Evening sentinel, Thursday, February 23, 1922 · page 4

 

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Women of PolyneSia Draw Men from

HE example of the sirens who at»
tempted to lure Odysseus to their
fascinating rock, as told by Homer,

has been followed with more success and
more tragic climaxes by modern sirens
Over since Homer established the prece-
dent. There always has been speculation
as to just what might have been the rad-
justment of mythological history, if Odysp
Bans had not filled his ears with cotton
when the Sirens lured, and, instead. had
listened and succumbed to their wiles.

In later years we have seen the whole
course of an empire's history changed, be-
cause some important personage, a king,
for instance, listened to feminine persua-
Ilon, instead of stopping up his ears. But
it is not often that we hear of the more
humble instances—the every day adairs
which, after all. are the most interesting
because the easier understood.

From the South Sea Islands there has
Just come the story of the romancoo-and
tragedy—of a beautiful island princess
who practiced the arts of the sirens, lured
her beloved from hectic Paris to her own
colorful land, and there, after keeping him
devotional and hopeful for two years, cast
him aside for another devotee whom her
charm had held captive to the island. This
would not be a circumstance sufficiently
unusual to retell, were it not that she. the
llren, beautiful in the beauty-language of
the warm and glamorous South Seas. was
in turn dashed to despair and repentance
by a turning of the tables, that made her a
siren princess jllted—served with hcr own
medicine. as it were.

And then. too, the story that brings to
mind once more the ever intriguing mys-
tery of the South Seas—the strange allure
of their palm flung slopes, their coral reefs
and their gayly, though scantily zarbed,
daughters, who loll on their shores, and,
like the sirens of Odysseus. look to the seas
to briugrthcxn romance.

For centuries and centuries the family of
the lovely Princess Takau ruled Tahiti. She
is the highest of the high caste. Her blood
in royal blood. All who have seen her
have said that she is as beautiful as any

woman could he. Such lines of body as
hers can scarcely be conceived, for such
are seldom SCt'n. And her features are
ideally perfect. llcr light bronzc~rimost
white-complexion glows in the soft, Cil-
ressing South Sea breezes. Her hair is
coal black and severely straight. ller

brow is high; hcr cheek bones are high.
Her nose is clearcut as the nose of a white
queen.

And the Princess~the last of the reign-
ing Tahitians—is wealthy. She has much
land.

Educated as Girl in— Paris,
She Charmed Many Frenchmen

Takau was sent to Paris when she was
16, and there she completed her education
and her musical studies. Her beauty and
her charms attracted hundreds of young
Parisians. and wherever she went she was
observed by yearning eyes. She was aloof.
however. and few and fine of instinct
were the men whom she countenanced to
lit and talk with her. Offers of ma: riage
she spurned. Most she spurned because she
had no love in her heart—and for no other
reason.

It is reported that she loved more than
one in her few years' time in Paris. how-
ever, and that she would have married
either of two men who laid siege to her
heart had he agreed to go back with her to
the little cottage in the cocoanut grove in
Tahiti. The one unchangeable condition
is that her husband must live his life be-
side her in the bungalow beneath the
oocoanut palms.

In her grove by the seaside she sits and
looks out to the sea. Doubtless she looks
toward America, for from America the
Princess hopes her mate will come. She is
certain of that.

“He must be an American, for Americans
love and respect their women," she says.
“and when he is a good American he wants
but one wife. In Tahiti a man wants a
wife for every day in the year."

And so she sits beside her'cottage on a
beautiful knoll overlooking the sea and
dreams of that ideal—an American, of up-
tight and steadfast qualities, willing to
share the comforts and joys of a home in
beautiful Tahiti. where food may be had
for the taking, where life and love and
ma happiness pnlsate in unison.

