Date: Wed, 17 Mar 1999 06:17:38 +0900
From: Andrej Koymasky <andrejkoymasky@geocities.com>
Subject: kea-tribe-11

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THE KEA TRIBE

by Andrej Koymasky (C) 1999
written the 13th of September, 1993
translated by the author
English text kindly revised by John

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USUAL DISCLAIMER

"THE KEA TRIBE" is a gay story, with some parts containing graphic
scenes of sex between males. So, if in your land, religion, family,
opinion and so on this is not good for you, it will be better not to
read this story. But if you really want, or because YOU don't care, ore
because you think yo really want to read it, please be my welcomed
guest.

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PUBLISHER'S NOTE

This story, clearly romanticised, has sound historical foundations. We
received it in this form through a manuscript in English written in 1823
by a certain Tim Werner, former first lieutenant on a ship of the United
States Military Navy. This Tim Werner had to leave the Navy at a rather
young age - he was just thirty nine years old - because of an accident,
and he lived in Polynesia for several years. Here, as we can deduce from
some of his letters and notes found together with this manuscript, he
took a Polynesian lover, a twenty year old young man named Tialelo, who
told him the epic of the "Kea tribe" and which Tim wrote down on in a
copybook.

A grand-nephew, a certain Chris Werner of Boston, a descendant of one of
Tim's brothers, in 1896 inherited those papers. Happily also Chris was
gay, so that he not only didn't destroy the papers, but carefully copied
them and decided to research this "Kea tribe". Having a large capital at
his command, he went to Spain and here he consulted the "Naval
Historical Archive" in Madrid. From his notes we know that on the folder
of the registers marked with the initials "MER-600/49" there was noted
the existence of a brigantine named "Morisco", launched in Cadiz in
1643. It was also written that the ship made its last journey in 1699,
leaving Cadiz for a journey in the West Indies, under a Captain Don
Alonso Gonzales Serrano de Garces. In the register the names of the
other crew members were not given, but this, in any case, was a first
important verification of the historical background of the story. Also
in that period and through to 1700 the King of Spain was Carlos II, as
is mentioned in the story. The "Morisco" was then reported missing in
the Pacific Ocean and the concluding note in the folder on the
brigantine reads:

"No news to this day that any of the crew members could have survived."

In other words the ship had been wrecked, or had been victim of the
pirate-infested seas of the West Indies.

Then Chris Werner asked and obtained the authorisation to carry on his
researches on the "Heraldic Archive of Spain's Aristocracy" and here he
found a second important check regarding this story. There existed the
genealogical tree of the Rivas' Dukes. And there was a Don Hernando
Arias Espartero de Aragon, and besides his name was written: "born on
December 6th 1671" and then: "lost at sea after 1699". From the story it
appears that Don Hernando, at the beginning of the story, was twenty
eight years old!

As it is clear from Chris Werner's notes that, he thought that somebody,
in finding or knowing in some way this information, could write the
whole story, inventing a "tribe" that never existed. Therefore he
decided to direct his research to the historical records about the
discovery of the Pacific islands. He found and copied some very
interesting reports on expeditions. The first one is the following.

"From the Historical Archive of His Majesty's Admiralty - London

Relation of the fifth journey of Douglas Lord Finnegan on the Pacific
Sea, made in the years 1765 - 1768

Fascicle 12 - Page 37.

(omission) We at last came in sight of a group of volcanic islands. We
cast anchor near the one that seemed the biggest and where could be seen
a wide village. We put the dinghies at sea and, with an armed escort, we
went towards the village. We met the population living there. They were
people of strong constitution, tall but slender, their skin of a light
bronze colour, their hair straight and black, oval faces and fine traits
(omission) and both men and women wore on their hips simple clothes tied
on one side and adorned themselves with fresh flower garlands.
(omission) They were merry, gentle, hospitable, but very dissolute about
their morals - their young women with lack of constraint solicited our
sailors to the carnal union, (omission) especially during the night, so
that I myself and more than once had to send them away from my bed and
to refuse their tempting approaches.

The King of one of these islands showed to me a brass fruit bowl
received by one of his ancestors as a gift from the ship of His
Majesty's ship "Victory" and carved with the date 1676. (Omission) In
the nearby island we found a tribe similar to the others and yet in some
aspects rather different.

This tribe wore simple clothes like all the other tribes and had similar
songs and dances, but their complexion was lighter and, really
surprising but worth mentioning was that, while in the other islands, as
I had occasion to write before, I was disgusted by the evident sexual
promiscuity, in the only village of this island men and women live
strictly divided in two parts of the village connected just by their
temple. During the day they often worked together, but at night each
gender withdrew to its own part. (omission) We were welcome but,
differently from other villages, not in their homes. They rapidly built
for us some comfortable, provisional huts behind a promontory where
there was a circular sacred place, so that we were at the gates of the
village but not in it. This avoided us being constrained to undergo, as
happened in the other islands, the embarrassing nocturnal offers, even
if some of the men of our crew complained.

