The Pacific commercial advertiser., 1900-12-12
Tahitian Here Who
Walks Amid
Fire.
WHAT PAPA TIA
SAYS HE WILL DO
Aged Islander Comes To Put the
Hawaiian Magic To
Shame.

well to their laurels, to see that |
u their honors be not snatched |
from them, for from Tahiti, across the
sea, has come an aged sorcerer with |
a new kind Of magic, afid yet not new,
for the mystic secret of Papa tia has
fathers.
1t is a secret, Papa tia says, that
was wrested from nature hundreds OF
years ago by his ancestors, and which
has been held sacred by his ancient
forefathers through the cycles of time,
to be given from father to son as a
precious heritage, through an honored
line of the chosen few.
Papa Ita is the last of the chosen
few, and he is bartering the secret for
the price of his daily pottage. This
is how it happens that the old man,
bent under his weight of three score
years, and Drowned to a ten-fold
browner tinge than the day he was
born by the suns of sixty Tahitan
Summers, will defy the elements and
lset aside the laws of nature in public
Exhibition for the benefit of Honolulu
Icitizens sometime during the coming
week
In some available plot within the
limits of the city, large enough that
ordinary mortals who go to see may
not be scorched and blistered by the
heat of the great oven, Papa TIA will
+ so he says-prepare mound of
stones, heat them to a fierce white
, heat. and walk barefoot and unharmed
, across them. .na- -
For hours before the exhibition
fierce flames will be leaping upward
' through the stones, curling aroun]
them, and filing them full of living
|; fire. Papa tia and his assistants will
n Ipile the mound high with sticks anG
! brush and continue to feed the flame.
with fuel until the stones burn whitt
hot, then the embers will be removed
and Papa tia will do that which viii
make the kahunas tremble for thei
,e power.
y With wand of the sacred ii lea
the aged sorcerer will summon hi
= spirits, and with the chants of incan
a tation implore their assistance, an,
' when they are willing he will set hi
unprotected feet upon the heate
stones and walk across the living fire
Papa tia says he has no fear, for h
has done it many, times, and were h
. to slip or fall, his body in the hand
: of the spirits, would suffer no burn
: He intends to make many demonstra
: tions, and to give public exhibition
!: throughout the United States, and
3 confident that the spirits that com
Z at his bidding will not forsake him a
2 any time.
!. The miracle of the fiery furnace c
3 Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego
9 to be repeated within the gates of ou
Z city, and at the portals of the twen
!: tieth century, if what Papa Ita tells
J. true. The sacred ii leaf his sole pre-
Z lection, the old man will walk tn
= heated gamut with his barred feet, nc
s suffer burn nor blister. Those VIII
3 have grown skeptical and lost faith i
q the mystic powers of sorcery will fin
: chance to test the strength of the
: skepticism. And when they see
J. done, Papa TIA says, if they are su.
= picious of trickery, he will stand fo
). half hour in the center OF the ful
!. mace, and show no sign of tremor {
-
= Papa Ita holds that it is not so MOI
= strous a thing to have become masts
:. of fire. He holds that it is the veal
g est of the elements, that the wind ma
:. blow it out, the earth can smother i
:. and water quenches it. Why, the
= may not man, if he be Taihitian, wit
!: the heritage of the mystic secret, q
3 as he will with it and subdue it /;
e we'll?
:. Whatever the aged mans means
:. science, it is certain that the exhib
.s tion cannot fail to be interesting. c
- the island of Huahine, in the Tahitis
= group, from which he comes, there a
8. two others possessed of the secre
2. eighty and ninety years old, respec
z: lively. They are both too old and d
2. crepit to travel about, and their exh
- bitions are confined to the limits
- the islands. The old man of sixty, Il
:. infant of the mystic trio, in consider
q tion of his youth and vitality, has bet
:. sent abroad to make the demonstr
9. tions. When his final arrangement
{: are made, when his fire has blaz
% high, and when the mound OF ston
- bava heen heated glowing whit