The Princess Takau has loved an Ameri-
' pan. but she does not love him now. He

m one who did not prove himself of‘

those fine Qualities which she
find truly believed were his.
rm, rather base; but the trustful Princess
"u not disillusioned. She believes that
I"!!! hold: the man of he'- heart. and

 

All Quarters of the World——— 3'

How ’the Native Girls
Look to the Men from

Overseas to Meet Their

Ideals and the White
Forge ts Civilization

that some day he will come to her and she
will meet him at the seashore—Aha they
will know each other for the preordained at
the meeting of their eyes.

Indeed. the heart of the South Seas beats
tenderly. It is the land of romance. trulY.
Princesses and dancing girls and maidens
dressed in garlands of deep forest flowers
alike dream in their hearts of romance.

Favored Parisian Suitor
Much Sought as Husband

It was in Paris that the lovely Princess
met and was Wooed by the dashing Pierre
D'Aiembel't. And he was a suitor who had
been much sought. Paris society matrons
with marriageable daughters had set‘their
snares for the charming Pierre, and he had
proved immune to all their wiles. Few
young men of all Paris had had the chances
for high marriage that Pierre D'Aiemberf
had thrown at his feet. And none, perhaps.
had survived the campaigns of ambitious
mothers and remained so unentangied as
Pierre.

Then he met the Princess Takau. it was
at a the dansant one winter attunoon
that Pierre the post was introduced iu the
lovely Takau. They danced, and Pierre

At right is the
beautiful Princess Takau
of Tahiti in native
costume. She appears in
the civilized garb
she wore in Paris in the

topmost photograph.

had never seen such lightness, such lithe-
ness, such evident grace. Pierre was im-
mune no longer; he knew that.

And then one day he heard her sing.
Pierre fell in love.

There can be but one explanation for
Pierre's susceptibility to the loveliness of
this Polynesian beauty in contrast to his
immunity to Paris's most gracious maids.
That explanation is that Pierre loved.
primally and first of all. poetry. And he
saw in the body and litheness, heard in the
voice of Takau the personification of that
love. Hence he loved Taken.

Some say in Paris to this day that she
loved him. Others say she admired him.
but that he had no appeal to the depths
of her heart. At any rate, she submitted
for months to the most ardent wooing of
an ardent poet. He asked her to many
him. and she told him that she would—on
one condition: that he go to the coconut
grove by the far away Tahitian shore and
live there in her cottage for all their days.

Pierre asked for time to think. Paris
was of him; he of Paris. It was his in-
evitable setting. Paris was in his face, in
his manner. In his heart. He loved it
and Paris loved him. He loved every ac-
customed, haunt and rendezvous with his
art. Paris was the heavengiven back-
ground of his art, and he tried 1to avoid
the thought of giving .it upi", ‘ -

But he loved {honesty . Than—loved
her deeply. His was, indeed, a problem!

Pierre wen an impulsive youth. and so

"Ti. women are a
lovely lob: straight black
Illir. bountiful teeth,
contour of body
inevitably perfect and
‘dllpositions yielding
and loving."

one evening when Paris seemed dearer to
him than ever it had seemed before, he
sought the Princess.

“No," Pierre said. "No. I canno ”

Then Princess Takan went back alone to
her cottage by the sea and began to wait
for the true knight to come.

“He must be an American.” she said.

There came an American; a handsome,“

foot loose, carefree fellow from the Mid-
dle West of ~the United States. He was
born of the corn belt, a stalwart son of
the great prairie country. His body was
the body of a White god. He'stood head
high above the other white men of Tahiti
and head and shoulders above the native
males.
. The young American heard of the bead-
tiful Mums! His Middle Western «curi-
osity was piqued. Then lssmet 'her and
paid court to her. The island began to
buzz and’ulaze with gossip of an imminent
marriage between the adventurous Ameri-
can and the Tahitian Princess. Hem
paying liar such court as {none but the
American knows how. And shewas. mm-
ingly, agreeable.

And, then one day out of a clear sea
arose Pierre d’Aljembert, the Parisian poet.
Again a chattel of his impulse, healed de-
cided one day that Paris was far less ne-
nimble than the Princess Tana, and he
had set sail for Tahiti—in full so
that the remainder of .his days would he
spearheads hex-1n the cocoanut. grove‘that
overlooks the blue harbor of Papecte. " "

'Tapeete'is the Paris of fine mum” .

