The tiny tropical island of Mauke is about as far as you can get from the rest of the world and about as close as you can get to paradise. It is a speck in the South Pacific, four miles long by two miles wide, fringed with windswept palms and ancient coral limestone reefs. Mauke is one of the Cook Islands, named for James Cook, the eighteenth-century British navigator who explored them. Its only connection to the outside world is a thrice-weekly plane from Rarotonga, the largest island of the group,
100 miles away. Almost all of Mauke’s 600 inhabitants are Polynesian. They fish the local waters, cultivate taro, banana, and breadfruit, and grow cash crops such as mango for export to New Zealand. On Sundays they congregate in their missionary-built churches for exuberant Maori celebrations of singing.
But there are less friendly residents on the island. One is a ...
