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Extending Power BI with Python and
R, 2E
Copyright © 2024 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored

in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means,
without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the
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Early Access Publication: Extending Power BI with Python and R,

2E

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Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

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ISBN: 978-1-83763-953-3

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Table of Contents
1. Extending Power BI with Python and R, Second Edition: Perform
advanced analysis using the power of analytical languages
2. 1 Where and How to Use R and Python Scripts in Power BI
I. Join our book community on Discord
II. Technical requirements
III. Injecting R or Python scripts into Power BI
i. Data loading
ii. Data transformation
iii. Data visualization
IV. Using R and Python to interact with your data
V. Python and R compatibility across Power BI products
VI. Summary
VII. Test your knowledge
i. Answers
3. 2 Configuring R with Power BI
I. Join our book community on Discord
II. Technical requirements
III. The available R engines
i. The CRAN R distribution
ii. The Microsoft R Open distribution and MRAN
iii. Multi-threading in MRO
IV. Choosing an R engine to install
i. The R engines used by Power BI
ii. Installing the suggested R engines
iii. The R engine for data transformation
iv. The R engine for R script visuals on the Power BI
service
V. Installing an IDE for R development
i. Installing RStudio
ii. Installing RTools
iii. Linking Intel’s MKL to R
 VI. Configuring Power BI Desktop to work with R
i. Debugging an R script visual
VII. Configuring the Power BI service to work with R
i. Installing the on-premises data gateway in personal
mode
ii. Sharing reports that use R scripts in the Power BI
service
VIII. R script visuals limitations
IX. Summary
X. Test your knowledge
i. Answers
4. 3 Configuring Python with Power BI
I. Join our book community on Discord
II. Technical requirements
III. The available Python engines
i. Choosing a Python engine to install
ii. The Python engines used by Power BI
iii. Installing the suggested Python engines
iv. The Python engine for data transformation
IV. Creating an environment for data transformations using pip
V. Creating an optimized environment for data transformations
using conda
VI. Creating an environment for Python script visuals on the
Power BI service
VII. What to do when the Power BI service upgrades the Python
engine
VIII. Installing an IDE for Python development
i. Configuring Python with RStudio
ii. Configuring Python with Visual Studio Code
IX. Configuring Power BI Desktop to work with Python
i. Configuring the Power BI service to work with Python
X. Limitations of Python visuals
XI. Summary
XII. Test your knowledge
i. Answers
5. 4 Solving Common Issues When Using Python and R in Power
BI
I. Join our book community on Discord
II. Technical Requirements
III. Avoiding the ADO.NET error when running a Python script
in Power BI
i. The real cause of the problem
ii. A practical solution to the problem
IV. Avoiding the Formula.Firewall error
i. Incompatible privacy levels
ii. Indirect access to a data source
V. Using multiple datasets in Python and R script steps
i. Applying a full join with Merge
ii. Using arguments of the Python.Execute function
VI. Dealing with dates/times in Python and R script steps
VII. Summary
VIII. Test your knowledge
i. Answers
6. 5 Importing Unhandled Data Objects
I. Join our book community on Discord
II. Technical requirements
III. Importing RDS files in R
i. A brief introduction to Tidyverse
ii. Creating a serialized R object
iii. Using an RDS file in Power BI
IV. Importing PKL files in Python
i. A very short introduction to the PyData world
ii. Creating a serialized Python object
iii. Using a PKL file in Power BI
V. Summary
VI. References
VII. Test your knowledge
i. Answers
7. 6 Using Regular Expressions in Power BI
I. Join our book community on Discord
II. Technical requirements
 III. A brief introduction to regexes
i. The basics of regexes
ii. Checking the validity of email addresses
iii. Checking the validity of dates
IV. Validating data using regex in Power BI
i. Using regex in Power BI to validate emails with Python
ii. Using regex in Power BI to validate emails with R
iii. Using regex in Power BI to validate dates with Python
iv. Using regex in Power BI to validate dates with R
V. Loading complex log files using regex in Power BI
i. Apache access logs
ii. Importing Apache access logs in Power BI with Python
iii. Importing Apache access logs in Power BI with R
VI. Extracting values from text using regex in Power BI
i. One regex to rule them all
ii. Using regex in Power BI to extract values with Python
iii. Using regex in Power BI to extract values with R
VII. Summary
VIII. References
IX. Test your knowledge
i. Answers
8. 7 Anonymizing and Pseudonymizing Your Data in Power BI
I. Join our book community on Discord
II. Technical requirements
III. De-identifying data
i. De-identification techniques
ii. Understanding pseudonymization
iii. What is anonymization?
IV. Anonymizing data in Power BI
i. Anonymizing data using Python
ii. Anonymizing data using R
V. Pseudonymizing data in Power BI
i. Pseudonymizing data using Python
ii. Pseudonymizing data using R
VI. Summary
VII. References
 VIII. Test your knowledge
i. Answers
9. 8 Logging Data from Power BI to External Sources
I. Join our book community on Discord
II. Technical requirements
III. Logging to CSV files
i. Logging to CSV files with Python
ii. Logging to CSV files with R
IV. Logging to Excel files
i. Logging to Excel files with Python
ii. Logging to Excel files with R
V. Logging to (Azure) SQL Server
i. Installing SQL Server Express
ii. Creating an Azure SQL database
iii. Logging to an (Azure) SQL Server with Python
iv. Logging to an (Azure) SQL server with R
v. Managing credentials in the code
VI. Summary
VII. References
VIII. Test your knowledge
i. Answers
10. 9 Loading Large Datasets beyond the Available RAM in Power BI
I. Join our book community on Discord
II. Technical requirements
III. A typical analytic scenario using large datasets
IV. Importing large datasets with Python
i. Installing Dask on your laptop
ii. Creating a Dask DataFrame
iii. Extracting information from a Dask DataFrame
iv. Importing a large dataset in Power BI with Python
V. Importing large datasets with R
i. Introducing Apache Arrow
ii. Installing arrow on your laptop
iii. Creating and extracting information from an Arrow
Dataset object
iv. Importing a large dataset in Power BI with R
 VI. Summary
VII. References
11. 10 Boosting Data Loading Speed in Power BI with Parquet
Format
I. Join our book community on Discord
II. Technical Requirements
III. From CSV to the Parquet file format
i. Limitations of using Parquet files natively in Power BI
ii. Using Parquet files with Python
iii. Using Parquet files with R
IV. Using the Parquet format to speed up a Power BI report
i. Transforming historical data in Parquet
ii. Appending new data to and analyze the Parquet
dataset
iii. Analyzing Parquet data in Power BI with Python
iv. Analyzing Parquet data in Power BI with R
V. Summary
VI. References
VII. Test your knowledge
i. Answers
Extending Power BI with Python and
R, Second Edition: Perform
advanced analysis using the power
of analytical languages
Welcome to Packt Early Access. We’re giving you an exclusive
preview of this book before it goes on sale. It can take many months
to write a book, but our authors have cutting-edge information to
share with you today. Early Access gives you an insight into the
latest developments by making chapter drafts available. The
chapters may be a little rough around the edges right now, but our
authors will update them over time.You can dip in and out of this
book or follow along from start to finish; Early Access is designed to
be flexible. We hope you enjoy getting to know more about the
process of writing a Packt book.

