Throughout the day, the strangers were near us or among us. Some of them spent the day filling their barrels with water or hunting for wild pigs and fowl. Others repaired sails on the beach. Their medicine man collected plants and examined our tattoos. Otahu had warned us to keep our distance, and this most of us did, although we kept a watchful eye on them. I helped prepare the feast, but I was watching as often as I could all the same. Whether from near or from afar, we drank in their presence, we studied their strangeness, we observed everything we could about them, noting every last detail, so that, when they were gone, we might feast on our memories of them. Several among us approached them, especially the children, especially you. You helped them wheel their barrels to and from the stream. You helped point them in the direction of the pigs and the fowl.

The feast was held after nightfall, in the glow of a full moon, in a clearing within earshot of the water. Two great fires burned for light. Otahu wore his ritual cloak of carmine feathers and Fetu wore his ritual cloak of white feathers. They sat side by side. I sat by Fetu’s side, as his favorite. A score of the most senior of the people sat in the circle—I was the youngest—and about ten of the strangers. Others stood or sat nearby, watching the proceedings or talking among themselves. Then everyone in the circle was served kava, which caused the strangers, upon drinking the liquid, to grimace with such distaste that we laughed. Otahu made a speech, extolling the virtues of the strangers, and the honor they did us with their visit. Then you stepped into the circle and stood between the two fires. The front half of your body was painted with white stripes and adorned with clusters of white albatross feathers. The back half of your body was streaked with lines of gray and clusters of gray albatross feathers. Slowly you spread your arms and, singing the songs that went with it, you began to perform our most sacred dance, the dance that related how our people had come into being: the Dance of the Albatross.