Near the temple there were three houses where they kept their children.
Here their fathers and mothers brought up them with care, all together,
without concern who was their child or not. When the child reached the
age of puberty, they were divided, in fact there was a house for the
children and one for the adolescents where they were educated. When they
reached approximately the age of thirteen, they were judged adults, so
that the boys were sent to live in the men's part and the girls in the
women's one. (omission)

Consequently they had, different from all the other villages, both a
King ruling the men and a Queen ruling the women (omission) and they
called their King Hey-nah-dou and their Queen Lou-oh-lah-nee.
(omission)"

This passage, even if never names them, is clearly referring to the "Kea
tribe" and the name of the two chiefs (or King and Queen as Lord
Finnegan calls them) are a clear attempt at transcription of the names
Hernando and Luolani as he had heard them pronounced. Also the
description of the village corresponds almost exactly to the story of
the manuscript.

We don't quote here other documents that confirm these notes but without
anything specifically interesting, apart from the last extract which we
quote hereunder.

It is based on some passages of a document entitled "Relation on the
deeds of Father Mateo Pedra y Molas S. J. missionary in the Indies" to
be found in the Archives of the General House of the Jesus' Company
(Jesuits) of Rome, and dated 1784. On page 297,and following, of the
manuscript, there is this report.

"(omission) About the tribe called Puerokea, it has been impossible to
bring them the light of the Holy Gospel or the gift of civilisation,
because this tribe, more than the others, was living in sin and,
differently from the others of the neighbouring islands, was addicted to
abominable deeds that no one of them did absolutely want to abandon.

Amongst them, in fact (the following part was not written in Spanish,
but in Latin, so that common people couldn't understand it) "the man had
carnal intercourse with the man and the woman with the woman, and they
were living together in couples of the same sex as if they were husband
and wife, or else in a whoring house where all together they performed
all sort of infamy, copulating and reciprocally inserting their penis in
the anus or in the mouth. But what surpasses any nefariousness is that
in their school, the masters abused with impunity their barely pubescent
students, affirming that this was part of the education that each boy or
girl has to receive, and they invited the youths to perform the same
horrible practices amongst themselves." (Here the text comes back to
Spanish) Just once in a year a man and a woman drawn by lots, carnally
united in a cell standing near the temple dedicated to their gods, but
in the darkness, without seeing each other or recognising each other, in
order to procreate.

Those filthy slaves of the Devil, who were so handsome like all the
children of the Devil, even more handsome than the natives of the other
islands, were living in their condition of sin and abomination,
declaring to be happy and even proud of it. To our teachings they
laughed telling us that we were mad, and some of the young men went so
far as inviting us to perform with them Sodom's sin to persuade us! They
didn't want to believe us when we explained to them that we had taken
the vow of chastity, and they insinuated that we had carnal affairs
amongst ourselves. Our teachings and our prayers for their salvation had
absolutely no response.

We were on the island for seven months and, differently from all the
other islands we couldn't make any conversions. The wooden house and the
little church nearby which we built where they allowed us, were never
visited by the natives. (omission)

So, we thought to call from the other islands Barnaba and Gabriel, two
converted natives, to back our interpreter, and because we thought that
possibly, amongst natives, they could find more suitable subjects to
touch those people's hearts. But one day Barnaba came back from the
village in hurry to warn us that Gabriel had been ensnared by those sons
of the vice and that he said that he was planning to ask to the infamous
tribe to admit him as a member.

Immediately, with Father Augustino and Father Pablo, we went to the
village asking to meet with Gabriel. They called him, and the
unfortunate young man confirmed us that he had chosen the road of the
foul vice. We tried to convince him, we showed him the hell pains that
would have awaited for him if he persisted in his error, we assured him
forgiveness and absolution if he repented, but all was useless. He
laughed with a sneer and went as far as kissing on the mouth a young
native beside him, in front of our eyes, and he affirmed that he had
found a better paradise than what we were preaching. It was evident that
the Evil One had got hold of him!

We went back to our house, shaken and troubled. After going to the
church to ask to Holy Spirit to inspire us, we decided we had to attempt
to kidnap Gabriel to deliver him from the ill-fated influence of the
inhabitants of this kingdom of Satan, and make him recover his senses.

But unhappily, when we had just succeeded in catching and tying him up,
the village men, hearing his yells arrived and, after a short scuffle we
were overcome; they took Gabriel back with them. We went to strongly
protest with their King, telling him that we wanted back our man. But he
not only refused that but told us that, after consulting with the Queen
and the elders, they had decided to chase us away from the island and
that they gave us until the sunset to leave.

