The high chief from Anaho swayed his war-club with delight. Tattooed warriors, wearing the royal insignia of knighthood (exquisitely tattooed armorial bearings on the shoulders and breast), stood by, drinking toddy from the festival calabash.
Suddenly the prime donna stepped forth to entertain, and to reveal the beauty of her race. The handsome youths and men arose _en masse_ as she emerged from the bamboos that towered just behind the huge wooden idol’s back.
“Aloha! Aloha! Awai! Awai!” they cried in musical speech, as she made obeisance to the audience in bewitching Marquesan style. She commenced to dance, flitting across the stage in the radiance of the moonlight, which appeared the more magical as the small, blue-burning flames of the little coco-nut-oil lamps flickered in the breeze. The audience stared, breathless with anticipation.
She seemed to be some embodiment of Marquesan grace and poetic mythology. Her figure swayed to the tender _adagio_ strain, as I caught the spirit of the weird chant and her movements and played on my violin. In some mysterious way she seemed tied to the _tempo_, to the throbbing wails of those waves of sound, so perfect, so exquisite was her every movement to each suggestion of the melody. Her tappa robe, of the most delicate material, lifted to the forest winds, the diaphanous folds clinging to her figure ere they loosened, and flying out from her heels as she flitted across the bamboo stage of that arena. At this sight the enamoured youths, standing in rows by the palms and mangoes, yelled with delight: “Aloha! Yoranna, Atua! Mon dieu!” The last two words being a French Marquesan’s most fervent expression.
But it was the intense expression of vanity gratified on her face that spoilt the imaginary effect and destroyed the illusion that some wraith of the forest, some heathen goddess, danced and sang before me.
Nor was her flush of pride to be blamed, for those Marquesan youths were indeed handsome. There they stood, knee-deep in the ferns, their dark faces aglow with impassioned thought, their eyes shining like glowing, sinful stars. About their perfectly shaped loins they had swathed the latest fashion festival sash, its scanty width adorned with tassels, and tied, bow-wise, coquettishly at the left knee. I will not dwell on that prime donna’s solo, for it would be impossible to give the faintest impression in words of the magical sounds of such weird, extempore melody.