Letters from Blackwell Island Pt. 03

Author's Note:

So, after Part Two what else could come but Part Three, and our adventurous columnist Allie and her husband Patrick have well and truly settled into life on Blackwell Island. But there is still more to discover about this island of naked inhabitants, and many more erotic rituals to discover and new friends to make.

As always, all characters are over eighteen, and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, and any company and/or organisation past or present is unintentional and entirely coincidental.

One last thing, this story includes some words and phrases in Irish Gaelic and Hawaiian, the latter of which I have used as the basis of the native Pã'ele language spoken by the island's indigenous population (don't worry, I have included translations in italics wherever possible!) But there is only so much one can do with Google Translate, so if you are a native speaker of either Gaelic or Hawaiian, please accept my apologies if it looks like complete and utter gibberish!

Enjoy!

Part Three

A Day Of Giving Thanks

With the prospect of getting to spend at least five more years on beautiful Blackwell Island, and the sizeable pay rise that went with it, I threw myself into my work with even more enthusiasm than usual. Marea had told me about an upcoming traditional festival that the islanders observed annually - she didn't tell me exactly what it entailed, but she did tell me its name, which like many things in the local tongue was a bit of a mouthful: Ka lã o nã kãnaka.

The Day of the Men.

"It's a day of thanksgiving really," Marea explained as I sipped a glass of crisp white wine in the comfy surroundings of her living room. "An opportunity to give thanks to the goddess Haumea for her most precious gift to her daughters - the men of our beautiful island."

"Seriously?" I gasped in absolute disbelief. "You give thanks for the men?"

"Without the men, our community would not have survived," Marea explained. "Remember, we are not like the western world you left behind, our customs can be quite... unorthodox, compared to what you've been brought up with."

"Yeah, but giving thanks for men? That's just ridiculous!" I scoffed.

"When the Pã'ele people first arrived here, the men sacrificed a lot for the benefit of the women and children," Marea went on, clearly undeterred by my apparent derision. "They were the first to go without clothing so that the women and children could continue to be clothed. They went out into the ocean to fish the waters for the bounty of the seas, they toiled on the land to feed the community, and they defended the island from invaders. Well, that last one is a bit of an anachronism nowadays, as the island is so remote that until Henry Blackwell's men arrived, nobody had been anywhere near the island, let alone invade it. But the tradition of the men being warriors remains to this day, albeit merely for ceremonial purposes."

"Plus, they give the island something that we women can't," Lisa added, who was sitting on the settee opposite me.

"Such as?" I queried.

"I guess you'll find out on the day," Marea said, giving her daughter a stern look that expressed that the younger woman ought to have kept her mouth shut.

Well, now my journalistic curiosity was well and truly alerted. What on earth could Lisa have meant? I didn't get a chance to find out however before Marea abruptly changed the subject.

"So, Allie, I see you went ahead and got your Ohana Mãka'u done."

"Oh, yes, well I guess there's no way to hide it," I replied. "Yes, I wanted Patrick and I to take another step towards becoming proper Blackwell Islanders, so the logical thing to do was take care of the one last thing that was keeping us from visually blending in to the native population fully."

"It's pretty painful, ain't it?" Lisa said, lifting her behind off the settee briefly to display her recently inked family marking on her derrière.

"Yeah, she's a bit of a wimp sometimes!" Aiden quipped as he entered the room.

"Am not!" Lisa protested.

"Now, you two - no arguing," Marea cautioned the twins. "Aiden, go and join your father and Patrick in the summerhouse."

"Yes, Mum," Aiden responded with a sigh.

The young man turned and left the room, giving me an opportunity to admire his shapely rear with his recently inked family marking on his left buttock. It had healed fully now and it gave me a sense of how good Patrick's would look in a few weeks time.

"I have a potential wife lined up for him," Marea said once her son was out of earshot.

"Ooh! Anyone I know?" Lisa asked her mother.

From the knowledgeable smirk on the girl's face it was clearly some kind of in-joke. After all, as Blackwell was such an isolated community pretty much everyone knew everyone else.

"Merryanne Gray," Marea replied. "You know, Ellie and Marcus's daughter."

