The Cockfight: A Casebook

A Cockfight in Tahiti

CHARLES NORDHOFF AND JAMES NORMAN HALL A Cockfight in Tahiti From an island in the Caribbean to an island in the south Pacific, wefind that cockfighting is as much at home in Tahiti as in Puerto Rico. In this case, we utilize a chapterofoneofthe many nuvels written by the highly successfulteam ofCharles BernardNordhoff (1887-1947) andJames Norman Hall (1887-1951). In this literary vignette oflift on Tahiti, we have a relatively briefaccount ofa cockfight, but we are rewarded by an engaging story ofthe events leading up to andfollowing the cockfight . Ofspecial interest is the involvement ofentirefamilies in cockfights as well as the dire consequences ofexcessivebettingon theoutcomes. Somewhat unusualin this delineation ofa Tahitian cockfight is the involvement ofwomen. Cockfights in most locales in the world specifically exclude-or at any rate discourage-female participation. NordhoffandHall areprobably bestknownfor their nuvelMutiny on the Bounty (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1932) which was made into a classic Hollywood motion piaure in 1935, starring Clark Gable and Charles Laughton. Thefilm won an Oscarfor BestPiaure. The sameplotalso inspiredtwo laterfilms: Mutiny on the Bounty (1962) and The Bounty (1984). For more about these two authors, see Paul L. Briand, In Search of Paradise: The Nordhoff-Hall Story (New York: Duell, Sloan f5 Pearce, 1966). See also Robert LelandJohnson, The American Heritage ofJames Norman Hall, The Woodshed Poet of Iowa and Co-Author of Mutiny on the Bounty (Philadelphia : Dorrance, 1969), andRobertRoulston,James Norman Hall (Boston: Twayne Publishing, 1978). Itwas half-past eleven whenJonas and his family came home from church. He walked first, with Mama Ruau, followed by Ropati in his wheelchair, then the others in indiscriminate fashion, the babies in arms, the small children kicking up the dust with their bare feet, all of them seemingly determined, despite Reprinted from Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall, No More Gas (Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1940), pp. 88-100. Copyright 1940 by Charles B. Nordhoff and James Norman Hall. By permission of Little, Brown and Company. I am indebted to Caroline McCullagh of University of California, Santa Cruz, for calling this interesting essay to my attention. 30 A Cockfight in Tahiti their elders, to soil their Sabbath clothes thoroughly before they reached home. The church was little more than a quarter of a mile beyond the Tuttle house, so that the family, Ropati excepted, always walked to service unless some special occasion demanded the service ofthe truck or the surrey. Ropati had been crippled for life in a fall from a coconut palm when he was ten years old; nevertheless, he was among the gayest and most useful members of the household. To their lighter hours he contributed his splendid bass voice, for singing, and his skill with the nose flute. In addition to these accomplishments, he was an expert net maker and repairer. He was as useful to the family as any ofthe boys. His wheelchair was one ofPaki's mechanical masterpieces, supported on a pair ofmotorcycle wheels, and propelled by a lever which turned the axle through a connecting rod. Two small front wheels steered the vehicle. Jonas was a sincerely devout man, in the Tuttle fashion. As an indication of the position he occupied in the affairs ofhis village and district, it may be said that, while he had never been made an elder ofhis church, he was, nevertheless , looked upon as such: an elder without portfolio. And although he had never been elected chiefofthe district, there was no man in itwho was listened to in local matters with greater attention and interest. This position suited him; he had the rewards and none ofthe responsibilities ofoffice. Had he been an elder ofthe church, chief, or even subchiefofthe district, he would have been compelled to assume an irksome dignity unsuited to him. Occupying no public position, he had greater influence with his friends and neighbors than those who did, with the added advantage that he was free to be himself. None of those who saw him trudging home from church at the head ofhis clan thought it at all unseemly that, later in the day, they would see him again at the cockpit in Vaipopo Valley. He was at home in either place, and belonged to both. Sunday dinner, usually a long-drawn-out affairwith the Tuttles, was quickly dispatched on this occasion. No man loved his food more thanJonas, but even he ate hastily and absent-mindedly. All of the family, his mother excepted, were in the same state ofsubdued, deeply stirred expectancy. Mama...