Horror in Paradise (42 page)

A month later the same young man went to call on some friends and was returning home late at night. Not far from the spot where he had met the marchers before was a level flat of ground and drawing near to the spot he heard the sound of an
ipu
drum and of chanting. He came close enough to
sae
and recognize many of the men and women whom he had seen on the previous march as he had sat behind the stone wall. He was delighted with the chanting and drumming, with the dancing of the
ala’apapa
by the women and the
mokomoko
wrestling and other games of the past by the men. As he sat watching he heard someone say, “There is the grandson of Kekuanoi!” “Never mind! we do not mind him!” said another. This was the name of a grandfather of his who lived on the beach and he knew that he himself was being discussed. For a couple of hours he sat watching before he went home. His grandfather at home had seen it all; he said, “I know that you have been with our people of the night; I saw you sitting by watching the sports.” Then he related to his grandfather what he had seen on the two nights when he met the chiefs and warriors of old.

In old days these marchers were common in Kau district, but folk of today know little about them. They used to march and play games practically on the same ground as in life. Hence each island and each district had its own parade and playground along which the dead would march and at which they would assemble.

Mrs. Emma Akana Olmsted tells me that when she was told as a child about the marchers of the night she was afraid, but now that she is older and can herself actually hear them she is no longer terrified. She hears beautiful loud chanting of voices, the high notes of the flute and drumming so loud that it seems beaten upon the side of the house beside her bed. The voices are so distinct that if she could write music she would be able to set down the notes they sang.

Dr. A. GROVE DAY
,
Senior Professor of English, Emeritus, University of Hawaii, has lived in the Pacific region since 1944 and is editor or co-editor of a dozen anthologies of Pacific literature.

Dr. BACIL F. KIRTLEY
,
Emeritus Professor of English, University of Hawaii, has taught the unique course in “Literature of the Pacific” in Honolulu and at the University of the South Pacific in Suva, Fiji. He is author of A Motif-Index of Traditional Polynesian Narratives.

“We have sought not only stories of sorcery and the supernatural, but also classic narratives of man’s inhumanity and desperate survival by beach and ocean, in jungle or city highrise. Often the true accounts of what has happened in the island world of Oceania rival, in suspense or allure, even the most imaginative of yams in South Seas fiction.”