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Walter E. Traprock - The Cruise of the Kawa
he is swallowed are both pleasant and novel. The hors d'oeuvre course of a Filbert Island banquet is one
roar of laughter caused by the interior tickling of the agile food. This of course promotes good feeling
and leads to many lasting friendships.
With one's meals thus always ready-to-serve, with no cook glowering at the clock, no cheese souffle
ready to collapse, no dishes to wash or frying-pans to scour, life is one long gastronomic song.
In physical stature and beauty the Filbertines are far above the average. The men are six feet in height
and upwards, and proportionately wide. By a combination of equable climatic and economic conditions
this altitude has become standardized and there is little variation from it. A sort of rough control is
exercised in this regard. When a young male Filbertine has got his growth he is measured with a bamboo
yardstick to see if he comes up to requirements.
If not, he simply disappears. Little is said about it, but the fact is that the physical failures are moored at
low tide to a lump of coral on one of the outer reefs. Sharks, octopi and the man-eating
Wak-waks do the rest. This, as I say, is a rough sort of control but effective.
In facial character the tribe is regular and well proportioned, presenting no traces of negroid antecedents.
Noses are slender and slightly retroussed, lips clean-cut, chins modestly assertive with lower jaws
superbly adapted to cracking cocoanuts and oysters, foreheads low with sufficient projection at the
eye-line for shade purposes. All in all, they are entitled to an A-plus in beauty and reminded me less of
Polynesians than of a hand-picked selection of Caucasians who had been coated with a flat-bronze
radiator paint.
Beards, moustaches, imperials, goatees, side-whiskers and Galways are unknown, a fact which was to me
strange considering the luxuriance of other vegetation until I learned that, from infancy, it is the custom
of the Filbertine mother to scour her offspring's face with powdered coral which discourages the facial
follicles. These eventually give up and, turning inward and upward, result in a veritable crown of glory
on the top of the head, the place, after all, where the hair ought to grow. Their teeth, as with most
gramnivora, are sound, regular, brilliantly white and exceptionally large, the average size being that of
the double-blank domino.
So much for the men, and far too much, if you ask me, when you think that we still have the adorable
women to speak of.
Ever since our first nocturnal glimpse of the charming creatures you can imagine that my companions
and I were most eager to see more of them. During the entire next day not one of "les belles sauvages"
was visible. It was next to impossible to make inquiries, but Swank, the irrepressible, resolved to try and
plied Baahaabaa with questions in French, English, German and beche-de-mer, which only resulted in
loud laughter on the part of our host. Swank next tried pantomime, using the French gesture for beauty, a
circular motion of the hands about his face accompanied by sickening smiles. Baahaabaa watched him
intently, slapped his hip sharply, uttering a melodious command and shortly afterward Hitoia-Upa
presented Swank with a beautifully made wreath of elecampane blossoms (inula helenion)
exactly matching his beard. This was all very well but got us nowhere.
On the day following, however, our difficulties were unexpectedly solved. Abluluti and a companion of
his, Moolitonu (Bull-lost-in-a-Thunder-Storm), indicated by certain large gestures that if we liked they
would be glad to make a tour of the island, a proposition we gladly accepted. Moolitonu was our official
map. On his broad back in the most exquisite azure tattooing was a diagram of the island showing all
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