The Land of the Hibiscus Blossom
James Hume Nisbet (1888)
Country of origin: Australia
Available texts by the same author here
XI. Toto Remembers One of the Christian Virtues, and Forgives.
THERE was a wealthier man in Hula than Kamo, albeit not nearly so well liked, yet riches are always treated with some respect amongst savages, as they are with more civilized communities.Toto was not a pretty man, in spite of his most gorgeous costume as he stood there, grinning at Kamo and leering upon Rea.
A strong-built fellow, with the face of a libertine, mingled with all the cunning of the treacherous savage; his nose resembled the nose of a Tartar, and his eyes were elongated and appeared as if lashless, with a most unpleasant droop at the outer corners; his mouth also was very large and slobbery-looking from the constant habit of betel chewing, and looked like a freshly jagged wound, wide, gaping, and showing the scarlet gums and stumps of blackened tusks behind.
He was the only man dressed in Hula, excepting the freshly-installed South Sea Island teacher, who had lately arrived with his pretty young wife to take the post from which Toto had been deposed.
Toto was the only Papuan who could read and write in Hula; formerly he had been taken in hand by the missionaries and educated to become a teacher amongst his people, almost the first New Guinea native who had been converted.
After his training at Port Moresby, he had been sent down amongst his own kindred and people, to continue the good work; but, alas! Toto had been only half-redeemed when let loose, and soon relapsed into something worse than his original uncultivated state.
Toto, like the other native teachers, had been allowed twenty pounds a year to maintain himself and family--ample means for him amongst his own tribe, where he had his own portion of land, although barely sufficient for the poor strangers, who were compelled to buy everything they required at the prices fixed by the natives and traders. The Papuan being close-fisted and yielding nothing out of charity, these poor South Sea Islanders come with their wives amongst people callous, if not regarding them as intruders. They spend their year's allowance in less than four months, and then half starve the rest of the year, working on bravely and uncomplainingly upon this arid soil, till their wives droop and die, or themselves are murdered and eaten.
Toto was not the man to make a martyr of himself, and being worldly wise, after getting all he could out of the mission-station, a pretty young wife (he had left one at Hula working in his garden while he was being converted), and his first instalment of salary, he took up his position, and cast about for other methods to increase his meagre income.
Under the protection of the missionary he became a power in his own land, while the hymns he sang drew the young boys and girls to his house, which he got built large and commodious. When traders came they applied to Toto, as mediator between them and the tribe, getting him to drive the bargains for them, so that he was paid both ways, deceiving all round, in the feathering of his own nest.
By-and-by, as time went on, Toto learnt that which they, his people, have not yet learnt, the use of money direct; he got to know what these rough sailors wanted besides copra and curios, and by stages became the pander to their vices, turning the mission-house into a place of ungodly riot, under the cloak of his supposed office of assistant teacher, and making the name of Hula vile throughout the land.
He was an unbounded hypocrite, and knew how to fawn and hold the key as well as any keeper of houses of the same description in European towns, without being as yet suspected either by the missionaries or the honest people he was daily betraying, while laying up treasures of iniquity.
The girls he taught by degrees those lessons of duplicity, so that they might hood wink their husbands and parents, and the cunning scoundrel knew by all the instincts of the trained pander whom to approach.
By-and-by, however, rumours reached headquarters, and he was dismissed at once ignominiously from the office which he had defiled, yet not before he had made enough to treat their dismissal with grinning contempt. He had established his name, and had plenty of customers, while the natives could not help respecting his riches, even though they had sprung from their dead honour. Toto could still swagger about in the gay garments which the traders brought to him, and awe his people with his splendours, while his courtyard was seldom empty of visitors.
His South Sea Island spouse had died some time before this, worn down with the hardships of her life amongst these unsympathetic strangers and killed at last by fever and neglect. The wife he had left behind was getting too old for Toto, so some time before Kamo had returned he had been one of the suitors for the hand of Rea.
But in Hula, as throughout all New Guinea, women, although finally bought, are permitted to make their own choice, so that Toto, favourably received by the father for the sake of his wealth, had been rudely dismissed by the wilful young lady, who had a good knowledge of Toto's profession, and hated him accordingly.
Still he leared upon her and made disgusting remarks when he met her alone, and had not given up hopes even after Kamo appeared.
When Kamo came to himself, after his chastisement and the abrupt departure of Rea, the first object that met his moody eyes was the large yellow and red-striped pants of this abhorred, would-be rival.
The colour upon him had the effect of red upon an excitable bull. Slowly his eyes wandered up to the evil, open mouth of the betel--chewing pander, and he fixed upon the opportunity to avenge the insults which Rea had told him about.
The tribe all round were still laughing merrily at the late scene, and Toto, thinking the quarrel meant fresh hopes for him, also swayed from side to side indulging in silent bursts of malicious mirth.
"What are you laughing at, you pig?" shouted Kamo, coming up to within an inch of Toto's sallow Chinese-looking face, and clenching his fist.
Toto could not stop all of a moment, besides he did not think there was any necessity, Kamo was such a boy compared with him.
"At the funny figure you cut on your knees--"
He did not finish his little joke, for Kamo's fist had rattled against his gums, and the men gathered round to separate them, knowing that Kamo was no match for the other; but Toto did not strike back, he had learnt one lesson at Port Moresby, to control his temper.
The leering grin became intensified with the swelling lips, as he wiped the blood away with his gaudy sleeves; but he only nodded his head at Kamo, and said,--
"We'll settle all this by-and-by, Kamo, my boy; you just wait and see." Then he hitched up his trousers, and went down past the crowd towards his own house, while Kamo and the others looked after him, marvelling at his Christian forbearance.
Once, as he nearly reached his door, he looked back and waved his hand towards them; appearing still to be laughing, but with his lips bulged out.