Gripping Lure of the South Seas Embodied in Chamting
' Tahiti Maid Educated in Paris—Story of How She Shattered

‘ a Man’s Love and How Fate Repaid Her.“ by Shattering
Her Own Romance—Why the Sirenlike ,

$52!. he had thought. "It may be I can

have a bit of Paris and at the same
time have Taken."

But Pierre was doomed to disap
pointment.

The Princess scarcely remembered him
in her new enchantment. The vitality of
the youthful giant from the Middle West,
his strength and his power and his rug-
gedness obscured the Old World charm of
manner and the poetic delicacy of thought
and speech that characterized Pierre
d’Alembert.

Pierre remained in Papeete less than a '
week, and then, disconsolate, he left the
"Paris of the South Seas" and sought the
outlands of Polynesia and the lower
Archipelago to and some wild and soothing
setting to he balm for his hurt-pride.

Not so long alter his departure the
American suitor of the Princess Taken
learned that the lands and properties of.
a Polynesian Princess conduct the sold
under the law. ponsequently, he reasoned.
the ‘valuahlelands of" Taken could not be
disposed of by any means._ That was too
much for him:- he was a practical person.
Papeete and Tahiti awoke one shining

* answer.

equal as a dancer and :: singer. In her
very modern cottage in one corner of the
broad parlor there is a piano. in another
corner is her phonograph—she is very
fond of this and calls it: "My tin can
music." No doubt that entitlement came
to her from the departed American suitor.

This is only one romance of the South
Seas. There have been thousands through
the ages, for the dreamfui islands there
are made for romance and for nothing but
romance. or course all romances cannot
include a royal princess of a lotus land.
But all are interesting, as all real romance
is interesting.

F atal Lure of Islands
Hits Old and Young Alike

Men of wealth and culture and refine-
ment have turned thefl' backs on the civil-
ized world and become beach combers in
order that they might find the fountain of
romance in the South Seas. The lure of
Polynesia is more powerful to-day than
it was in the latter part of the eighteenth
century, when Bougainville enthused
aristocratic France with his Nouoelle
Gyms-re. The life of the ’South Seas—
whlch some call “tawdry"—-has been called
upon by many ,men to aflord relief to the
mental depression made by the war.

South Sea bound!

What a motley crew every mail boat car-
ries to those regions south of. the equator!
Painters and literary persons in the van.
Then students and pedagogues in quest of
new things ethnological, anthropological
and pelyological. Tired and disillusioned
men seeking oblivion from some old sorrow.
Silent, mysterious fellows fleeing the neme-
sis of the law. Blbulous persons seeking
ear-cease from prohibition's style cramping
tentacles. A horde of nondescripls who
seek 'food and pleasure without the com-
pensation of work.

Then, adventurers—rmntic adventurers
mm*ud simple.

Wherecln lies the lure of the South Sam ‘2
Not such an obvious question as :it may
seem. No one knows the :fundamentel

does not understand the witchery 3nd

morning to discover vacancy where-ethic ‘mg‘c emu-W 1" “950W 13‘3“.

great huh of a young Americandnd been
the day before. The Princm‘m se-

cluded herself in. her «:0th 'a little 2

while, but soon she came out again and
took her station by the use. her eyes
turned tom America. ~ ‘

Where , 7 ticalmeef'mu
education; ~Same anymomtthe earn

‘beligsofuhis sheave landmmm a

It‘is elusive; iris ensue, intangible.

