GO TO TEMARAIA—MIRACULOUS HEALINGS—CHILD ASSAILED BY AN EVIL SPIRIT—STRANGE OCCURRENCE—GIFT OF SEA BISCUITS—PERFORM A SURGICAL OPERATION—HAMMERING OUT TEETH—THE WRITER AS A SURGEON AND DENTIST—ROUGHS DISTURB A MEETING—THEY ARE STRICKEN WITH DEATH—FATAL SICKNESS AMONG THE PEOPLE—LOWER CLASSES OF THE NATIVES AT A FEAST—THEIR REVERENCE FOR RELIGIOUS SERVICES AND PREACHERS—TWO PARTIES OF NATIVES IN BATTLE ARRAY—FIGHTING AVERTED BY THE WRITER ADDRESSING THE CONTENDING FACTIONS IN FAVOR OF PEACE—WARS AMONG THE NATIVES—SOME OF THEIR PRACTICES—GATHERING AND KEEPING HUMAN HEADS—CAUSES OF CANNIBALISM—CONVERSATION WITH ONE WHO HAD BEEN A CANNIBAL—FLAVOR OF NATIVE AND WHITE MEN'S FLESH COMPARED—THE TASTIEST PART OF THE HUMAN BODY.
ON September 19th, Nihiru, a native brother, came with his canoe and gave the writer a free passage to a village on the east end of the island, called Tematahoa. We arrived in the evening and found a great deal of sickness among the people. Just at dark on the 20th, a brother named Pasai came from Temaraia with a sick man to have him anointed and administered to. I attended to that and he was healed.
On the 21st, Sunday, I preached on the signs, gifts of healing, etc. There were about two hundred and fifty persons in the congregation. In the evening I baptized and confirmed eighteen persons. Monday morning I opened school with twenty-eight pupils; next day there were forty-one.
On the following day, September 24th, a man and his wife came to me with a child three and a half months old. They said that a short time before their child had been taken sick in the night, and they had talked to each other of having it anointed. At this, the child spoke, and stated in plain words, like an adult, that it would not be anointed. It said many words as plainly as any person could do. From that time it grew worse to the day it was brought to me to be administered to. The parents said they did not belong to the Church, but desired to be baptized, for they believed the Gospel as the Mormon Elders taught it. Their names were Tauahi and Taui. We baptized them and one other person, then administered to the child, which lay limp as if dead. We could not tell whether it was dead or alive. However, when we took our hands off its head, it opened its eyes and looked as if nothing was the matter. Then it nursed as any healthy child might. There were many people gathered there, and all were astonished at what had taken place. Finally the babe went to sleep as if nothing had been wrong with it, and the whole company rejoiced at the great change that had come. They said that truly it was the Almighty who had healed the child through His servant.
I turned and gave my attention to some writing that was necessary, and the crowd became unusually quiet. In a few minutes a strong rushing or movement among the people attracted my attention, and as I turned to face the people there appeared to be an ashy paleness over the faces of the whole assembly. All seemed terrified and speechless. At that moment an aged couple, a man and his wife, entered the door and went straightway to where the sleeping infant lay. They bowed down over it and kissed it, and then went through some ancient heathen ceremony that I could not understand. Then they walked direct to their canoes and sailed across the lake to where they had come from. From that moment the relatives of the child began to mourn and say that it would die; and sure enough, inside of an hour it was a corpse. The parents were asked why they had lost faith and given up the child. They said the old people who had kissed the babe had power with evil spirits, and had afflicted it in the first place; that their power had been broken by the Priesthood, and they could not reunite it with the babe until they could come and touch it; and when they had done that, the parents and all concerned lost faith, and could not resist the influence that came with the old pair of witches, as we think they would be called by some civilized people. I must confess it was a strange thing to me. I had never before witnessed anything so strange.
It was on the 27th of September that the child died. On the same day a Scotchman came and brought me a few sea biscuits. I was very thankful to him for the favor, for bread was such a rarity in that part of the country as to give a man some satisfaction in seeing it, even though he might not have the pleasure of eating it. Thanks to the benevolent Scotchman. I regret that I have forgotten his name. The next day I preached on the resurrection of the dead, and baptized and confirmed eighteen persons into the Church.
Before leaving my reminiscences of this place, I will narrate two incidents of some note to me. In one, we were called to see a man who had been confined to his room the greater part of a year with a swelling in his hip and thigh. On examination it was found that his whole hip and thigh were filled with a thick and very noxious pus. No one in the village dared to lance it, but when I told him his condition he insisted that I should cut it whether it killed or cured. I hesitated to comply with his wish until all his immediate relatives had been consulted, and had given their assent. Otherwise, the superstition of the people was so great that if in the operation the patient succumbed the operator would have the gravest responsibility to meet. But when all concerned had given sanction, and each had assumed his or her responsibility, I performed the operation most successfully, the wound discharging at least six pints of the most offensive matter, and the patient being greatly relieved from his terrible suffering. The operation was performed with a penknife, for in that country at that time the only surgical instrument ever used for cutting was a shark's tooth or a scale from a broken bottle.
In this case the operation seemed to the people very little less than a miracle. The news thereof spread all over the island, insomuch that the operator acquired much practice in similar cases, such as swollen jaws, boils, carbuncles, etc., and though he performed many operations, he never received one cent as pay. If the people had toothache, he was called on and performed the operation of extraction, in some instances using a rusty nail, or any kind of an old iron, in place of a hammer or mallet, to punch the tooth out. His best dentist tool was his rifle bullet mold, using both ends for forceps. He never failed to give satisfaction, for there were neither dentists nor surgeons in that part of the world.
The other incident, and a very singular one, which occurred at that place was this: On one occasion seven very rough characters came into our sacrament meeting. Some of them were said to be from an adjacent island. They came, took seats at the back of the hall, and behaved very rudely, making loud remarks and threats about the young ladies of the choir. When they partook of the sacrament they said that when the meeting was out they would administer ihe sacrament in a very different manner to that in which the Mormons did it. Sure enough, at the close of the meeting they pushed along through the congregation till they came to the young ladies, and made wicked propositions to them, which were very quickly spurned. Then they passed on, still making their boasts of what they would do at nightfall. But they failed in carrying out their threats, for in a very short time three of them were stricken down with violent cramps, so terrible that all three were corpses before the next morning. The other four had strong symptoms of the same complaint, and inside of a week they were dead also. The people said it was the power of evil spirits that had been sent to destroy them, that they might not be permitted to carry out their wicked purposes. The whole people were so excited that they shot off guns, blew horns, built large fires, prayed and shouted in wild confusion, to drive away the evil spirits; and many people were smitten with sickness and some died.
On the 29th of September we sailed for Putuhara. The wind blew a gale, and we had a fearful passage, but succeeded in reaching our destination in safety, and in time for evening meeting, when we preached to a large............