Headhunters on My Doorstep by J. Maarten Troost

Author:J. Maarten Troost
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2013-07-10T21:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

And yet, as I watched the Aranui sail past the headlands of Nuku Hiva, its familiar, comforting shape tumbling over the horizon, I couldn’t help but feel happy to be back on terra firma, even upon a small island in the vast remoteness of the Pacific. I had jumped ship, deserted, and like a runaway from a naval vessel of yore, I had leapt in a quest for freedom. I was never very good with itineraries. I have nothing to say about the passenger fashion show. I could set my watch to the smoky waft of the Swiss banker’s Cohiba. The rhythm of life at sea had begun to be set in stone. But I liked to move according to my own clock. And now I was free. But to do what? What hills were there to climb? What roads to run? What valleys to explore? What ruins to investigate? And how would I get along with the inhabitants of Nuku Hiva?

Whenever I read contemporary travel accounts of the Marquesas, I find that the locals are often described as aloof, guarded, and unfriendly. I’m not sure why this is so. Just how warm and accommodating are New Yorkers to their visitors from Japan? Or can you imagine what it might be like for a Mexican tourist traveling through the great state of Alabama? Do Parisians get all warm and fuzzy with the hordes of Americans trampling about the Eiffel Tower in August? Is Moscow a nice place for visiting Nigerians? And if your name is Abdul or Emir or Muhammad, is there a border agent anywhere outside of the Middle East that greets you with a smile? For the most part, visitors to our own countries are invisible. For some, they’re a nuisance. Rare are the locals who go out of their way to ingratiate themselves with the befuddled visitor from overseas.

Which is why I was so pleased to meet Moke. He was a big dude, six four at least and perhaps a wobbling 260 pounds, who informed me, right off the bat, that he was a wild-pig hunter. I’d seen pig hunters in action on Malekula, an outer island in Vanuatu, and knew enough about boars to know that they are surprisingly vicious creatures when cornered and do not like to be trifled with. They will gore you in an instant. Say that you are a pig hunter in the United States and you will mostly be regarded as one of those gun nuts on game farms just looking for something to satiate your blood lust. Say it on an island in the South Seas, where you clamber over perilous ridges in a dense rain forest, armed only with a spear as you hunt for your family dinner, and you are a manly man to whom I tip my hat.

And Moke was full of helpful information. We stood on the shoreline, in the village of Taiohae, in front of a glass-smooth bay that was a flooded volcanic crater that opened to the sea.

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