Letters from Blackwell Island Pt. 03

The ke ka'ina mare is a traditional Pã'ele wedding procession, made up of the family of the groom and their invited guests who would assemble at the family home and then walk towards where the ceremony would be held. In Aiden and Merryanne's case, like most weddings on Blackwell Island nowadays, it was a mixture of western Christian and ancient Pã'ele traditions - a service in the island's main church in Malmesbury, followed by a native ceremony on a nearby beach named Huakai o ka wā pau, which roughly translates as "Cove of Consummation". Yeah, I think you can see where this is going!

The Christian part of the day's ceremony was to be conducted by Reverend McCabe in the island's main church, whilst the Pã'ele ceremony would as always be overseen by Mrs. Opuni, the island's Kahanapule or priestess.

"How's Aiden doing?" I asked as we followed Jackson outside. "Is he nervous?"

"A bit, poor lad!" Jackson chuckled. "He hates being the centre of attention at the best of times, but he'll get through it alright, just like he did at the 'O ka ho'olaha'ana o ka hua.

My mind of course went back to the ancient Sowing of the Seed ritual when I, and most of the rest of the island's adult population and many of the tourists, had witnessed Aiden being ritually masturbated by Mrs. Opuni to cause his semen to fertilise the earth. But I wasn't to dwell on that memory for long before catching sight of the young man himself at the head of the procession beside his mother. In contrast to Jackson's Kani, Aiden's was surprisingly plain - just a simple white strip of braided strands of leather with a single pearl at the top. Most of the other men were wearing much more elaborate ones similar to Jackson's, presumably their own ceremonial wedding Kani's handed down to them by their fathers.

For a moment, as I looked at Patrick's Kani which was rather less sparkly than the other male guests, I wondered if he felt a little underdressed, which on reflection was a bit of a ridiculous notion!

We numbered around twenty in total, and since Patrick and I were not related to the groom and his family, we took up position right at the back of the procession, but not until we'd had a chance to greet Aiden and to wish him good luck.

"Thanks, Allie," he replied to us. "Thanks, Patrick - let's hope I don't get too nervous and mess up."

"You won't," Marea assured her son. "Just remember, your father went through it all, as did his father and grandfather before him. Generations of Pã'ele men have been through it before you, so if you do make a mistake you definitely won't be the first. And almost certainly not the last, either. Besides, you've already done it before, remember?"

Patrick and I briefly shook hands with Aiden and kissed Marea before we took up our position. At precisely nine o'clock the procession began.

All along the route into Malmesbury the procession stopped occasionally to allow well-wishers to conduct a brief little ceremony to pass on their best wishes to the husband to be. The men simply placed a garland of hibiscus flowers around Aiden's neck - the women on the other hand... well, they did something else.

From my position at the rear of the procession it was hard for me to see what exactly what they were doing - all I could see from my point of view was that they knelt in front of him, and each time it happened Aiden looked as though he was flinching. Later that day when I asked her about it, Marea explained that it was called a ho'opõmaika'i honi or "blessing kiss". It was traditional, our landlady informed me, for Pã'ele women to briefly kiss the groom's penis in order to bless it and grant him fecundity and good fertility throughout his married life. No wonder Aiden was flinching with every single woman kissing his penis!

"Do the men do something similar to the bride?" I asked her.

"Yes and no," Marea replied. "The bride's family doesn't process to the place of marriage like the groom's family does - they just go by car nowadays - but all her male relatives will kiss her belly before the ceremony to bless her womb with good fertility."

As the procession wended its way from the Mahi'ai family's home and into the island's principal town, more and more women stopped us in order to kiss Aiden's penis - I felt a bit sorry for him as I knew how much he disliked being the focus of so much attention. Still, despite the odd flinching here and there he seemed to be conducting himself rather stoically. By the time we all finally made it to the church some two hours later Aiden's penis had been kissed by over thirty women, and he'd been given almost as many hibiscus garlands by his fellow men.

Aiden and Marea waited outside the church as the rest of us all filed in. Two young women handed us each a loose fitting tunic to wear as the inside of churches are the only places on Blackwell Island where total nudity is not permitted. I must admit it felt decidedly odd to feel fabric against my skin after having spent the last eight months completely naked. It may only have been simple white calico with a decorative red trimming around the hem and the neck, but it felt like I was wearing a heavy suit of armour. Patrick, a regular attendee at the church for Reverend McCabe's inter-denominational Sunday services, took it in his stride however.

