Here a tribe of cannibals vanished. An abandoned settlement on Fatu Hiva. A deserted village. How a remote fishing camp is set up (or is it a hunting camp?), how to forage for food and spend the night in a polythene hut amid the cries of feral chickens and strange, muffled thuds.
In the previous report, we followed the only accessible route to the abandoned village of Omoa—a path along the edge of a precipice. We still have no food, the party is hungry, and the drowsy sun is already tangling in the tops of the palms.
“Oooh,” Nastya drawls, looking around at the shelters. “There’s something about this place I don’t really like.”
Several little huts—poles and spars covered with cloudy polythene. A tall fire pit. The men crack open coconuts, and the whole company snacks on their filling flesh and refreshing juice.
We set about making ourselves at home in the abandoned village. I wanted to write dead, but that is not the right word. The village is alive: perhaps copra harvesters have set up their remote camp here, or perhaps fishermen? But it makes no sense to walk this far to fish, and coming by boat is dangerous. Except for a handful of days, the wind blows from the east. The surf crashes sullenly against the rocks; there is no sheltered nook for a safe landing.
Yet beneath the shelter are lidded plastic barrels holding small stocks of salt, rice, rancid flour and vegetable oil; there is even sugar and three cloves of garlic. A sleeping bag hangs from a nail, while mats and a foam mattress have been thrown onto the bunks. A bunch of green bananas adorns the front and saves us from starving to death :).
It turns out that if you peel, slice and boil completely green bananas, you get something almost like potatoes! Admittedly, the sticky sap is damn near impossible to wash off your hands, but at least we will have a hot supper.
Two polythene walls and a roof provide reliable protection from the sun, spray and rain. One of the fishermen (as we shall provisionally call the camp’s unseen owners) clearly has a talent for landscape design. The gazebo—a frame for a palm-thatch roof—stands bare, but beautiful. The mock terrace is planted with flowers, and curious stones have been arranged into an armchair here, little towers there. In the middle, a punctured plastic tabletop has been enthroned. All this beauty is liberally strewn with dry palm leaves and goat skulls.
Once, the skulls were human. Nowadays the descendants of cannibals hunt feral goats. Judging by the bloodstained feathers, a frigatebird was unlucky too.
In a small pool behind the boulder embankment separating sea from land, the reflections of palms tremble. Frigatebirds dive towards the water right under our noses, snatching either a sip of fresh water or some unwary shrimp from its surface.
I wonder where the fire burned beside which Thor Heyerdahl and the old chief Tei Tetua used to sit eighty years ago, on nights just as dark as this one?
The leader of four once-warlike tribes outlived all his fellow tribesmen, his twelve wives, and even his children. When Heyerdahl lived in Omoa, an empty coffin hung beneath the leafy roof of Tei Tetua’s hut. Even a grave had already been dug beside the house.
“If I fall ill, I’ll climb into the coffin, otherwise the dogs will drag my body away,” the old man told the Norwegian explorer matter-of-factly.
Of a once-numerous people, only he remained—the last of the cannibals of Fatu Hiva.
The old man must surely be buried somewhere around here. But there is no finding his grave, just as we shall never know how the last of Fatu Hiva’s chiefs departed this world—in whose domain we have now trespassed to spend the night.
Eighty years ago, there was a clearing on this side of the stream, and chickens grazed here; their feral descendants now clamour tirelessly from the forest.
We make our nest on the bunks beneath the main shelter. Nastya spreads out the mosquito net; beneath it go a sleeping bag used as a duvet, a blanket to cover our legs, spare clothes under our heads, and Misha, the young sailor’s bedtime bear.
At dusk, four people from the Brazilian boat appear. They set out later than we did and took their time. The Brazilians, who grew up beneath palm trees, have dug up cassava roots in the forest; they have also found a green papaya, while Chantelle produces a packet of rice from her rucksack. We’ll live!
We shall collect our tropical foraging recipes in a separate post. For now, let us simply say that our food was blessed and varied. It consisted of three hot dishes based on rice, coconuts, boiled bananas and cassava, seasoned with slow-moving crabs, plus a green-papaya salad with a strange sauce.
Full and contented, we crawl away to our respective lairs. Audrey and Ilya sling their hammocks beneath our shelter, while the others settle across the stream, where Chief Tei Tetua lived after outliving all his fellow tribesmen.
I lie awake for a long time. In the corner, either rats or lizards are scratching; Luna is asleep, and the rustling darkness is broken only by the roar of the surf and occasional muffled shots? What is that?
To be continued.