Marea turned to me and continued.

"She's just back from California where she's spent the last few years training to be a vet - she's definitely a desirable prospect for Aiden, and her parents are certainly keen for her to settle down now that she's a qualified veterinarian. She'll be joining the island's veterinary practice as a junior partner soon, so Aiden could be a perfect husband for a young professional such as her."

"As long as they get on well," Lisa pointed out. "They might hate each other!"

"Well, he's free to say no to her proposal of course, but if he has any sense he'll jump at the chance to be a vet's husband," Marea responded.

"So, he won't be forced to marry her then?" I asked.

"Of course not!" Marea chuckled. "The custom for arranged marriages here goes back generations, but there is a distinct difference between forced marriages and arranged marriages. Think of it along the same lines as a traditional matchmaking service - all myself and Merryanne's mother is doing is merely introducing them to each other, nothing more than that. If they get on well and decide to get engaged, that would be wonderful, but if they decide that they're not suited to each other they are both free to call it off."

"I see," I nodded in understanding.

I guess it wasn't too dissimilar to the custom for arranged marriages in the Asian communities back home in England. I'd always had mixed emotions about arranged marriage - part of me felt I had to respect it as just a part of the culture that existed in those communities, whilst another part of me saw it as some kind of horrendous form of patriarchal oppression in which young girls were bartered off and married to older men who would sexually abuse them and force them to endure pregnancy after pregnancy. Now while I don't doubt that that sort of thing does indeed happen, and what a horrible thing it is too (and you don't have to be a placard-waving bra-burning, crazy, man-hating feminist to abhor it) hearing about arranged marriage in a matriarchal, rather than patriarchal setting definitely forced me to re-examine my feelings on the matter.

"So anyway, we'll be going to dinner at their place next Sunday evening for the formal introduction, and I guess we'll just have to let things go from there," Marea went on.

"Do you think they'd get on well?" I asked her. "I mean, what if they're just fundamentally incompatible?"

"Well as the old saying goes, we'll have to cross that bridge when we come to it," Marea replied. "Of course I hope they get along, and I see no reason why they wouldn't. Her parents, and Jackson and I, can clearly see the positives in their daughter marrying our son, we just have to hope that Aiden and Merryanne can see them too."

That last statement seemed to have "parked" the discussion about Aiden's potential nuptials and so our conversation returned to the subject of the upcoming day of thanksgiving for the island's male population.

"So, this day of thanksgiving... what was it called again?" I asked.

"Ka lã o nã kãnaka," Marea responded.

"Yes, that," I went on. "What exactly does it entail?"

"Well, I suppose you could say that it's a bit like Mother's Day," Marea replied.

"So, it's basically just like Father's Day then?" I responded. "I can't see what makes it so much more special."

"Not really - on Ka lã o nã kãnaka we give thanks for all the men, not just those who are fathers. Mother's Day has been celebrated here since Henry Blackwell's men first settled here, but Ka lã o nã kãnaka can trace its origins much further back than that. Father's Day, as the rest of the world knows it, only really came into being during the twentieth century."

So, that was at least one comparison struck off.

"You'll have to enlighten me then," I said as I took another sip of wine. "What sort of things go on then? On this... thanksgiving of men day?"

I decided not to try and get my tongue around the correct pronunciation just yet for fear of utterly embarrassing myself - yes, I did feel a mild stab of jealousy that it just tripped off Marea's tongue with such apparent ease!

"Well, we give gifts to our husbands, sons, brothers, fathers, uncles and so on," Marea replied. "And we give them a Holoi - a ritual bathing."

"Aiden gets to be bathed for the first time this year," Lisa contributed. "And it falls upon me to do the honour while mum takes care of dad."

"Basically, they are stood in a traditional wooden bathtub and then have warm water poured all over them," Marea took over. "We, the women that is, then wash them from head to toe with a traditional soap scented with hibiscus and local herbs, with a natural sponge called a Kanawai that grows in the sea around the island. The ritual cleansing is intended to purify them for the day ahead - to literally wash them of any lingering bad spirits that might have hitched a ride on their bodies."

