In Twos And
Threes And Groups They Strayed Along, Shaking Hands And Uttering The
Tahitian Word Of Greeting - Ioarana, Pronounced Yo-Rah-Nah.
The men,
big strapping fellows, were in loin-cloths, with here and there no
shirt, while the women wore the universal ahu, a sort of adult
pinafore that flows in graceful lines from the shoulders to the
ground.
Sad to see was the elephantiasis that afflicted some of
them. Here would be a comely woman of magnificent proportions, with
the port of a queen, yet marred by one arm four times - or a dozen
times - the size of the other. Beside her might stand a six-foot
man, erect, mighty-muscled, bronzed, with the body of a god, yet
with feet and calves so swollen that they ran together, forming
legs, shapeless, monstrous, that were for all the world like
elephant legs.
No one seems really to know the cause of the South Sea
elephantiasis. One theory is that it is caused by the drinking of
polluted water. Another theory attributes it to inoculation through
mosquito bites. A third theory charges it to predisposition plus
the process of acclimatization. On the other hand, no one that
stands in finicky dread of it and similar diseases can afford to
travel in the South Seas. There will be occasions when such a one
must drink water. There may be also occasions when the mosquitoes
let up biting. But every precaution of the finicky one will be
useless. If he runs barefoot across the beach to have a swim, he
will tread where an elephantiasis case trod a few minutes before.
If he closets himself in his own house, yet every bit of fresh food
on his table will have been subjected to the contamination, be it
flesh, fish, fowl, or vegetable.
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