Father Augustino tried again to approach this wicked Gabriel, alone and
in secret, but he was caught and beaten, and he even risked being killed
by Gabriel. Therefore at evening we boarded our two boats where we had
loaded all the sacred furnishings; we set fire to the house and the
church we had to abandon, so that they could not be debased by those
perverted beings. (omission)"


It is really interesting to see the different appreciation of the
English Lord and of the Spanish Jesuit. Possibly the first one had had
less time to understand the sexuality of the Kea tribe, and didn't
understand the real reason for the separation of the two sexes.

Also this second relation corresponds almost exactly to our story. Where
it is different is where it tells of a union only once a year to
procreate, whilst in the story it is said it happened at the new moon,
that is about thirteen times in one year. But almost surely the
explanation of this difference is simple - each man and each woman in
average could be chosen by lot once in one year or even less than that.

The name of the tribe, following the Jesuit Father's writing, is
"Puerokea". Kea corresponds, and we can infer that the first part of the
word, that is "puero" is just a deformation of the Spanish term "pueblo"
entered so in the hybrid Kea language. Therefore, if this hypothesis is
correct, it is exactly "El Pueblo Kea" that is the "Kea People" (even if
in the story the term "tribe" is used).

Since he had he found enough elements from the documentation to confirm
the historical background of the story of the Kea tribe, Chris Werner
decided to try to single out the island where the tribe was living in
the hope of finding the descendants of the tribe.

But his search was useless. In fact he found documentation stating that,
in 1807, in the smaller islands of the Hawaii group, there was a
volcanic eruption that united two small islands giving birth so to the
island now known as Kauai. It doesn't seem to us at all casual that the
pronunciation of Kauai is so close to that of Kawaai of the story, and
it cannot be just coincidence that the disappearance, or to better said,
the upsetting and union of the two preceding islands happened in 1807,
that is exactly sixteen years before the drafting of Tim Werner's story
(written in 1823). And that the Polynesian lover of Tim Werner came from
Ohau island, near Kauai island. The Polynesian man in 1823 was
twenty-nine years old; therefore at the time of the volcanic eruption,
he was thirteen.

What could have happened, therefore?

The rise of a new volcano from under the sea so radically changed the
two existing islands making them just one, and must have destroyed the
two villages in Kawaai and in Islakea, but at least some of the members
of the Kea tribe must have fled safely and found shelter in the not so
far island of Ohau. Tim Werner's lover was almost for sure one of these
survivors.

Another fact that corroborates this thesis is the name of the young
Polynesian - Tialelo. This name doesn't exist amongst the Hawaiian
populations, but it is shaped with three syllables derived from the
names of the "founding fathers" of the Kea Tribe that we meet in the
story, that is Santiago, Muleto and Celo or Vilo or Mazuelo. In fact we
see in the story that when a novice of the "new generation" comes of
age, he chooses a name taking a syllable from the names of three adults
he most admired. And even if at the beginning of the '800 all the
founder fathers were of course dead, the syllables of their names
survived intact in the names of their descendants.

It could be curious that Tialelo didn't narrate the end of his tribe,
but perhaps this was more the choice of Tim Werner. He possibly decided
to end his story with a flourish, a good ending, more than with a
tragedy that some detractor of gay love could easily assimilate to the
destruction of Sodom. Even if here the "Lot" who escapes is Tialelo, a
gay man.

This is all that results from the notes and documents of Chris Werner
about the research he carried out between 1888 and 1906.

Chris Werner passed away in New York on March 23rd 1927. The casket
containing both Tim Werner's papers and the fruit of Chris Werner's
research, passed to the hands of his lover, Kevin Ladd, who died in
1941. At his death, his niece, Melissa Williams Ladd inherited the
casket; luckily she conserved it, and in 1957 sold it to a wealthy gay
industrialist in Seattle, Michael Grant, famous for his precious
collection of ancient documents on male homosexuality. We don't know how
Michael Grant came to know about the existence of the casket and how he
managed to buy it. His only note about this purchase reads:

"September 14th, 1957. Concluded purchase of Werner's papers. Paid 106
dollars in cash, after verifying the content." and the list of previous
owners follows, possibly directly as told by Melissa Williams Ladd.

Michael Grant left in his testament all his precious collection to the
"American Gay Task Force" association of New York, who received all the
material in 1972, three years after Michael Grant's death. In the "AGTF"
archives there still exists the original of this story and of Chris
Werner's manuscripts. All the documentary material was transferred to
microfilm in 1986, to make it accessible to researchers, and a catalogue
was then published.

We asked for copies of some microfilms that seemed interesting, and
amongst them were those of the "Werner casket", so we decided to publish
this story.

We thank very much the AGTF of New York for having granted us the
publication rights, and also Andrej Koymasky who executed, with skill
and patience, the transcription of the manuscripts and the translations
from Spanish and Latin.

The Publisher.

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THE END

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In my home page I've put some of my stories. If someone wants to read
them, the URL is

http://www.geocities.com/~andrejkoymasky

If you want to send me feedback, you can send an e-mail at:

andrejkoymasky@geocities.com

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