Once dressed in our tunics we took our place in one of the pews on the groom's side of the church. Almost as soon as we sat down I couldn't help but fidget in my seat.

Now, a wedding ceremony in Blackwell Island's traditional matriarchal society is pretty much the same as any other wedding service one might expect to attend, but of course there is one significant difference. Normally the bride is given away by her father or some other male relative or close friend, but on Blackwell Island it is the groom who is given away by his mother. Apart from that however, it was exactly the same as any other wedding I'd been to.

It began with a hymn, followed by the usual "dearly beloved, we are gathered in the sight of God to join these two people in the union of holy matrimony," speech followed by a reading from the bible, followed by another hymn. Then, after a sermon, the exchange of vows and the always dramatic and always anticlimactic "if any person knows of any just cause or impediment why these two should not be joined," moment (which is never as exciting as any Hollywood movie or soap opera would have us believe). Then, after the exchange of rings (yes, married couples on Blackwell wear rings just like in any other part of the world) the bride and groom kissed and then departed into the vestry in order to sign the register.

It was as moving and emotional as any other wedding I'd been to, even if I was squirming in my seat throughout the whole thing.

"Stop fidgeting, wo'an!" Patrick chided in a hushed tone of voice during the sermon.

"I can't help it!" I whispered back at him. "It's been eight months since I last wore anything - it feels weird!"

Apart from the discomfort of being clothed for the first time in so long however, I enjoyed the service and as always whenever I attend a wedding, I couldn't help but shed a few tears.

* * * * * *

Once the Christian ceremony concluded, everyone, led by the newlyweds, then formed a procession out of the town towards a small bay a couple of miles away. This was Huakai o ka wã pau, the Cove Of Consummation, for the traditional Pã'ele wedding ceremony, and as one would expect, it was an event that only adults were allowed to attend. Normally the little bay would be full of tourists enjoying the soft white sand and the shade of gently swaying palm trees and the azure waters of the Pacific Ocean lapping at the shore, but on wedding days it gets fenced off and only invited guests are allowed on the beach. Jackson explained that this wasn't always the case however, and the new rule was only brought into force when tourism on the island started to take off back in the 1960's. And it was brought in for obvious reasons that I don't need to explain.

Waiting for us on the sand was Mrs. Opuni looking resplendent in her bare skin and wearing several traditional adornments made of palm leaves and feathers on her arms and legs. At her feet was the traditional mattress of woven pandanus leaves and the Mãka'u Papa, the traditional tattooing table with its distinctive curved top that resembles an Olympic vaulting horse. Once everyone had linked hands and formed a semicircle around the priestess and the happy couple, Mrs. Opuni had Aiden and Merryanne kneel before her. She placed her hands upon Aiden's head and started chanting in the Pã'ele tongue.

"Olu'olu Haumea, owau kãhea iã 'oe i ho'opõmaika'i keia 'õpio kãne, Aiden..."

Gracious Haumea, I call to you to bless this young man, Aiden...

"A hã'awi iã ia ka makana o akea ho'ohuihua a pela i kēlã o kona hua 'oi kãua mmoao maika'i keiki..."

And grant him the gift of bountiful fertility so that his seed shall sire many fine children...

"Mã aku ia mau loa 'olu'olu a ho'olohe..."

May he always be kind and obedient...

"A i ke ao pau ole ka'oia'i'o i ooe kaikamahine, Merryanne."

And forever faithful to your daughter, Merryanne.

After concluding that first incantation, she then placed her hands upon Merryanne's head and recited a second chant.

"Olu'olu Haumea, owau kãhea iã 'oe i ho'opõmaika'i keia 'õpio wahine, Merryanne..."

Gracious Haumea, I call to you to bless this young woman, Merryanne...

"A hã'awi iã ia ka makana o akea ho'ohuihua a pela ikēlã a 'o 'oi hãpai mmoao maika'i keiki..."

And grant her the gift of bountiful fertility so that she may bear many fine children...

"Mã a 'o mau loa 'olu'olu a lokomaikai..."

