WILLIAM PUSHED BACK his chair from the mahogany table, stretched his arms and yawned. He was tired after a morning spent transcribing tapes of his interviews with amputees and cross-referencing witness statements. He got up and wandered out onto the veranda. The ocean was unusually calm, unlike his mind which was hyperactive with dates and injury assessments and locations. He needed something to take it off the work for a while. He cursed himself for not bringing a book, other than law books. He thought about borrowing one from Managua, or going to see Lucy but either course of action would mean he’d get no work done this afternoon. The thought of Lucy reminded him of the manuscript she’d given him and he went and found it under the mound of papers on the working, that is the non-sleeping, end of his table. He gathered up the bundle, returned to the veranda and sat down with his back against the wall of the hotel, selected a page at random and began to read:
As you might expect, in a matrilineal society women are more highly valued. It is through women that wealth and status are accrued. A woman passes her wealth to her children, a man leaves his property to his nearest blood relations, namely his sister’s children. During his lifetime it is his duty to supply these nephews and nieces (but not, of course, those who are the children of his brothers) with yams and any material things they might have need of. This takes precedence over providing for his wife’s children, since, by the natives’ lights, these are not his own. When a man is looking for a wife, the best partner is a woman who has no sisters but four or five brothers. Her children will be supplied with many yams and other things. On the other hand a girl who is one of five sisters and who has only one or perhaps no brother at all, means the children he moulds and comes to love will grow up in poverty.
Since females are the conduit of wealth it therefore follows that girl children are more prized than boys, for it is girls who will continue the family line and the accumulation of property. One result of this is that it is considered a great misfortune, a tragedy almost, for a woman to have no daughters. A woman will hang her head in shame as she confesses to you that she has five fine strapping sons but no girl child. Out of this has been born a desperate emotional longing among the island women for daughters. Here must lie the origin of the phenomenon of the so-called she-boys. It is the custom that if a woman produces a number of boy children but no girl, and reaches the stage where she believes she is incapable of giving birth again, then the last boy to be born is raised as a girl. His hair will not be cut and as soon as he is old enough to wear clothes he is put into a grass skirt. Instead of being raised to manly pursuits, the she-boy is educated as a girl and expected to wash clothes, clean the hut, sew, search for turtle eggs and tend the garden while others of his true sex learn to fish, to build huts and dig bamboo pits for bantam pigs. When the she-boys reach adolescence they, like real girls, are excluded from playing poto or entering the kassa house.
Because the natives generally marry young and take no steps to limit their families, there are few she-boys. Most women keep on having babies until they produce a girl. Even when this does not happen, if a daughterless woman has a sister who has a number of girls, it is common for her to adopt a niece. Only if this is not possible will she resort to making her youngest son into a girl.
There is of course no economic benefit to the mother of a she-boy. The motivation is purely emotional to satisfy the maternal longing that has over the centuries evolved from practical and social considerations.
She-boys are spoken to and of as girls and treated almost exactly as if they were female. The only exception to this is that they do not appear naked before girls when the latter go swimming because it is taboo for members of one sex to display their genitals to those of the other. Likewise the she-boys do not strip off before other boys; the fiction that they are girls is here maintained and, of course, it is taboo for girls to disrobe before boys. The she-boys have a specially segregated part of the shitting beach to themselves between those set aside for men and women, so that neither can see them naked, and this may be considered as symbolic of their in-between status.
Of course there is one occasion on which boys and girls see one another naked and that is during one-to-one sex. But there is a strict taboo against homosexuality and because of this the she-boys are condemned to celibacy while all their young peers are indulging themselves freely. As they are dressed as girls and considered girls, it is taboo for them to make love to other girls. But of course they cannot make love to boys like true girls since that too would constitute homosexuality.
There are at present three she-boy adolescents in the main village. When I asked them how they felt about not being able to make fug-a-fug I received differing reactions from each of them. Sussua, the quiet one, blushed and giggled. Tigua, always willing to talk, shrugged and said, ‘Miss Lucy, we is know from time we is be little girl this is not be for we yet. Is be something we is not concern we with.’ I couldn’t have said why at the time but this strong denial of any interest filled me with great sadness.
At this, Lintoa rolled his eyes and said, ‘Huh, you is speak for youself. Is be damn stupid custom. I is be flesh and blood like any other boy—’
At the word boy there was a sharp intake of breath from Tigua which earned him a scowl from Lintoa, who went on, ‘– like any other boy. I is tell you when I is become boy I is go make fug-a-fug all day and all night for one year. Is be no-one is be able for stop me.’
I expected some comment upon this from Tigua, some reference to what he might do in the future but he merely looked at the ground and said nothing. Later of course I realized why I had felt so saddened by his acceptance of celibacy: in his case it may be permanent, because it is as plain as a pikestaff that he adores Lintoa and, with the taboos against homosexuality, not to mention Lintoa’s fierce devotion to heterosexuality, how can Tigua’s passion ever be consummated?
I asked him how he managed now and said I presumed that in an atmosphere of so much sexual activity they must indulge in self-pleasure, which brought such strenuous denials and guilty looks that I felt like a Victorian school-marm. Masturbation is not taboo, but is seen as a perversion. With sexual intercourse so freely available why would someone want to play with themselves? It is regarded as something only someone soft in the head would want to do, is derided, rather than condemned, and never, ever, admitted to.
