try that medicine. If it fails, I will invoke the gods.”
Toriu and Tinaia gravely inspected the infection.
“There can be no doubt,” they agreed, “that the rakau nati is needed. We will come tonight and treat your illness.”
Just after dark they came, Toriu bearing a half coconut shell filled with a reddish, thick liquid, shot with pale gleams of gold.
“The root and bark of the karauri and of the horahora,” Toriu explained, when asked, but there may have been other and secret ingredients, for the concoction had a strange, muddy consistency and a thick, earthy smell. The horahora, however, is a plant of known virtues: in Hawaii, where it is called noni, it is used even in this day of modem surgery to reduce fractures and sprains.
Tinaia washed the whole hand carefully, and applied the red medicine with a white feather. Red and white are colors pleasing to the gods; to use a black feather would have been gross malpractice, by island standards.
Toriu cut the ends off a bud coconut, a little larger than those the children use for juggling, and placed the truncated nut under my arm to block the circulation and check the spread of the infection.
“Hold it there all night,” he ordered. “It will keep the evil spirit from climbing farther up your body.”
They remained long in the house that night, turning over the pages of back-number magazines, and marveling at pictures of strange things in the white men’s country. Among those pictures were scenes of hospital operating-rooms, in a play then popular in America, where white-robed surgeons wearing inhuman-looking masks wielded sterilized instruments over sufferers like myself.
“White medicine men,” I explained. “The masks are to keep away the evil spirits that cause illness, which in the white men’s language are called ‘bacteria.’ ”
Toriu understood. He understood the white robes, too, from his viewpoint, and approved. He and the white medicine men had a good deal in common; though they would give different reasons for it.
The pain dulled; whether from the effect of Toriu’s medicine, which was cool and soothing with a curious drawing sensation, or merely from nerve fatigue, I do not know. I must have been still somewhat feverish, perhaps delirious. I lay quietly on the mat and closed my eyes.
“Will he recover?” asked Keneti.
“It is hard to say,” Toriu replied cautiously. “A native can recover from the ghost-head; a white man—we do not know. We have never before treated a white man. They are not accustomed to our diseases, as we are not accustomed to theirs. We die of colds, which to the white men are a slight thing. They sneeze and cough, as do we, but they wipe their noses with handkerchiefs and go about their work. As for us, our lungs fill and we die.”
“If you had come to us sooner,” said Tinaia, “it would have been better. The evil spirit had already reached the armpit before we began treatment. It is under the left shoulder; it is near the heart. If the evil spirit reaches the heart, there is no hope.”
Paunu, who had been listening, got up, with a strange expression on his face, and went out into the haunted night.
In the languor that crept over me as the pain subsided, I lay listening to their talk with an odd detachment, as if they were speaking of someone else. Looking back upon it now, it seems strange that I was not terrified. We were utterly isolated. It had taken the Tiare Tahiti three weeks to reach us, and it might take as long to get back to any port where there were physicians of our own race. The natives said it would be fatal to travel, in my condition. There was no way of calling help. Only the herbs and incantations of these islanders, and what sturdiness of constitution I might have, stood between me and a miserable death. Yet, strangely, I felt no fear, but only a mild curiosity and a sense of peace. It was good, I reflected dreamily, to lie on these cool mats, with these kind people watching
Toriu and Tinaia gravely inspected the infection.
“There can be no doubt,” they agreed, “that the rakau nati is needed. We will come tonight and treat your illness.”
Just after dark they came, Toriu bearing a half coconut shell filled with a reddish, thick liquid, shot with pale gleams of gold.
“The root and bark of the karauri and of the horahora,” Toriu explained, when asked, but there may have been other and secret ingredients, for the concoction had a strange, muddy consistency and a thick, earthy smell. The horahora, however, is a plant of known virtues: in Hawaii, where it is called noni, it is used even in this day of modem surgery to reduce fractures and sprains.
Tinaia washed the whole hand carefully, and applied the red medicine with a white feather. Red and white are colors pleasing to the gods; to use a black feather would have been gross malpractice, by island standards.
Toriu cut the ends off a bud coconut, a little larger than those the children use for juggling, and placed the truncated nut under my arm to block the circulation and check the spread of the infection.
“Hold it there all night,” he ordered. “It will keep the evil spirit from climbing farther up your body.”
They remained long in the house that night, turning over the pages of back-number magazines, and marveling at pictures of strange things in the white men’s country. Among those pictures were scenes of hospital operating-rooms, in a play then popular in America, where white-robed surgeons wearing inhuman-looking masks wielded sterilized instruments over sufferers like myself.
“White medicine men,” I explained. “The masks are to keep away the evil spirits that cause illness, which in the white men’s language are called ‘bacteria.’ ”
Toriu understood. He understood the white robes, too, from his viewpoint, and approved. He and the white medicine men had a good deal in common; though they would give different reasons for it.
The pain dulled; whether from the effect of Toriu’s medicine, which was cool and soothing with a curious drawing sensation, or merely from nerve fatigue, I do not know. I must have been still somewhat feverish, perhaps delirious. I lay quietly on the mat and closed my eyes.
“Will he recover?” asked Keneti.
“It is hard to say,” Toriu replied cautiously. “A native can recover from the ghost-head; a white man—we do not know. We have never before treated a white man. They are not accustomed to our diseases, as we are not accustomed to theirs. We die of colds, which to the white men are a slight thing. They sneeze and cough, as do we, but they wipe their noses with handkerchiefs and go about their work. As for us, our lungs fill and we die.”
“If you had come to us sooner,” said Tinaia, “it would have been better. The evil spirit had already reached the armpit before we began treatment. It is under the left shoulder; it is near the heart. If the evil spirit reaches the heart, there is no hope.”
Paunu, who had been listening, got up, with a strange expression on his face, and went out into the haunted night.
In the languor that crept over me as the pain subsided, I lay listening to their talk with an odd detachment, as if they were speaking of someone else. Looking back upon it now, it seems strange that I was not terrified. We were utterly isolated. It had taken the Tiare Tahiti three weeks to reach us, and it might take as long to get back to any port where there were physicians of our own race. The natives said it would be fatal to travel, in my condition. There was no way of calling help. Only the herbs and incantations of these islanders, and what sturdiness of constitution I might have, stood between me and a miserable death. Yet, strangely, I felt no fear, but only a mild curiosity and a sense of peace. It was good, I reflected dreamily, to lie on these cool mats, with these kind people watching
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