May she always be kind and benevolent...

"A i ke ao pau ole ka'oia'i'o i ooe keikikãne, Aiden."

And forever faithful to your son, Aiden.

She then placed her hands on both their heads and decided a final chant.

"Aiden a Merryanne, kakou kapu makuahine Haumea ua ho'opõmaika'i ooe pili kãne a whahine..."

Aiden and Merryanne, our sacred mother Haumea has blessed your bond as husband and wife...

"O 'oe mã hanohano iã ia ho'opõmaika'i e ho'opau ooe pili."

You may now honour her blessing by consummating your bond.

Mrs. Opuni gestured towards the mattress of pandanus leaves - I didn't need to understand her words to know what was about to happen. Aiden and Merryanne stood and then turned to face each other, from where Patrick and I were stood we were given an unobstructed side-on view of the newly married couple - and my eyes popped out when I saw that Aiden had become massively erect. They kissed each other and then Merryanne took Aiden by the hand and led him to the mattress where he then laid down on his back with his rigid penis pointing upwards.

"Oh no, here we go again," Patrick grumbled quietly. "It's tribal nookie time again!"

"Shh!" I chided him.

Merryanne hovered above her new husband for a few moments before squatting down and straddling his hips. She took hold of his engorged manhood, shuffled forward a little and guided it towards her entrance. And then, as the gathering of invited onlookers held hands in a moment of silent reverie, she lowered herself slowly down on him until his penis had completely disappeared inside her.

As soon as it was established that Merryanne was fully seated atop her prostrate husband, a loud cheer sounded and everyone, well, those who knew the ceremony and had attended several before, ie everyone but Patrick and I, started chanting "Konoholoa! Konohola!"

Consummate! Consummate!

Whilst everyone chanted, Merryanne rocked her hips as she and Aiden consummated their marriage in full view of everyone there. It was both an erotic scene to witness, but also a very spiritual one too. Here, the community of family and friends and other invited guests had come to bear witness to the moment when Aiden and Merryanne shared their bodies in wonderful sexual union for the very first time. I looked at Aiden as his new wife rode him, and I saw the look of love he had for her as he gazed up at her. Likewise, Merryanne looked down at Aiden and I could see her whispering Pã'ele words down at him - words that Marea later informed me was a sacred chant of love and a promise to always look after him.

It was one of the most beautiful things I'd ever seen - and I realised that once we take our western inhibitions away and look at sex from a different angle so that we're not ashamed of it, it becomes something transcendentally beautiful. Something so unashamedly natural - all other species on earth do it in full view, so why should we humans be so ashamed by sex and only ever do it behind closed doors?

Patrick however, was clearly nowhere near as accepting of it as I was rapidly becoming.

"Do we have to watch this?" he moaned. "I'd rather not stand around watching these two screwing each other."

Well, I simply had to respond by exercising a little of my Blackwell Island matriarchal influence.

"You'll do as you're told and stay here until I say you can go!" I hissed.

The discombobulated silence that ensued from him as the unfamiliar feeling of being so harshly emasculated by me spoke volumes. But at least it forced him to see that he was being disrespectful towards what was clearly a sacred moment for the newlywed couple and all their family and friends.

"Sorry," he meekly responded after a few moments.

Honestly, if he had a tail it would've been firmly between his legs at that moment! I meanwhile was positively swelling with a sense of feminine power (something I had to force myself to rein in, lest I allow myself to get carried away).

Before us, over the continued chanting from the circle of onlookers, the sound of a young couple having sex echoed off the rocky walls of the sheltered little cove. By now Aiden and Merryanne had lost themselves to the moment of their consummation, seemingly unaware of the fifty or so people that surrounded them. Merryanne bucked her hips and writhed her body as she rode Aiden. He meanwhile was clearly fighting the urge to come, wanting his new wife to reach her zenith before allowing himself to enjoy his. It was evidently a hard battle to fight, given his inexperience and the grimaced expression of concentration on his face.

Fortunately for Aiden, it wasn't long before Merryanne started panting and gasping as she approached her orgasm, and a few moments later she visibly stiffened, her nipples suddenly hardening to resemble two dark pink bullets, and she started screeching as her orgasm consumed her.