When a she-boy reaches maturity, that is adulthood, which is at around the age of eighteen, he is allowed to choose his sex. Nearly all decide to revert to their natural sex as is shown by the absence of any older she-boys in the village, although I understand that until shortly before my arrival here there existed a she-boy of some eighty years old, a man who continued to wear a grass skirt and took his place among the other old women of the village, sitting and gossiping around the fire with them and greatly revered for his knowledge of herbal remedies and ancient recipes.
I will have departed the island before the present crop of older she-boys reaches choosing age. Should I ever have cause to return in later years, which is more than likely if the present work attracts the attention I expect when it is published, it will be interesting to discover what choices were made. Somehow I cannot imagine Tigua in a pubic leaf; the very idea seems somewhat indecent. And yet, equally, I cannot imagine him without Lintoa as his constant companion. It is very difficult to foresee what will become of this funny little boy.
William’s cheeks were on fire as he lowered the manuscript. He was burning up with embarrassment and shame. How could he have been so stupid? So blind? How could he not have noticed what should have been so obvious to anyone with half a brain, that these three hefty girls were young men in drag?
And why hadn’t Lucy told him? Why had she permitted him to be hauled around the jungle by these three transvestites? Why hadn’t she corrected him when she heard him call them things like ‘My dear’?
She’d allowed him to make a laughing stock of himself. He’d thought he had her confidence, but this proved him wrong. And if he didn’t have it in this, where else might it be lacking? He went inside, pulled on his boots and hurried to the village. As luck would have it the first people he came across were Tigua and Lintoa who were sitting on a fallen tree trunk sewing grass skirts. Lintoa’s face wore its all-too-familiar scowl.
‘These stitches is be one big sow for get right,’ he muttered to Tigua, not even looking up at William. ‘My fingers is be too big for damn needle.’
‘You is just be damn hopeless for sew,’ replied the smaller she-boy. ‘You is not listen when you mamu is teach you, that is be truth of matter.’
William coughed. Both she-boys looked up. Lintoa’s face cracked open into a smile. ‘Ah, gwanga! I is be plenty pleased for see you. I is need good reason for stop this game.’ He tossed the grass skirt to one side and brushed pieces of loose grass from his pink dress.
‘You’re boys,’ said William. He couldn’t keep a certain note of anger out of his voice.
Their heads jerked up in surprise and they stared at him for a moment before replying.
‘Yes,’ said Lintoa.
‘No,’ said Tigua.
‘You’re she-boys,’ said William. ‘You’re boys who dress as girls.’
‘You is see,’ said Lintoa, turning to Tigua, ‘I is tell you. I is be mean for be boy. This man is come here from America. He is know nothing of stupid custom. But truth is be obvious. He is can see I is be boy.’
‘He is be here two weeks and is not see until now. Is call you “my dear” in jungle. Is offer for find me pink boots.’
William smarted at the memory of that day. The deference he had shown them. The delicacy with which he’d averted his eyes when they popped behind a tree to relieve themselves. How could Lucy have put him through that?
‘Why didn’t you tell me you were boys?’ he demanded.
‘You is not ask,’ said Tigua. She – he – gave William his cheekiest smile. ‘Besides, I is not be boy. I is be girl.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said William.
‘OK, so you is see boy wear cocktail dress like this? Boy is walk around in bra? Boy is have high-heel shoes? You is go tell me that?’
‘That doesn’t make you a girl!’
‘If is not make me girl I is not know what is make me,’ replied Tigua.
‘It’s what’s underneath the dress that counts. You have a – a – what do you call it—’ he was struggling to recall the manuscript, ‘a – a pwili.’
‘Is be small point,’ said Tigua.
‘Is be very small point in you case,’ said Lintoa. Tigua fetched him one round the ear. Lintoa took it good-naturedly.
‘I’d say it was the whole point,’ said William. ‘I’d say having a pwili made you a boy.’
‘You is be right,’ said Lintoa eagerly. ‘I is tell she that for years. You is hear that, Tigua? Gwanga is say just what I is always tell you.’
William left them arguing. There was no point in blaming them for his myopia. But Lucy was a different matter. He found her bathing in a small lagoon near her house. ‘Come on in, the water’s lovely!’ she called when she saw him. It was a tempting prospect. Through the clear water he could see she was naked. But he was too angry to accept the invitation.
‘Tigua and Lintoa are boys!’ he shouted from the pool side.
‘I know!’ she replied. The answer made him even angrier.
‘But why didn’t you tell me?’
She paddled slowly towards where he stood. She smiled cheekily at him. ‘You didn’t ask.’
‘You’ve made such a fool of me, letting me go off in the jungle with a couple of transvestites. The goddam mosquito bites have only just stopped hurting. And afterwards, you could have tipped me off then.’
‘I gave you my book. It’s not my fault you didn’t read it.’
William bit his lip. That much was true. ‘I feel such an idiot,’ he muttered.
‘Think you need an anatomy lesson,’ said Lucy splashing water up at him. ‘Why don’t you get your things off and jump in here and I’ll see what I can do.’
As William began to unbutton his shirt he had a sudden realization that he was allowing Lucy to buy off his anger. He felt he was being manipulated but he could not have said how or why. When he plunged into the water he could not help but shiver, for it was unexpectedly cold.