"Plus it makes 'em smell nicer!" Lisa chortled.

"If you're not going to contribute anything useful you can go up to your room, young lady," Marea chided.

"Sorry, Mum," the admonished daughter said with a sigh.

"So anyway, after that everyone makes their way into town for the Kekahi ceremony, where one of the newly adult men is selected to become the Kaua for the day and is tasked with performing the sacred ritual of 'O ka ho'olaha'ana o ka hua."

"I'm not even going to think about trying to pronounce that!" I chuckled.

"Yeah, I guess the indigenous language only having twelve consonants and five vowels does mean that some words are a bit of a mouthful," Marea admitted with a lopsided smirk. "But then as a native speaker I guess it's just what I'm used to. But suffice it to say, the ceremony does have an anglicised name, but I shall keep you in the dark about that for now - I don't want to spoil the surprise for you! But needless to say, I'd be very proud if Aiden is selected to be this year's Kaua."

Why the great mystery? I asked myself. What on earth could this... unpronounceable ceremony possibly entail that was worth keeping from me?

"Anyway, you won't have to wait long to find out," Marea continued with another sip of wine. "Tomorrow, to be exact."

* * * * * *

The next morning the sun shone brightly into our bedroom - much the same as every other morning on Blackwell Island, not that I would ever complain about waking up to bright sunshine every morning, but I did sometimes miss the overcast mornings I was familiar with back home in England. As ever, our morning commenced with a leisurely and oh-so-sensual session of making love, and after having worked up an appetite, a hearty breakfast afterwards. I'd told Patrick all about the day of thanksgiving that I still couldn't quite get my tongue around, and his reaction had been much the same as mine. Although, rather than scoff at the idea as I had done, he actually thought the idea of a day that gave thanks for men was something the rest of the world could do with. I did of course remind him that International Men's Day was a thing (November 19th, before you ask) but he responded by saying that it was a different thing altogether.

"Yeah, but that's about raising issues that affect men and boys," he said over breakfast. "This... whatever it's called... is about giving thanks for the role of men in the island's society."

"Well, anyway it's today, and we, or rather, you, are going to be taking part," I told him. "And you'll like how it all starts."

"Dare I ask?" he said with a slight groan.

"You'll like it, I promise," I responded. "It starts with me giving you a nice bath."

I took Patrick outside and met up with Marea, Jackson and the Twins out on their sun terrace - already a large wooden tub that resembled an old barrel cut in half had been set up with Lisa and her mother filling it up with warm water carried out in buckets from the kitchen. Jackson, having been through it all before simply stood and watched them. Aiden on the other hand, since this was the first year he would be taking part in the day's commemorations looked rather anxious beside his father. However, what I didn't know at the time was that being bathed by his mother and sister was not what he was anxious about - the reason for that was to come later in the day.

"Hey, welcome to your first Ka lã o nã kãnaka, Patrick! And for once I'm not the only one stood here about to be ritually cleansed - it's me laddo's first time too, now that he's a fully grown man!"

"Okay, I think we're about ready now," Marea announced as she tested the temperature of the water. "You first, darling."

"Yes dear," Jackson responded and dutifully stepped into the tub.

He stood in the middle of the wooden bathtub as Marea handed Lisa a Holoi Pã, a traditional wooden ladle that looked like a small wooden pail on the end of a stick. According to tradition, as Marea informed me later, it was customary for daughters (once they were over eighteen) to ritually wash their fathers, and for mothers to ritually wash their sons (again, once they were over eighteen years of age). If a couple were childless or their children were under eighteen, it simply became the wife's responsibility to cleanse her husband.

"Now, you remember the words, Lisa?" Marea asked her daughter.

"I think so," she replied as she stepped up onto a wooden box behind her father.

She would definitely need the extra elevation - Jackson was easily a clear foot taller than her.

Lisa dipped the Holoi Pã into the water and then brought it up ready to douse its contents over her father. She cleared her throat and intoned the words her mother had taught her.

"Makuakãne, E holoi wau i nãʻuhaneʻino mai kou kino aku, ae hoʻomaʻemaʻe iãʻoe ma ka inoa o ke akua wahineʻo Haumea," she chanted.

