting people came through Samarai, didn’t they? Malinowski, for instance.’

      ‘Oh, him. You know he used to take opium while he was on the Trobriands? Probably did here too. Hancock, was it Hancock? Can’t remember. Anyway, old Hancock told me about it. He was a little boy when the great man came here. Malinowski criticised him as being a spoilt brat in the famous diary. Payback.’ He chuckled.

‘Come over and see me for a couple of months. We can just eat and drink there … on the beach. I’m working on another boat at the slipway just over there. You could help. Want to earn a few kina?’¹

      A boy of about ten was running about behaving strangely, banging the walls of the warehouse with his head, laughing manically and fighting off a group of teenage tormentors. He seemed to have no control over his muscles and flopped about like a rag doll.

      ‘He’s a bit simple,’ Ernie answered my enquiring glance. Boys were leaping into the water in an endless circle.

      ‘May see you tomorrow then. Come over for a month.’ He wandered away towards the Ladua.

      I was sitting on the edge of the wharf when suddenly I was struck from behind by the flailing fists of the disabled boy. He seemed to have gone completely mad and was making the constricted sounds many damaged people make. It became quite painful and I began to slip towards the water. Some of the local boys rescued me and used the incident to give him another beating. He disappeared round the corner of a shed squealing like an animal.

      I crumpled in the shade against the gnarled bole of an ancient rosewood growing near a tiny beach. Fragile canoes with delicately lashed outriggers were drawn up amidst scattered coconuts stranded by the tide, the fibre of the husks trembling in the breeze. Women were leaving the market with bundles and launching their canoes to paddle to nearby hamlets. I drifted off to sleep under a blazing copper sky only to be woken by a lizard crawling down my neck. A mangy dog began timidly to sniff my boot as dusk softly enfolded the island in the wings of a giant moth.

      The grass-paved street that led back to the guesthouse was dusted with pink and white frangipani rouged by the last light, the pink trunks of coconut palms leaning over a darkening sea. The lonely bell from the Anglican church marked the hour. Wallace СКАЧАТЬ