1. Chapter 1: Where and How to Use R and Python Scripts in

Power BI
2. Chapter 2: Configuring R with Power BI
3. Chapter 3: Configuring Python with Power BI
4. Chapter 4: Solving Common Issues When Using Python and R in
Power BI
5. Chapter 5: Importing Unhandled Data Objects
6. Chapter 6: Using Regular Expressions in Power BI
7. Chapter 7: Anonymizing and Pseudonymizing Your Data in
Power BI
8. Chapter 8: Logging Data from Power BI to External Sources
9. Chapter 9: Loading Large Datasets beyond the Available RAM in
Power BI
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10. Chapter 10: Boosting Data Loading Speed in Power BI with
Parquet Format
11. Chapter 11: Calling External APIs To Enrich Your Data
12. Chapter 12: Calculating Columns Using Complex Algorithms:
Distances
13. Chapter 13: Calculating Columns Using Complex Algorithms:
Fuzzy Matching
14. Chapter 14: Calculating Columns Using Complex Algorithms:
Optimization Problems
15. Chapter 15: Adding Statistics Insights: Associations
16. Chapter 16: Adding Statistics Insights: Outliers and Missing
Values
17. Chapter 17: Using Machine Learning Without Premium or
Embedded Capacity
18. Chapter 18: Using the SQL Server Extensibility Framework’s R
and Python engines with Power BI
19. Chapter19: Exploratory Data Analysis
20. Chapter20: Using the Grammar of Graphics in Python
21. Chapter 21: Advanced Visualizations
22. Chapter 22: Interactive Custom Visuals in R
23. Chapter 23: Infrastructural Review
1 Where and How to Use R and
Python Scripts in Power BI
Join our book community on Discord
https://packt.link/EarlyAccessCommunity

Power BI is Microsoft's flagship self-service business intelligence

product. It consists of a set of on-premises applications and cloud-
based services that help organizations integrate, transform, and
analyze data from a wide variety of source systems through a user-
friendly interface.The platform is not limited to data visualization.
Power BI is much more than this when you consider that its analytics
engine (Vertipaq) is the same as SQL Server Analysis Services
(SSAS) and Azure Analysis Services and Power Pivot in Excel
and it is also the engine used for reports and datasets published to
the Power BI Service. In addition, it uses Power Query as its data
extraction and transformation engine, which we find in both Analysis
Services and Excel. The engine comes with a very powerful and
versatile formula language (M) and GUI, thanks to which you can
"grind" and shape any type of data into any form.Moreover, Power
BI supports DAX as a data analytic formula language, which can be
used for advanced calculations and queries on data that has already
been loaded into tabular data models.Such a versatile and powerful
tool is a godsend for anyone who needs to do data ingestion and
transformation in order to build dashboards and reports to
summarize a company's business.Recently, the availability of huge
amounts of data, along with the ability to scale the computational
power of machines, has made the area of advanced analytics
more appealing. So, new mathematical and statistical tools have
become necessary in order to provide rich insights. Hence the
integration of analytical languages such as Python and R within
Power BI.R or Python scripts can only be used within Power BI with
specific features. Knowing which Power BI tools can be used to
inject R or Python scripts into Power BI is key to understanding
whether the problem you want to address is achievable with these
analytical languages.This chapter will cover the following topics:

Injecting R or Python scripts into Power BI

Using R and Python to interact with your data
R and Python limitations on Power BI products

Technical requirements
This chapter requires you to have Power BI Desktop already
installed on your machine (you can download it here:
https://aka.ms/pbiSingleInstaller). The version used in this chapter
is 2.110.1161.0 64-bit (October 2022).

Injecting R or Python scripts into Power BI

In this first section, Power BI Desktop tools that allow you to use
Python or R scripts will be presented and described in detail.
Specifically, you will see how to add your own code during the data
loading, data transforming, and data viewing phases.

Data loading
One of the first steps required to work with data in Power BI
Desktop is to import it from external sources:
1. There are many connectors that allow you to do this, depending
on the respective data sources, but you can also do it via scripts
in Python and R. In fact, if you click on the Get data icon in the
ribbon, not only the most commonly used connectors are shown
but you can also select other ones from a more complete list by
clicking on More...:

Figure 1.1 – Browse more connectors to load your data

 2. In the new Get Data window that pops up, simply start typing
the string script into the search text box, and immediately the
two options for importing data via Python or R appear:

Figure 1.2 – Showing R script and Python script in the Get Data
window

3. Reading the contents of the tooltip, obtained by hovering the

mouse over the Python script option, two things should
immediately jump out at you:

a) A local installation of Python is required.b) What can be imported

through Python is a data frame.The same two observations also
apply when selecting R script. The only difference is that it is
possible to import a pandas DataFrame when using Python (a
DataFrame is a data structure provided by the pandas package),
whereas R employs the two-dimensional array-like data structure
called an R data frame, which is provided by default by the
language.
 1. After clicking on the Python script option, a new window will
be shown containing a text box for writing the Python code:

Figure 1.3 – Window showing the Python script editor

As you can see, it's definitely a very skimpy editor, but in Chapter 3,
Configuring Python with Power BI, you'll discover how you can utilize
your preferred IDE to create your scripts within a more
comprehensive and feature-rich editor.

1. Taking a look at the warning message, Power BI reminds you

that no Python engine has been detected, so it must be
installed. If you already have Python installed and configured,
you will not see this message. Clicking on the How to install
Python link will cause a Microsoft Docs web page to open,
explaining the steps to install Python.

Microsoft suggests installing the base Python distribution, but in

order to follow some best practices on environments (self-
contained spaces that allow developers to manage dependencies,
libraries, and configurations specific to individual projects), we will
install the Miniconda distribution. The details of how to do this and
why will be covered in Chapter 3.

1. If you had clicked on R script instead, a window for entering

code in R, similar to the one shown in Figure 1.4, would have
appeared:

Figure 1.4 – Window showing the R script editor

As with Python, in order to run code in R, you need to install the R

engine on your machine. Clicking on the How to install R link will
open a Docs page where Microsoft suggests installing either
Microsoft R Open or the classic CRAN R. Chapter 2, Configuring R
With Power BI, will show you which engine to choose and how to
configure your favorite IDE to write code in R.In order to import data
using Python or R, you need to write code in the editors shown in
Figure 1.3 and Figure 1.4, which assign a pandas DataFrame or an R
data frame to a variable, respectively. You will see concrete
examples throughout this book.Next, let's look at transforming data.
Data transformation
It is possible to apply a transformation to data already imported or
being imported, using scripts in R or Python. Should you want to test
this on the fly, you can import the following CSV file directly from the
web: http://bit.ly/iriscsv. Follow these steps:

1. Simply click on Get data and then Web to import data directly
from a web page:
Figure 1.5 – Select the Web connector to import data from a
web page
2. You can now enter the previously mentioned URL in the window
that pops up:

Figure 1.6 – Import the Iris data from the web

Right after clicking OK, a window will pop up with a preview of the
data to be imported.

1. In this case, instead of importing the data as-is, click on

Transform Data in order to access the Power Query data
transformation window:
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 Figure 1.7 – Imported data preview

2. It is at this point that you can add a transformation step using a

Python or R script by selecting the Transform tab in Power
Query Editor:

Figure 1.8 – R and Python script tools in Power Query Editor

 3. By clicking on Run Python script, you'll cause a window,
similar to the one you've already seen in the data import phase,
to pop up:

Figure 1.9 – The Run Python script editor

If you carefully read the comment in the text box, you will see that
the dataset variable is already initialized and contains the data
present at that moment in Power Query Editor, including any
transformations already applied. At this point, you can insert your
Python code in the text box to transform the data into the desired
form.

1. A similar window will open if you click on Run R script:

 Figure 1.10 – The Run R script editor

Also, in this case, the dataset variable is already initialized and

contains the data present at that moment in Power Query Editor. You
can then add your own R code and reference the dataset variable
to transform your data in the most appropriate way.Next, let's look
at visualizing data.