"What does it mean?" I asked Marea.

"Father, I wash away the evil spirits from your body, and cleanse you in the name of the goddess Haumea," she whispered in reply.

Aiden and Patrick stood and looked on as Lisa then lifted up the Holoi Pã above her father's head and then tipped its contents over him.

"Did I do it right, Mum?" Lisa asked as her father wiped the water away from his eyes.

"You did it perfectly, sweetheart," Marea beamed proudly.

Lisa returned her mother's smile and then dismounted the box. This was only the start of the cleansing ritual however, for she picked up the sponge, presumably collected from one of the island's coral reefs, dipped it into the water, and then rubbed it over a bar of soap scented with flowers and herbs that grow on the island until she'd built up a decent enough lather. She then spent several minutes liberally coating every inch of her father's naked body with the fragrant foam. I saw him flinch a little when she reached his "gentleman's area" and teased his foreskin back, which was the last thing I ever thought I'd see a daughter do to her father, but I guess that was just par for the course here on Blackwell Island.

I'd asked Patrick to take some photos of the cleansing ritual, having decided overnight that it would be an ideal subject for my next installment of Letters From Blackwell Island. He stood somewhat agog as he watched Jackson being bathed so intimately by his own daughter. I had to give him a sharp nudge to get him to focus on the job at hand. He looked at me apologetically and then resumed his photographing the occasion.

Once she'd finished lathering her father up, she returned to her box, dipped the Holoi Pã into the water and then poured its contents over him again, rinsing him off. Once she'd finished, Jackson stepped out of the tub and gave his daughter a brief and rather wet hug. And then it was Aiden's turn to be cleansed.

This time it was Marea who mounted the box behind her son. She dipped the Holoi Pã into the water and intoned the traditional words.

"Keikikãne, E holoi wau i nãʻuhaneʻino mai kou kino aku, ae hoʻomaʻemaʻe iãʻoe ma ka inoa o ke akua wahineʻo Haumea."

Keikikãne being the Pã'ele word for "son" whereas Makuakãne means "father".

She then also washed him from head to toe with the floral soap, and just as Lisa had done earlier, Marea retracted her son's foreskin to ensure every inch of his penis was as clean as it was possible for it to be. Once she was done she then rinsed him off and then mother and son shared a brief hug. It did not escape my attention that Aiden's penis, after having been so intimately handled by his mother's hands, had firmed up somewhat and he was, as my dear husband would say, "nursing a semi." Nobody drew any attention to it, however, and it wasn't long before it receded back to its normal state.

"Do I have to go through this too?" Patrick asked me uneasily.

"Not if you don't want to," I assured him. "But I'd like to do it. C'mon, it's no different to me washing you when we're in the shower together."

"Yeah, but that's when it's just you and me," he replied. "Sure it'd feel weird with this lot watching us."

"Would you do it for me though?" I asked him.

Patrick paused while he weighed things up in his mind as Jackson, Marea and the Twins looked on expectantly.

"Ah, what the feck," he said with a resigned sigh. "Sure when in Rome, as they say."

Patrick stepped into the tub and waited for me to ritually bathe him. I got up onto the wooden box and picked up the Holoi Pã. I dipped it into the water and raised it up.

"You'll have to help me with the words, Marea," I said as I held the thing aloft.

"Sure, just repeat after me," she replied. "Kãne..."

"Kãne," I echoed the Pã'ele word for "husband".

Marea guided me through the tongue-twisting incantation as I stood poised with the Holoi Pã as Patrick awaited its deluge from above. As soon as I'd finished reciting the words prompted by Marea, I upended the pail and poured its contents all over my husband.

It was then my turn to use the sponge and cover him with scented lather. He looked down at me uneasily as I reached his penis, and gasped a little as I took his foreskin back and cleaned around his bared glans, but I made sure not to handle him too roughly. Once he was covered from head to toe I remounted the box and then rinsed him off.

"Right, that's the ritual cleansing all done and dusted," Marea announced as Patrick stepped out of the wooden bathtub. "Time for us ladies to put your best Kani's on you."