‘ There is a manner of myingsa thing in
the-South Snowmen --ennnot-be said inuanc
other may and 'whleh defies analysis.

inns South Bees la'regnt him!” That-
'ts. toeivilizedmam 1:13:11:le lands. a
tragic characterisation. ,It is that he has
Wed too-languid therein no getting

my. There an memes for a white ,mn

“can fed” senate:- 01am .m,” remain in the ants "Where is no

whom he manhd. Whom“? _
' lazuli e: normals wa:-.m~m no

009mm,. 19%. by 1m New You-lg Ber-dd.

musing why—metastasis Walloon; just
stays outndonwd ' on. Then the and

Man cannot and cemnentlmeonized by visitors,

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

whisper goes about: “He's gone ha: -

When a white man goes naiixe l.
is hopeless. He
He is done for.
The white man gone 1.4 - g
actually below the native‘s level. .1; t 1'
native realizes it, too.

Women, Physically Perfect.
Real Lure of the f ,(u

“(‘hcrrhc: la frmmr," said :1. l- :
detective. “Find the woman."
found the motive.
this. Perhaps that is Why the \‘x‘ J “.l
goes and loses himself in the .\E. w
Islands, in Tahiti. in the l-‘rivnrily '
or the Society islands.

Perhaps it is the thought of “Vim“.
moves the dreamers of South Sea «

is a Lotos Edit:
He is beyond ii. i. ‘—
who has

 

Perhaps that .4; . x

to pack scanty belongings and t
for the magic islands. I‘eri.up> ilu ~.
and do not dare to lch llsvir [L‘-

until 09.; day some trayclcr win
their ciFtSIe and tells: them of iw. _.
primitive, brown women whose IlaW
glistening skins feed on the SillllLi.’
a gentle, kindly heaven and rcfiert ii
of pulchr‘rtude.

The women are, indeed. a it x. :2
Straight, stern, ran-n black ll.iil‘. .
luminous, penetrating and aim -'
earthly eyes; beautiful. even. whm
contour of body which needs no 1w
ment standard—which strikes tho . - ~
80 inevitably perfect that there is ll»
cation for comparison; (llama:
loving and so yielding that conqm
spired in the most stodgy heart.

At the age of 10 or 12 girls an: L w
wedlock. Then they are at th-
physical development. As a rulv. ::
very fond of children. and as a t. . w H. b
there is no such thing as an (Irpl...:. .z L
South Sea Islands. Adoption is i‘:,. r .

When there is work to do ii ~
formed by women, with the may! . i
curing of copra and the spearsn; «2
Woman is not held in very grim rem w -
in most of the isles, but among the l'...
tus woman is accorded a degree of i.‘ , , .
which truly makes her a queen. i
there make their-own choice of hunt; . . »

The Paumotuan native philosophize: 1:- 't
naively that while virtue in women m .,
be highly prized, she who cannot lul-m. 4.
is not to be treated as a social pariah.

There is a difference between the M"

nesian and the Melanesian women. ‘ we
girls of Tahiti, Paumotus and Martini-ha
are attractive and charming in their ;; : i-
tive manners, while the Melanesia!) w ii wt.
are savage.
. To return to Papeete, where the Prim . r»
Taken lives. In this little town then art
no rules as to hours for bed, and rerun--
tions for conduct are existent but uih : xv
ignored. W'ine, women and song—13'?!"-
day and always.

The dancing girls of Papeete have :i
tained the sobriquet of "Cocoa: rt
Maidens.” Their terpsichorean effort to
a great deal to reuse and revivlty the 3am u
spirits of the Tired Business Men. of Mn m
there are a great many in Papeete if?!”
now. As a stimulant for the biasc. the
Cocoanut Maidens outrivai the sprighiiy
figures on Broadway music show stages

Samoa, an American possession. is “6”
for the native
women of this region are as attractive and
oval more gentle—if that could bewiban
the overrun Tahitians. But Samoans are
a moral people. They are attractive, inter-
esting and have only one vice—indoleme-
Perhaps that is a virtue.

«It is in'Samoa that the United States
maintains a naval base at Page Pago. The
conduct and behavior of the Unlted States
naval forces at Pago Page conforms with
such meticulou‘saess to all the proprieties
that the expression, “Like the American
Navy,” is the simile of the utmost in favor-
able characterization.

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