Below her, and clearly buoyed by his own satisfaction at making his new wife come, Aiden then stiffened and arched his back, lifting Merryanne a few inches up off the mattress. Inside her, his penis erupted like a fountain, bathing her insides with his seed. For him the moment was over in a few moments, but for her it continued on for almost a minute before she finally came to a gasping, panting halt. Once she had come down from her orgasmic zenith, Merryanne lifted herself up until Aiden's penis slipped out from her and flopped totally spent onto his belly.

And then everyone applauded. The parents of the newly married and now newly consummated couple stepped in, with tears of pride and happiness running down their cheeks, and helped the couple up onto their feet.

The rest of the ceremony was, thankfully for Patrick, somewhat less explicit. First, Marea stepped before Jackson and untied his jewel encrusted wedding Kani and then removed Aiden's simple white one. She then tied the bejewelled one around Aiden's penis and testicles, thus handing it from father to son. She had another less ornate Kani in her Kīeke that she then tied onto Jackson.

The ceremony concluded with Aiden being laid over the Mãka'u Papa for Mrs. Opuni to tattoo Merryanne's family's Ohana Mãka'u onto his left buttock, just below the one he'd had inked on at his coming of age ceremony earlier that year. Only once the marking had been inked on did the circle of invited onlookers finally break apart, and everyone started to make their way from the cove back towards the town. In only a matter of minutes the beach would be reopened to the tourists who presumably would be totally unaware of the sacred consummation ritual that had just taken place on its alabaster white sand.

* * * * * *

"So, what did you think of the ceremony?" Marea asked me later that evening as we all strolled back, minus Aiden of course, to the Mahi'ai family's homestead after the formal reception in Malmesbury's town hall, which had included all the usual speeches, a three course meal and the inevitable dancing and feasting afterwards.

"It was um... certainly eye opening," I replied diplomatically.

In truth, it was quite possibly the most erotic thing I'd ever seen, but my traditional English reserve prevented me from giving voice to my true feelings about it.

"Where are they going on honeymoon?" Patrick rescued me by asking our hosts and friends. "Assuming they are of course."

"Oh, there's a honeymoon all right," Jackson chuckled. "Though it's a bit different to what the two of you might have had in mind."

Patrick and I had been to Greece for our honeymoon, for two blissful weeks of hopping around the Greek isles - Skiathos, Corfu and Santorini, to name just a few - and of course I needn't inform you what we got up to in the evenings! Nudge, nudge, wink, wink!

"In what way?" Patrick asked, though in hindsight he probably shouldn't have.

"Well, the going away part, for starters," Jackson responded. "The traditional Pã'ele honeymoon is basically a week spent in the bride's family home, y'know, um..."

"Bangin' each other's brains out!" Lisa sniggered. "They'll be at it like rampant bunnies!"

"So, no different to any other honeymoon then," I chuckled.

"Traditionally, the mother of a newly married Pã'ele woman expected her new son in law to get her daughter pregnant at the earliest opportunity," Marea explained to us. "So the first few months of their marriage would be spent having sex as much as possible. Often whilst the mother looked on to make sure her new son in law was getting the job done properly."

"For feck's sake! Sure I had to ask, didn't I!" Patrick grumbled. "I wish I hadn't opened me feckin' mouth now! God, I'm such an eejit!"

"What if she didn't get pregnant within those first few months?" I asked.

Well, Patrick might have wished he'd never asked about it, but my ingrained journalistic curiosity simply begged me to find out more.

"Well, the marriage would be annulled," Marea answered simply.

"Oh," I replied, finding that to be a bit of an anticlimax.

"But it's a bit sadder than the two of them simply parting and going their separate ways, I'm afraid," Marea went on. "Failure for a woman to conceive was always seen as the husband's fault, you see. If he didn't get her pregnant his mother in law would eject him from the family and have him branded, literally, as a Pã'ole kãne or "barren man"."

"Branded?" I asked her for clarification. "As in, like they do with cows? With a branding iron?"

"Mm-hmm," Marea confirmed. "And it gets worse I'm afraid."

"I suggest you cover your ears, Patrick," Jackson said to my husband. "I'm afraid that what they used to do was a bit, um, unpleasant."

Well, the part of my curiosity that revelled in the macabre was well and truly piqued by that.