Data visualization
Finally, your own Python or R scripts can be added to Power BI to
create new visualizations, in addition to those already present in the
tool out of the box:

1. Assuming we resume the data import activity started in the

previous section, once the Iris dataset is loaded, simply click
Cancel in the Run R script window, and then click Close &
Apply in the Home tab of Power Query Editor:
 Figure 1.11 – Click Close & Apply to import the Iris data

2. After the data import is complete, you can select either the R
script visual or Python script visual option in the
Visualizations pane of Power BI:
 Figure 1.12 – The R and Python script visuals

3. If you click on Python script visual, a window pops up asking

for permission to enable script code execution, as there may be
security or privacy risks:
 Figure 1.13 – Enable the script code execution
4. After enabling code execution, in Power BI Desktop, you can
see a placeholder for the Python visual image on the report
canvas and a Python script editor at the bottom:

Figure 1.14 – The Python visual layout

Once you drag the fields you want to use in your Python script into
the Values area, you can write your own custom code into the
Python script editor and run it to generate a Python visualization.A
pretty much identical layout occurs when you select R script visual.

Using R and Python to interact with your

data
In the previous section, you saw all the ways you can interact with
your data in Power BI via R or Python scripts. Beyond knowing how
and where to inject your code into Power BI, it is very important to
know how your code will interact with that data. It's here that we
see a big difference between the effect of scripts injected via Power
Query Editor and scripts used in visuals:

Scripts via Power Query Editor: This type of script will

transform the data and persist transformations in the model.
This means that it will always be possible to retrieve the
transformed data from any object within Power BI. Also, once
the scripts have been executed and have taken effect, they will
not be re-executed unless the data is refreshed. Therefore, it is
recommended to inject code in R or Python via Power Query
Editor when you intend to use the resulting insights in other
visuals, or in the data model.
Scripts in visuals: The scripts used within the R and Python
script visuals extract particular insights from the data and only
make them evident to the user through visualization. Like all
the other visuals on a report page, the R and Python script
visuals are also interconnected with the other visuals. This
means that the script visuals are subject to cross-filtering and
therefore, they are refreshed every time you interact with other
visuals in the report. That said, it is not possible to persist the
results obtained from the visuals scripts in the data model.
 TIP

Thanks to the interactive nature of R and Python script

visuals due to cross-filtering, it is possible to inject code
useful for extracting real-time insights from data. The
important thing to keep in mind is that, as previously
stated, it is then only possible to visualize such information,
or at the most, to write it to external repositories (as you
will see in Chapter 8, Logging Data from Power BI to
External Sources). Also, although it is possible to access
resources on the internet from a visual script when
developing in Power BI Desktop, it is no longer possible to
do so when the report is published to the Power BI Service
(you will see what this is about in the next section) due to
security issues. This restriction doesn’t exist for scripts used
in Power Query.

In the final section of this chapter, let's look at the limitations of

using R and Python when it comes to various Power BI products.

Python and R compatibility across Power BI

products
The first question once you are clear on where to inject R and
Python scripts in Power BI could be: "Is the use of R and Python
code allowed in all Power BI products?" In order to cover that, let’s
briefly recap the various Power BI products and their usage in
general. Here is a concise list:

Power BI Service: This is sometimes called Power BI

Online, and it's the Software as a Service (SaaS) version of
Power BI. It was created to facilitate the sharing of visual
analysis between users through Dashboards and Reports.
 Power BI Report Server: This is the on-premises version of
Power BI and it extends the capabilities of SQL Server
Reporting Services, enabling the sharing of reports created in
Power BI Desktop (for Report Server) and in Power BI
Report Builder for Power BI Paginated reports.
Power BI Embedded: A Microsoft Azure service that allows
dashboards and reports to be embedded in an application for
users who do not have a Power BI account.
Power BI Desktop: A free desktop application for Windows
that allows you to use almost all of the features that Power BI
offers. It is not the right tool for sharing results between users,
but it allows you to share them on Power BI Service and Power
BI Report Server. The desktop versions that allow publishing on
the two mentioned services are distinct and support slightly
different sets of features. They are named Power BI Desktop
and Power BI Desktop for Power BI Report Server, respectively.
Power BI Mobile: A mobile application, available on Windows,
Android, and iOS, that allows secure access to Power BI Service
and Power BI Report Server, and that allows you to browse and
share dashboards and reports, but not edit them.
Power BI Report Builder: A free desktop application for
Windows that allows you to create Paginated reports. These can
then be published and shared in Power BI Service and in Power
BI Report Server.

Apart from the licenses, which we will not go into here, a summary
figure of the relationships between the previously mentioned
products follows:
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
 The Marquesans, struck by the glitter of brass buttons and gold
braid, of broadcloth and fur, unfamiliar with metal, and admiring
everything foreign, fell facile victims to vestures, and when the new-
fangled religions that followed hot upon the discoverers, enforced
covering by dogma and even by punishment, they clothed
themselves and sweated in fashion and sanctity. But clothes irk the
Marquesans as they do all people living close to a kindly nature. Our
own babes resent even the swaddles which bind them in the cradle.
The first years of childhood are a continuing struggle against
garments, until, having lost plasticity and the instant response of
muscle to mind that distinguishes the Marquesans, the result is
rationalized by adolescents into modesty and convention. After
youth, clothing is welcomed by us to enhance imperfect charms and
to hide defects, to screen our unhandsome and puny bodies. The
lean shanks, protuberant abdomens, and anatomical grotesqueries in
a public bath bear witness to our sacrifice. Marriage is often a
disclosure of unguessed flaws.
“The gods are naked and in the open,” said Seneca.
Pigalle sculptured the frail old Voltaire in the nude, yet attained
dignity. Even Broadway smiles at frocked heroes in bronze, and must
have its ideals in marble or bronze undraped.
How often, when I lived at the spacious home of my friend,
Ariioehau Ameroearao, the chief at Mataiea in Tahiti, I have seen
him, chevalier of the Legion of Honor, come in from the highway in
stiff white linen or in religious black, and in a twinkling reduce his
garb to a loin-cloth!
His walls were hung with portraits of princes and distinguished
travelers, guests of his in the past score of years, and none was
more distinguished, though in brilliant uniform and gorgeously
decorated, than the old chief in his strip of cotton print.
“Three kings naked have I seen, and never a sign of royalty,” said
the cynical Bismarck.
 Plato understood very well the spirit in which the Polynesians were
clothed by the whites, the crass prurience that pointed out to them
the wickedness of nudity, that hid their beautiful bodies under tunics
and pantaloons, that laughed at their simplicity.
In the “Republic” he says:
Not long since it was thought discreditable and ridiculous among the
Greeks, as it is now among most barbarian nations, for men to be seen
naked. And when the Cretans first, and after them the Lacedæmonians,
began the practice of gymnastic exercises, the wits of the time had it in
their power to make sport of those novelties. But when experience has
shown that it was better to strip than to cover up the body and when the
ridiculous effect that this plan had to the eye had given way before the
arguments establishing its superiority, it was at the same time, as I
imagine, demonstrated that he is a fool who thinks anything ridiculous
but that which is evil, and who attempts to raise a laugh by assuming
any object to be ridiculous but that which is unwise and evil.

