Chapter 6

Melvill watches surreptitiously as Marheyo prepares for the new day. The old warrior stretches, a joint pops then another. He goes to the hut's opening and peers into the gathering light. He shuffles back inside to speak some quiet words to Tinor, who is still lying on the floor under a sheet of tappa; she returns his quiet words. Marheyo takes a long walking stick which has not moved from its place on the wall since Melvill and Toby's arrival. It appears fashioned from a gnarled limb of a strong tree. Then he takes two bananas from a bunch hanging in the corner and he leaves the hut. 

Melvill wants to know where he is going but he pretends to sleep for a while longer and does doze a bit. It is Toby's getting up which fully rouses him. "Wake yourself, old fellow, something's happening." 

Melvill sits upright and sees that Tinor and Korykory are fillings baskets with bowls and pots of food. Tinor turns to them and says something about water, "wai," and motions outside. "Come on," says Toby, "I believe she wants us to perform our morning duties." He helps Melvill stand and hands him the crutch. Toby no longer has his warrior escort--perhaps the Typees have decided they are unnecessary or ineffective. 

The day is already hot. Melvill squints back at the mountains, where the white sun has fully cleared the peaks. 

They return from the stream to find Tinor and Korykory and Fayaway outside the hut holding baskets of food and drink. They all set off for the Ti grove. Through pantomime Toby offers to carry Fayaway's basket but she declines with a smile. Tinor however passes her basket to Toby, who accepts it after a moment's hesitation. 

Melvill smiles. "Always the gentleman." 

In the quiet grove they take the path which leads to the bamboo shrines. The jungle is still dark and cool, the overhead flora blocking the early rays of the sun. Unseen birds calling wildly break the jungle's weighty silence. Melvill wonders what they are all doing. They appear to be en route to a picnic breakfast, which is queer itself, but there is a seriousness surrounding the activity. They walk slowly and deliberately, almost ceremoniously. Melvill, with his crutch and his sore leg, has no trouble keeping their pace--he recalls walking to Sunday worship with his family as a boy. He does not bother asking for Toby's assessment. He could only respond with his own pure conjecture, and breaking the silence seems disrespectful. 

Melvill observes each warrior shrine closely as they pass, each in a different phase of dilapidation, each with a stone totem guarding its black interior, each seeming to harbor the ghost of the departed warrior and the unleashed echoes of his battle stories. Bloody, glorious and horrible. The jungle path is more solemn than a graveyard. 

They reach Marheyo's newly constructed shrine, and the old man is there to greet them. He has gotten a ceremonial cloak of feathers; he holds the gnarled stick. Marheyo greets each one by name: Korykory, Tinor, Fayaway, Toby, Hermes. It strikes Melvill how different the wood of Marheyo's shrine is from the others they have passed: dark and rich in color, not time--and weatherbleached. How ancient must some of the shrines be? 

Tinor and Fayaway begin laying out the meal picnicstyle on the ground. When preparations are finished they sit at the edges of the tappa sheet. Melvill expects Marheyo to join them but he remains standing, pride painting his leathery face. The food is passed and Marheyo begins speaking. Even though he does not understand the words, Melvill feels that he should refrain from eating until Marheyo is finished--it may be some sort of benediction--but the Typees start to their meal. They eat and react nonverbally to Marheyo, following every word. 

Melvill gets the impression he is recounting some history, perhaps his personal history. At times Marheyo acts out the story, thrusting as if he holds a spear instead of the gnarled aegis, later lifting some heavy object above his head. The story goes on and on. Instead of speaking to his audience Marheyo seems to have achieved a kind of trance. He is saying the words like they are part of a scripted prayer, but with full animation, not the monotone sermon of a Protestant minister. More like a bard reciting a Homeric hymn, thinks Melvill. Marheyo paddles through an evoked sea. The vines tattooed on his arms are like veins popping. 

One by one they finish eating but the oration continues. Every so often the Typees smile at some detail in Marheyo's story. Melvill avoids making eye contact with Toby because no doubt they would exchange some glance--confused, frustrated, bemused--and Melvill does not want to show disrespect. 

Melvill's mind is wandering when he hears "Toby bwa Hermes . . ." as Marheyo must have come to their part of his story. Shortly there is talk of Toonoo and again the Happars. The Typees' age-old enemies are an integral component of Marheyo's personal narrative, almost as if there would be no meaning to Marheyo's life, nor any Typee's, if not for their cannibal brethren. Their Cain-and-Abel brethren. Melvill wonders about Mexico and if that country will become like the Happars to the United States, an embittered enemy perched on its border. 

Finally Marheyo finishes, and he wavers slightly, perhaps exhausted and relieved from the burden of his tale. Melvill thinks of the mixture of exhaustion and elation after sexual intercourse, rid temporarily of the burden of desire. The old man stares straight with an odd look of pride washing over his face while his family jabbers to him. Melvill imagines "Well done! Bravo! Well said!" The adoration continues for a prolonged time--until three Typees emerge from the path, two men and a woman, naked of course except for their white cloths, blue tattoos, and shells and feathers. Marheyo greets them, tears gathering in his ancient eyes. Meanwhile Tinor and Fayaway begin picking up the mess. Korykory rises and stands near his father. He too wears his pride like ceremonial garb. 

Melvill and Toby also stand. They try to assist Tinor and Fayaway but there appears to be no need. They go to the nearby log. 

"This must be some sort of gala opening," says Toby quietly. 

"Yes, or a visitation, with the dear one present in both body and spirit." Other Typees are arriving as Melvill speaks. 

Tinor and Fayaway have placed the baskets, now filled with the dirty bowls and cups and the soiled tappa, out of the way in some tall grass; they too stand next to the bamboo shrine but clearly apart from Marheyo and Korykory. 

Melvill expects the visitors to shake hands with Marheyo. Instead they take hold of each other's wrists and stay locked that way while they talk a moment, all smiles and warmth on this hot tropical day. Then the visitors move on to Korykory, then Tinor and Fayaway, but only holding wrists with Marheyo. Melvill recalls hearing that Roman officers greeted their enemies in this way to begin discussing terms of surrender or truce: taking each other by the wrist to assure that neither was concealing a weapon. Melvill thinks that this Typee custom must have evolved from some other reasoning; he thinks of the pulse tapping and the tender skin at the wrist. 

The exchanges between Marheyo and his visitors are brief--and meaningless to Melvill and Toby, who suggests that they return to the Ti for a smoke. 

"Perhaps it would be uncouth to leave," says Melvill. 

"No one will even notice us missing. We may as well be trees rooted here in the forest." 

It seems Toby is correct: old Tinor and Fayaway are smiling and chatting as the visitors move through the line. They are coming from both directions on the path now but arranging themselves to speak with Marheyo first. 

"You are probably right." Melvill tightens his grip on his crutch. 

They leave the place quietly. For a moment Melvill tries to make eye contact with Fayaway but she is rapt in conversation. Without speaking they make their way toward the Ti, slowly at first because of Melvill's stiff leg, until the exercise loosens it somewhat. At the Ti Toby helps Melvill ascend to the stone portico. Inside the smoky Ti they find very few Typees--only old men who are closer to being dead than living. Soon they are sitting smoking; and Melvill, the tobacco smoke warm in his throat, realizes he feels at ease here, among the aged Typees and the severed heads of their enemies.