The Marquesans, perfect animals, had their senses extraordinarily

attuned to the faintest vibrations of value to their survival or delight.
They heard sounds plainly that I, with rather better than ordinary
civilized hearing, did not catch. I was with Vanquished Often when
she spoke to Exploding Eggs two hundred feet away in a
conversational tone. I tested them, and found they could talk with
each other intelligibly when I heard but an indistinct whisper from
the farthest. So with smell. Ghost Girl and Mouth of God, my
neighbor at Atuona, could detect any intimates by their odor in pitch
darkness at twenty feet, though Marquesans, because they have
little bodily hair and are the cleanest people I know, have less
personal odor than we. They enjoyed life through scent infinitely
more than do we. They had no kisses but rubbed noses and smelled
each other with indrawings of their breath. Odoriferous herbs,
flowers, and seeds were continually about their necks, both men and
women, tucked behind their ears, or in their hair, and their bodies
after bathings were anointed with the hinano-scented cocoanut-oil.
Their noses were sources of sensuous enjoyment to them beyond
my capability. They inhaled emanations from flowers too subtle to
touch my olfactory nerves.
The Marquesan woman has ever been an arch-coquette, paying
infinite attention to her appearance, and enduring pain and ennui to
improve her beauty. Her complexion was as much a pride as with a
fashionable American woman to-day. The beauty parlors of our cities
were matched by the steam baths, the use of saffron, of oils, and of
massage, and by weeks or even months of preparation before some
great festival. To burst upon the assembled clan, white as the sea-
foam, with skin as smooth as a polished calabash, hair oiled and
wreathed, and body rounded from dancing practice and much sleep,
and to set beating wildly the pulses of the young men, so that, strive
as they might to remain mute, they would be forced to yield mad
plaudits, was a result worth months of effort. To be the belle of the
ball was a distinction a woman remembered a lifetime. It was an
honor comparable to the warrior’s wounds, or possession of the
heads of the enemies. Parents felt keenly the success of their
daughters. Titihuti and others have told me of their triumphs, as
Bernhardt or Patti might recite of packed houses and a score of
encores.
A curious secrecy or modesty was attached to the making of the
toilet and the enhancement of the natural charms. No Marquesan or
Tahitian or Hawaiian would ever have looked at herself in a portable
mirror—if she had one—as do many of our females, and the
whitening and reddening of cheeks and lips in public places would
have caused a blush of shame for her sex to suffuse the face of a
Marquesan, to whom such intimate gestures were for the privacy of
her home or the bank of the limpid stream in a grove dedicated to
the Marquesan Venus.
Near Tahiti was the atoll of Tetuaroa where for hundreds of years
the belles of Tahiti resorted to lose their sunburn in the bowered
groves and to spend a season in beautification by banting, special
foods, dancing, swimming, massage, baths, oils, and lotions.
 Here in the Marquesas, as in all Polynesia, a period of voluntary
seclusion preceded the début of the maiden, or the preparation for a
special pas seul by a noted beauty.
Seclusion of the girl was practiced at the time of puberty. It has a
curious analogy in such far separated places as Torres Straits and
British Columbia, one Australasia and the other North America. The
girls of a tribe in Torres Straits are hidden for three months behind a
circle of bushes in their parent’s house at the first signs of
womanhood. No sun must reach them, and no man, even though he
be the father, enter the house, nor must they feed themselves. The
Nootkas of British Columbia also conceal their nubile virgins, and
insist that they touch their own bodies for a period only with a comb
or a bone, never laying their hands upon it.
It would seem that all this mystery had the same purpose, that of
adding to the attractiveness of the girls and heightening the
romance of their new condition. Our coming-out parties parallel the
goal of these strange peoples, announcements, formal introductions,
as brilliant as possible, being considered desirable both among
savages and ourselves to give notice of a marriageable state. Our
débuts have not departed far from aboriginal ideas.
The Junoesque wife of Seventh Man Who Wallows had just come
from the via puna in her accustomed bathing attire, and, still
dripping, seated herself in the sun near me to dry. She had added a
jasmine blossom to the heavy gold hoops in her ears and had lit her
pipe, and her handsome, large face was twisted between smiles and
frowns as she tried to put in understandable words and gestures her
recital of these customs:
“Our girls, daughters of chiefs, such as I am, were kept hidden for
months before we appeared for the first time in public in the tribal
dance. The tapu was strict. We were secret in our mother’s house
and inclosure, without supposedly even being seen by any one but
our relatives and their retainers. It was death to gaze upon us. We
were tapu tapu. If we had cause to go out, our official guardian blew
a conch-shell to warn all from the neighborhood. Not until the day of
the dance or marriage ceremony, not until the feast was spread and
the accepted suitor present to claim us, or the drums booming for
the dance, were we shown to the multitude; we had had months of
omi omi, and would be in perfect condition and most beautiful.”
It was this omi omi, or massage, that many of the earlier
chroniclers of the South Seas believed to be the cause of the chiefs
and headmen of all these islands being much bigger and handsomer
than the common people. The hakaiki, or chiefs, men and women,
throughout Polynesia astonished the voyagers and missionaries by
their huge size. Often they were from four to six inches above six
feet tall, and framed in proportion. Hardly a writing sailor or visitor
to Hawaii, Tahiti, Samoa, or the Marquesas but remarks this striking
fact. Many thought these headmen a different race than the others,
but scientists know that family, food, and the curious effect of the
strenuous massage from infancy account for the differences. The
omi omi of these islands, the tarumi of Tahiti, and the lomi lomi of
the Hawaiians all have a relation to the momi-ryoji, practiced by the
tens of thousands of whistling blind itinerants throughout Japan.
I had a remarkable illustration of the curative merits of omi omi
when, having bruised my back by awkwardness in sliding down a
rocky waterfall into a once tabooed pool with Vanquished Often and
Exploding Eggs, I submitted myself to the ministrations of Juno and
Vanquished Often. They would have me in the glare of the early
morning sun on Seventh Man’s paepae, and there were gales of
laughter as they shouted out my physical differences from the
Marquesans, my excellences, and my blemishes. On one side and on
the other, both squatted, they handled me as if they understood the
locations of each muscle and nerve. They pinched and pulled,
pressed and hammered, and otherwise took hold of and struck me,
but all with a most remarkable skill and seeming exact knowledge of
their method and its results. I was in agony over their treatment of
me, but after a day as well as ever.
Before I was given the omi omi, I was bathed by the two ladies
with a care and nicety not to be bought at our best hammams. A
tiny penthouse was made quickly of cocoanut-leaves, and in this was
placed a great wooden trencher of water in which white hot stones
were dropped. On a tiny stool I sat in the resulting steam, the
delicious odor of kakaa leaves thrown into the boiling water aiding
the vapor in effect on skin and nerves. Quite ten minutes I was
compelled to remain in the penthouse, my fair jailers remaining
obdurate outside despite my imploring cries to be released, my
protestations that I was being dissolved and would emerge a thing
of shreds and patches. When I could not have stood it another
second, my lungs bursting with restraint, and my body hot enough
to hurt my nervously caressing hands, I was suddenly let out and
hurried to the beach, where Vanquished Often rushed with me into
the beating surf.
The sea seemed cold as an Adirondack lake, and I was for
swimming beyond the breakers in fullest enjoyment of the relief, but
my doctors would not allow me another minute and hand in hand
rushed me to the chief’s paepae, now my own, for my lenitive
kneading. The bruises I had got in my awkward essay to emulate
the agility of Exploding Eggs and Vanquished Often were deep and
painful, but after half an hour of their pounding I fell asleep and
remained unconscious six hours. I was to myself a celestial musical
instrument, a human xylophone, from which houris struck notes that
made the stars whirl, and to the music of which Vanquished Often
danced in the purple moonlight upon a milky cloud. Their cessation
of the omi omi woke me. It was past noon when I joined them and
the whole merry populace of Vaitahu in the warm ocean waves. I
was without pain or stiffness, and reborn to a childhood I had
forgotten.
 CHAPTER XVII

Skilled tattooers of Marquesas Islands a generation ago—Entire bodies covered

with intricate tattooed designs—The foreigner who had himself tattooed to
win the favor of a Marquesan beauty—The magic that removed the markings
when he was recalled to his former life in England.

T ATTOOING, the marking of designs on the human skin in life, is

an art so old that its beginnings are lost to records. It was
practised when the Neolithic brute went out to club his fellows and
drag in his body to the fire his mate kept ever burning. Its origin,
perhaps, was contemporaneous with vanity, and that was in the
heart of man before he branched from the missing limb of evolution.
It perhaps followed in the procession of art the rude scratchings on
bone and daubing on rock. In the caves of Europe with these
childish distortions are found the implements with which the savage
whites who lived in the recesses of the rocks tattooed their bodies.
The Jews were forbidden by Moses to tattoo themselves, and the
Arabs, with whom they had much converse, yet practise it. In 1066
William of Malmesbury said that the English “adorned their skins
with punctured designs.” Kingsley, with regard for accuracy, makes
Hereward the Wake, son of the Lady Godiva, have blue tattooing
marks on wrists, throat, and knee; a cross on his throat and a bear
on the back of his hand. The Romans found the Britons stained with
woad. The taste for such marks existing to-day is evidenced by the
pain and price paid by sailors and aristocrats of all white nations for
them. Tattooing has faded under clothing which covers it and a less
personal civilization which condemns it. In the Marquesas Islands it
reached its highest development, and here was the most beautiful
form of art known to the most perfect physical people on earth.
 From an old drawing
Te Ipu, an old Marquesan chief, showing tattooing

The famous tattooed leg of Queen Vaikehu

 Until the overthrow of Marquesan culture, the island of Fatuhiva
was the Florence of the South Seas. The most skillful workers at
tattooing as well as carving lived in its valleys of Oomoa and
Hanavave. During the weeks I have resided in them I delved into the
history and curiosities of this most intimate of fine arts, now expiring
if not dead. Nataro, the most learned Marquesan alive, took me into
its intricacies and made me know it for the proud, realistic
performance it was, a dry-point etching on a growing plate from
which no prints were to be made. Nataro’s wife had one hand that is
as famous and as admired in Fatuhiva as “Mona Lisa’s” portrait in
Paris. A famous tuhuka wrought its design, a man equal in graphic
genius, relatively, to Dürer or Rembrandt. Age and work had faded
and wrinkled the picture, but I can believe her husband that, as a
young woman, when the art was not cried down, people came from
far valleys to view it. I recalled the right leg of the late Queen
Vaekehu, the most notable piece of art in all the Marquesas until it
went with its possessor into the grave at Taiohae. In late years the
former queen of cannibals and last monarch of the Marquesas would
not show her limb—a modest attitude for a recluse who lived with
nuns and thought only of death. Stevenson confessed he never saw
it above the ankle, though the queen dined with him on the Casco.
He had a poet’s delicacy, an absolute lack of curiosity, and Mrs.
Stevenson was with him. But he expressed a real sympathy for the
iconoclastic ignorance that was destroying tattooing here.
The queen, who had been the prize of bloody feuds and had
danced at the feast of “long pig,” had gone to her reward after years
of beseechment of the Christian God for mercy, but I could almost
see her once glorious leg in the life because of the two of my Atuona
mother, Titihuti, which for months have passed my hut daily. They
are replicas of the Queen’s, said Nataro, with the difference that
Titihuti’s, beginning at her toe nails, reached a gorgeous cincture at
her waist, while Vaekehu’s did not reach her hip, being, indeed, a
permanent stocking. Some of the Easter Island women had an
imitation of drawers delineated upon them, giving weight to the
theory that these perpetuated the idea of clothing they wore in a
colder clime, but of which they had preserved not even a legend.
Women were seldom tattooed above the waist, except their
hands, and fine lines about the mouth and upon the insides of the
lips. This lip-coloring was, doubtless, the efforts of invaders to make
the red lips of the Caucasian women, the first Polynesian
immigrants, conform to the invaders’ inherited standards, as the
Manchus put the queue on the Chinese. The Marquesan men like
dark men. The last conquerors here were probably a darker race
than the conquered, and they preserved their ideals of color, but,
having come without women and seized the women they found,
they let them preserve their own standards, except for red lips,
which they tattooed blue. These latest comers thought much
pigment meant strong bones, and after a battle they searched the
field for the darkest bodies to furnish fishhooks and tools for canoe-
making and carving. They thought the whites who first arrived were
gods, and when they found they were men, with their same
passions, they thought they were ill. That is the first impression one
who lives long with Polynesians has when he meets a group of
whites. They look sickly, sharp-faced, and worried. They pay dear for
factories and wheeled vehicles.
Very probably the beginning of tattooing was the wish to frighten
one’s enemy, as masks were worn by many tribes, and as the
American painted his face with ocher. That state was followed by the
natural desire of the warrior, as evident yet as in Hector’s day, to
look manly and individualistic before the maidens of his tribe. And
finally, as heraldry became complicated, tattooing grew, at least in
Polynesia, into a record of sept and individual accomplishments and
distinguishing marks. Here it had, as an art, freed itself from the
bonds of religion, so that the artist had liberty to draw the Thing as
he saw it, and had not to conform to priest-craft, a rule which
probably hurt Egyptian art greatly.
In New Zealand, where the Polynesians went from Samoa, a
sometime rigorous climate demanded clothing, and the head
became the pièce de résistance of the tattooer. There was a
considerable trade among whites in the preserved heads of New
Zealanders until the supply ran out. White dealers procured the
raiding of villages to sell their victim’s visages. Museums and
collectors of such curios paid well for these tattooed faces, but the
demand exhausted the best efforts of the whites. After the rarest
examples were dead and smoked, there was no stimulating the
supply. The goods refused to be manufactured. The Solomon Islands
now supply smoked human heads, but they have no adornment.
Birds, fish, temples, trees, and plants—all the cosmos of the
Marquesan—was a model for the tuhuka. He often drew his designs
in charcoal on the skin, but sometimes proceeded with his inking
sans pattern. He never copied, but drew from memory, though the
same lines and tableaux might be repeated a thousand times; and
always he bore in mind the caste, tribe, and sex of the subject. Thus
at a glance one could tell the valley and rank of any one, much as in
Japan the station, age, moral standing, and other artificial qualities
of women are indicated by their coiffure and obi, or sash.
The craft did not require any elaborate tools. The ama or
candlenut soot with water, a graduated set of bone-needles, of
human and pig origin, and a mallet were all the requirements. The
paint or ink was of but one color, black or brown, which on a dark
skin looked bluish and on a fair skin black. The marking of the parts
most delicate and sensitive to pain, as the eyelids, was a parcel of
the endeavor to promote stoicism and to show the foe the mettle of
his opponent. Man did not consent for thousands of years to share
his ornamentation with women, and then insisted that the motif be
beauty or the accentuation of sex.
The tattooers, in order to learn from one another, to have art
chats, to discuss prices and perhaps dead beats or slow payers, had
societies or unions, in which were degrees and offices, the most
favored in ability and by patronage being given the highest rank,
though now and again a white man, by his superior magic and force,
though no tuhuka at all, held the supreme position.
 A shark upon the forehead was the card of membership in the
tattooers’ lodge, to which were admitted occasionally enthusiastic
and discerning patrons of art.
At festival times, when tapus were to some degree suspended and
the intertribal enmities forgotten for the nonce, thousands of men,
women, and children gathered to eat, drink, and be merry, and to be
tattooed, as one at country fairs buys new dresses and trinkets. It
was to these fêtes that the pot-boilers, fakers, and beginners among
the talent came; men who would make a sitter a scrawl for a heap
of pipi, shells and gewgaws, a few squealing pigs, a roll of tapa, or,
most precious of all, a whale’s tooth. Like our second- and third-
class painters, our wretched daubers who turn out canvases by the
foot (though hand-painted), these tramps, who, by a dispensation of
the priests and a mocking providence, were tapu, not to be attacked
in any valley, strolled from tribe to tribe, promising much and giving
little. Some worked largely on repair jobs, doing over spots where
the skin had been abraded by injuries in battles, or by rocks or fire.
The man who was well dressed in a suit of tattoo, or the lady who
was clothed from toes to waist in a washable peau de femme, kept
these garments in as good condition as possible, but when accident
or the fortune of war injured the ensemble they hastened to have it
touched up.
An artist of the first rank, one who in a Marquesan salon would
have a medal of honor, disdained such commissions, but dauber and
South Sea Da Vinci alike often had their work hung upon the line,
when they were taken by the enemy and suspended at the High
Place before being dropped into the pit for the banquets of the
cannibal victors.
It was always of interest to me to wonder how men learned
tattooing. Painters, carvers, etchers, and sculptors have material
ever available for their lessons. They can waste an infinity of canvas,
wood, copper, or marble if they have the money to spend, but how
about the apprentice or student who must have live mediums even
for practice?
 Well, just as there are Chinese who, for a consideration, take the
place of persons condemned to death (though they do not, as
alleged, make a living out of it), and others who, though it exhaust
and finally kill them, enter deadly trades or hire out for war, there
were Marquesans who offered themselves as kit-cats for these
students and sold their surface at so much an inch for any vile
design or miserable execution. I can see these fellows, well covered
with tapa, hiding whenever possible the caricatures and travesties
that made them a laughing show. These Hessians had no pride in
complexion. Their skins they wanted full of food, nor cared at all for
their outside if the inside man was replete.
There were others who, too poor to pay even the itinerant wall-
painters, let the students wreak their worst upon them, merely to be
tattooed, good or bad, and many of these, like our millionaire picture
buyers, were luckily denied any appreciation of art and did not know
the imperfections of the skin pictures put upon them.
“Tattooing in these islands,” said Nataro, “was usually begun upon
those able to pay for it at the age of puberty; but there were many
exceptions of tattooing commenced upon boys soon after their
infancy or deferred until mature manhood. Illness, poverty, or other
obstacle might prevent, and the desire of parents might cause early
tattooing. The father or other relative or protector of the youth or
girl paid the tuhuka but at the festivals even the very poor orphans
were given opportunities to be tattooed by a general contribution, or
the chief of the valley paid the fee. Years were occupied at intervals
in the covering of the entire body of men, which was the aim; but
many had to be content with having a part pictured, and often
elaborate designs were never finished. You see many bare places,
meant to be covered when the tuhuka began his work. Queen
Vaekehu was converted to Christianity with but one leg done and
forewent further beautification to serve her new God. Though begun
in boyhood, the full adornment of a man could hardly be terminated
before his thirtieth year. During his lifetime of sixty years he might
have it renewed twice, and as each pore could not be duplicated
exactly the third coat would make him a solid mass of color, the goal
of manly beauty.
“Though men usually sought to look terrible so that when they
faced their enemies they would inspire fear, with women the sex
motif was dominant,” said Nataro. “Girls with beautiful bodies and
legs are much more attractive when tattooed, and we selected the
best formed for the most elaborate designs. These were drawn so
that, as the girls danced naked, the whole patterns were obvious,
and those who were the most symmetrical won high honors in the
great public exhibitions. If in the wide circle that chanted a utanui,
while the old folks watched, a woman by exposing her beauty in a
dance caused the voices of the young men to falter, or some one of
them to become so entranced as to leap into the ring and seize her,
she won a prize of acclamation for her parents which no other
equaled. The dance stopped and all united in cheering the dancer.
These beauties danced with their legs close together, so as to keep
the design intact, lifting the heels backward and showing the
shapeliness of figure and the fineness of tattooing.”
To analyze thoroughly the meanings of the different designs upon
the bodies of the Maoris, or upon the canoes, paddles, and bowls,
was impossible now. It might be compared to the study of heraldry.
Tattooing in the South Seas was a combination of art and heraldry,
racial and individual pride’s sole written or graven record.
In the Marquesas, the art reached its zenith. It was the
Marquesans’ national expression, their art, their proof of Spartan
courage, the badge of the warrior, and the glory of sex. In the man
it marked ambition to meet the enemy and to win the most beautiful
women. In the weaker vessel it was a coquetry, highly developed
among daughters of chiefs and women of personal force; and it
afforded those who had submitted to the efforts of the best
craftsmen opportunities to display their charms in public to the most
striking advantage.
Nataro said that when the law against tattooing was enforced here
a few years ago a number went to prison rather than obey it, but
that when it was abrogated the art was already dead. It is kept alive
now, except in a few cases, only by the placing of names upon the
arms of the girls. Many tuhukas were still living, but there was little
call for their work.
“They were our highest class, next to the chiefs,” said Nataro. “We
looked up to them as you do to your great. They were fêted and
made much of, and their schools were our art centers, teaching
besides tattooing, the carving of wood, bowls, canoes, clubs, and
paddles. Now we buy tin cans and china plates. Von den Steinen,
the German philologist, connected with the Berlin museum, who was
here ten years ago, copied every tattoo pattern he saw, and in many
he found a relation to Indian or Asiatic and perhaps other
hieroglyphics and figures of thousands of years ago.”
With the ridiculing of it by the missionaries, who associated it with
heathenry, and the making of it a crime by the missionary-directed
chiefs of Tahiti, tattooing vanished there almost a hundred years
ago, but here the law against it was very recent. The law written by
the English Protestant missionaries in Tahiti was as follows:
No person shall mark with tatau, it shall be entirely discontinued. It
belongs to ancient evil customs. The man or woman that shall mark with
tatau, if it be clearly proved, shall be tried and punished. The punishment
shall be this—he shall make a piece of road ten fathoms long for the first
marking, twenty for the second; or stone work four fathoms long and
two wide; if not this, he shall do some work for the king. This shall be
the woman’s punishment—she shall make two large mats, one for the
king and one for the governor; or four small mats, for the king two, and
for the governor two. If not this, native cloth twenty fathoms long and
two wide; ten fathoms for the king and ten for the governor. The man
and woman that persist in tatauing themselves successively four or five
times, the figures marked shall be destroyed by blacking them over, and
the individuals shall be punished as above written.

To achieve a fairly complete picture upon one’s body meant many

months of intense suffering, the expenditure of wealth, and a
decade of years of very gradual progress toward the goal after
manhood was attained; but for a man in the former days to lack the
Stripes of Terror upon his face, to have a bare countenance, or one
not yet marked by the initial strokes of the hammer of the tattooer
was to be a poltroon and despised of his tribe.
Such a one must expect to have no apple of love thrown at him,
to awaken no passion in womankind, nor ever to find a wife to bear
him children. He was as the giaour among the Turks. He had no
honor in life or death, no foothold in the ranks of the warriors, or
place among the shades of Po.
So when white men were cast by shipwreck in those isles, or fled
from duty on whalers or warships, and sought to stay among the
Marquesans, they acceded to the honored customs of their hosts,
and adopted their facial adornment and often in the course of years
their whole bizarre garb. The courage that did not shrink from
dwelling among cannibals could not wilt at the blow of the hama.
The explorer in the far North, who lets his face become covered
with a great growth of hair, when he intends to return to civilization
can with a few strokes of a razor be again as before. But once the
curious ink of the tattooer has bitten into the skin, it is there forever.
It is like the pits of smallpox; it can never be erased. Through all his
life, and into the grave itself, the human canvas must bear the
pictures painted by the artist of the needles. It was a chain as strong
as steel, riveted on him, that fastened him to these lotus isles. So
men of America or Europe did not return to their native land from
the Marquesas, but died here. The whorls and lines in the ama dye
wrote exile forever from the loved ones at home.
Is that wholly true? Had not science or sorcery nepenthe for the
afflicted by such a horror—horror if unwanted? Is there not one who
has escaped such a fate when life had become fearful under it?
I asked that question of all, and in the valley of Hanavave was
answered. I had rowed to Hanavave in the whaleboat of Grelet, and,
when he returned to Oomoa, stayed on a month for the fishing with
Red Chicken and discussions with Père Olivier.
 “There is a sorcerer in the hills near here,” said the old French
priest, thirty-five years there without leaving, “who was said to be
the best tattooer on Fatuhiva. He is still a pagan, and has a
wonderful memory. Take some tobacco and a pipe, and go to visit
him. He may be in league with the devil, but he is worthy an hour’s
journey.”
Puhi Enata was still vigorous, though very old. The designs upon
his face and body were a strange green, the verde antique which the
ama ink becomes on the flesh of the confirmed kava drinker. I
greeted him with “Kaoha!” and soon, with the chunk of tobacco
beside him and the new pipe lit, I led him to the subject. The story
is not mine but his, and it has all the weird flavor of these exotic
gardens of mystery. It is true without question, and I have often
thought since of the American concerned in it, and wondered at his
after fate.
We were seated, Puhi Enata and I, upon the paepae of his home,
the platform of huge stones on which all houses in the Land of the
War Fleet are built.
In the humid air of that tropic parallel he made pass before me a
panorama of fantastic tragedy as real as the life about me, but as
astounding and as vivid in its facts and its narration as the recital of
a drama of ancient Athens by a master of histrionics. I laughed or
shuddered with the incidents of the story. He spoke in his native
tongue, and I have given his words as they filtered through the
screen of my alien mind, not always exactly, but in consonance with
the cast of thought of that far-away and unknown land.
“We had no whites here when he came, this man of your islands.
Other valleys had them, but Hanavave, no. Few ships have come to
this bay. Taiohae, a day and a night and more distant, they sought
for food and water and now for copra, but Hanavave was, as always,
lived in by us only. Yet we ever welcomed the haoe, the stranger, for
he had ways of interest, and often magic greater than ours.
 “He came one day on a ship from far, this white man I tell about,
and of whom even now I often meditate. He was not of the sea, but
on the ship as one who pays to move about over the waters, looking
for something of interest. That thing he found here. He brought
ashore his guns and powder, his other possessions of wonder, and
let the ship go away without him. He had seen Titihuti, and his
koekoe, his spirit, was set aflame.”
I needed no description by the tuhuka to bring before me Titihuti,
to see that maddening, matchless child-woman, nor to know the
desperate plight of a white who fell in love with her. She must have
been the Helen of these Pacific Greeks, for men came from other
islands to woo her, fought over her, and embroiled tribes in bloody
warfare at her whim. Her affairs had been the history of her valley
for a brief period, and were immortalized in chants and in legends
though she still lived. Many had related to me stories of her beauty,
her spell over men, and her wicked pleasure in deceiving them.
She was the daughter of a chief, of a long line of hakaiki, of noble
mothers and of warriors, and an adept in the marvelous cult of
beauty, of sex expression, which to the Marquesan woman was the
field of her dearest ambition, the professional stage and the salon of
society.
“The day he came to this beach,” said the sorcerer, “was the day
she first danced in the Grove of the Mei, at the annual gathering of
the tribe. All the people of the ship were invited, and not least he
who had no duties but his desires, and who brought from the vessel
a barrel of rum as his gift to the people. It was as rich as the full
moon, as strong as the surf in storm, and in every drop a dream of
fortune. It made that foreigner of note at once, and he was given a
seat at the Hurahura, the Dance of Passion, in which Titihuti for the
first time took her place as a woman and an equal of others. She
was then thirteen years old, a moi kanahau, her form as the bud of
the pahue flower, her hair red-gold, like the fish of the lagoon, and
her skin as the fresh-opened breadfruit. The Grove of the Mei you
have been in, but you cannot imagine that scene. A hundred torches
of candlenuts, strung on the spine of the palm-leaf, lit the dancing
mead. The grass had been cut to a smoothness, and all the valley
was there. As is usual in these annual débuts of our girls, at the
height of the breadfruit season, a dozen were allowed to show their
beauty and skill. These danced to the music of drums and of hand-
clapping and chanting before the entire tribe seated on the grass.”
The old man lit the pipe, which had gone out, and puffed out the
blue clouds of smoke as if they were recollections of the past.
“Finally, as the custom is, the plaudits of the crowd narrowed the
contest to three. Each as she danced appealed for approval, and
each had followers. By the judgment of the throng all had retired but
three after a first effort. These began the formal titii e te epo. This is
the dance of love, the dance we Marquesans have ever made the
test of the female’s fascination.
“Before the first of the three danced, the rum was passed. It was
drunk from cups of leaves, and each in turn drew from the cask. It
ran through our veins like fire through the pandanus. The great
drum then sounded the call.
“Tahiatini came from the shadow of the trees. She wore a dress of
tapa, made from the pith of the mulberry-tree, and as the dance
became faster she tossed it off until she moved about quite nude.
For this, of course, is part of the test. A hundred men, mostly young,
stood and watched her, and watching them were the judges, the
elders of the race, men and women. For, Menike, in the expression,
the heat, or the coolness of those standing men was counted the
success or failure of the dancer. And they were taught by pride and
by the rules of the event to conceal every feeling, as did the warrior
who faced the launched spear. They were to be as the stones of the
paepae.
“Tahiatini passed back into the trees, and Moeo succeeded her.
She seemed to feel that Tahiatini had not scored heavily. She danced
marvelously for one who had never before been in the Grove of Mei,
and the shrewd judges reckoned more than one of the silent
hundred who could not restrain from some mark of approval. There
was, when she fell back, a shout of praise from the crowd, and the
judges conferred while the rum was handed about for the second
time.
“Then Titihuti was thrust out from the darkness, and from her first
step we realized that a new enchantress had come to torment the
warriors. I have lived long, and many of those dances in the Grove
of Mei I have seen. Never before or since that night have I known a
girl to do what she did. Her kahu of tapa was as red as the sun
when the sea swallows it, and hung over one shoulder, so that her
bosom, as white as the ripe cocoanut, gleamed in the light of the
burning ama.
“Her hair was in two plaits of flame, and the glittering ghost
flowers were over her ears. You know she had for months been out
of the day and under the hands of those who prepare the dancers.
Her body was as rounded as the silken bamboo, and her skin shone
with the gloss of ceaseless care.
“She advanced before the silent hundred, moving as the slow
waters of the brook, and as she passed each one she looked into his
eyes and challenged him, as the fighting man his enemy. Only she
looked love and not hatred. Then she bounded into the center of the
line and, casting off her kahu, she stood before them, and for the
first time bared her beautiful body in the titii e te epo, the Dance of
the Naked. She fluttered as a bird a few moments, the bird that
seeks a mate, the kuku of the valley. On her little saffroned feet she
ran about, and the light left her now in brilliancy and now in shadow.
She was searching for the way from childhood to womanhood.
“Then the great pahu, the war-drum of human skin, was struck by
O Nuku, the sea-shells blew loudly, and the Hurahura was
proclaimed. You know that. Few are the men who resist. Titihuti was
as one aided by Veinehae, the Woman Demon. She flung herself into
that dance with madness. All her life she and her mother had
awaited that moment. If she could tear the hearts of those warriors
so that their breasts heaved, their limbs twitched, and their eyes fell
before her, her honor was as the winner of a battle. It was the
supreme hour of a woman’s existence.

Photo from Brown Bros.

Tattooing at the present day
 Photo from Dr. Theodore P. Cleveland
Easter Islander in head-dress and with dancing-wand
 Photo from Dr. Theodore P. Cleveland
My tattooed Marquesan friend

“The judges seized the flambeaux and scrutinized closely the faces
of the men. First one yielded and then another. Try as they might to
be as the rocks of the High Place, they felt the heat and melted. A
dozen were told off in the first few minutes of Titihuti’s dance,
though Tahiatini and Moeo had won but two or three. Faster grew
the music, and faster spun about her hips the torso of Titihuti. The
judges caught the rhythm. They themselves were convulsed by the
spell of the girl. The whole line of the silent hundred was breaking
when, as the breadfruit falls from the tree, suddenly sprang upon
the mead the foreigner who had come but that day. Though others
of the ship tried to hold him, he broke from them, and, clasping
Titihuti in his arms, declared that she was his, and that he would
defend his capture. The drums were quieted, the judges rushed to
the pair, and, for the time of a wave’s lapping the beach, spears
were seized.
“But the ritual of the rum began, and in the crush about the cask
the judges awarded Titihuti the Orchid of the Bird, the reward of the
First Dancer. She stood in the light of the now dying torches, and
when the foreigner would embrace her and lead her away she
turned her laughing eyes toward him and called out so that many
heard:
“‘You are without ornament, O Haoe. Cover your face as do
Marquesan lovers, or get you back to your island!’
“Then she hurried away to receive the praise and to taste the
glory of her achievement among her own family.”
The Taua took his long knife and with repeated blows hacked off
the upper half of a cocoanut to make ready another drink. I had a
very vivid idea of the situation he had described. That handsome
young man of Europe, belike of wealth, seeking to surrender to his
vagrant fancies in this contrasting environment, and finding that
among these savages he had position only as his rum bought it with
the men, and was without it at all among the women. One could
fancy him all afire after that dance of abandon, ready on the instant
to yield to the deepest of all instincts, and surprised, astounded,
almost unbelieving at his repulse. He might have learned that such
repulse was not even in the manner of the Marquesans, but solely
the whim of Titihuti, the beginning of that career of whimsical
passion and insouciance which carried her fame from island to island
and fetched other proud whites from afar to know her favor. He
himself had come a long way to be the unwitting victim of the most
prankish girl and woman who ever danced a tribe to death and
destruction, but who withal was worth more than she who launched
the thousand ships to batter Ilium’s towers.
“And did he cover his face?” I demanded, hurrying to follow the
windings of fate.
“E!” said the sorcerer. “He gained the friendship of chiefs. He let
his ship sail away with but a paper with words to his tribe, and he
stayed on. He hunted, he swam, and he drank, but he could not
touch his nose to the nose of Titihuti, for his nose was naked. Weeks
passed, but not his passion. He hovered about her as the great moth
seeks the fireflies, but ever she was busied with her pomades and
her massage, the ena unguent and the baths, the omi omi and the
combing of her red-gold tresses. She had set him aflame, but had no
alleviation for him.
“And then when the moon was at its height she danced again, this
time alone, as the undisputed vehine haka of Fatuhiva. The foreigner
sat and gazed, and when Titihuti glided to where he was and,
planting her feet a metero away, addressed herself to him, he shook
with longing. She was perfumed with the jasmine, and about her
breasts were rings of those pink orchids of the mountains. The
foreigner felt the warmth of her presence as she posed in the
attitudes of love. He bounded to his feet and, clasping her for the
second time to him, he shouted that he would be tattooed, he would
be a man among men in the Marquesas.
 “There was no delay; I myself tattooed him. As always the
custom, I took him into the mountains and built the patiki, the house
for the rite. That is as it should be, for tattooing is of our gods and
of our religion before the whites destroyed it. I was and am the
master of our arts. I did not sketch out my design upon his skin with
burned bamboo, as do some, but struck home the ama ink directly.
My needles were the bones of one whom I had slain, an enemy of
the Oi tribe. I myself gathered the candlenuts and, burning them to
powder, mixed that with water and made my color. My mallet, or
hama, was the shin of another whom I had eaten.”
Such a man as Leonardo, who painted “Mona Lisa” and designed a
hundred other beautiful things, or Cellini of the book and a vast
creation of intricate marvels, would have understood the exactness
of that art of tattooing in the Marquesas. Suppose “Mona Lisa”
herself, an expanse of her fair back, and not mere linen, bore her
picture. What infinite pains! Not more than took the taua in such a
task. In his mind his plan, he dipped his needle in the ama soot,
and, placing the point upon a pore of the flesh, he lightly tapped the
other extremity of the bone with his hama of shin and impressed the
sepia into the living skin, for each point of flesh making a stroke.
Followed fever after several hours of frightful anguish. The dentist
is the ministrant of caresses, his the loved hand of pleasure,
compared with the suffering caused to the quivering body by the
blows of those needles. A séance of tattooing followed, and several
days of sickness. He had not the strength of the natives in the pain,
and often he cried out, but yet he signed that the tattooing should
go on.
“Across his eyes upon the lids, and from ear to ear, I made a line
as wide as two of your teeth, and I crossed lines as wide from the
corners of his forehead to the corners of his chin. As he was to be
admitted to the Lodge of Tattooers, I put upon his brow the sacred
shark as big as Titihuti’s hand. I was four moons in all that, and all
the time he must lie within his hut, never leaving it or speaking. I
handed him food and nursed him between my work. Upon our
darker skin the black candlenut ink is, as you know, as blue as the
deep waters of the sea, but on him it was black as night, for his
flesh was white.
“He was handsome as ever god of war in the High Place, that
foreigner, and terrible to behold. His eyes of blue in their black
frames were as threatening as the thunders of the ocean, and above
the black shark glistened his hair, as yellow as the sands of the
shore. A breadfruit season had passed when we descended the
mountain, and he was received into the tribe of Hanavave. We called
him Tohiki for his splendor, though his name was Villee, as we could
say it.”
There is a curious quibble in the recital of the Polynesian. He
arrives at a crisis of his tale, and avoids it for a piece of wit or an idle
remark. Perhaps it is to pique the listener’s interest, to deepen his
attention, or it is but the etiquette of the bard.
“Titihuti?” I interposed.
“Tuitui!” he ejaculated. “You put weeds in my mouth. That girl,
that Titihuti, had left her paepae and vanished. Some said she dwelt
with a lover in another valley. Others that she had been captured at
night by the men of Oi Valley. It was always our effort to seize the
women of other tribes. They made the race stronger. But Titihuti
was not in Oi or with a lover. Her love was her beauty, and soon we
learned that she was gone into the hills herself to be tattooed. You,
American, have seen her legs, and know the full year she gave to
those. They are even to-day the hana metai oko, the loveliest and
most perfect of all living things.”
“And Willie, the splendid Tokihi, what said he?”
“Aue! He dashed up and down the valleys seeking her. He offered
gifts for her return. He cried and he drank. But the tattooing is tabu,
and it would have been death to have entered the hut where she
was against the wish of the artist. Then he turned on me and cursed
me, and often he sat and looked at himself in the pool in the brook
by his own paepae. That foreigner lost his good heart. No longer
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