Hideo Furukawa - Belka, Why Don't You Bark?

It never occurred to you that it was all on account of the battleships that sank there that three Japanese military dogs and one American military dog had been thrown together on the Aleutian Islands, in the Arctic regions of the Pacific.

You were near the middle of the Pacific now.

And all you thought, there on an island located at the twenty-first parallel north, was HOW BEAUTIFUL THE OCEAN IS.

You liked the sea.

You liked the beach.

You were always frolicking at the water’s edge.

In April, something changed in your family. It emerged that the young beagle was pregnant. She had been knocked up somewhere, probably in that holy land of doggie free sex: the leash-less park. In May, the beagle gave birth to four healthy pups. And you, Goodnight, found the sight incredibly moving. You had never had puppies of your own, but still you found the little ones irresistible. You helped the beagle raise them, as if you and she were sisters, maybe cousins. Naturally, you were careful not to go too far, to do anything that would be too much for their mother. But they were adorable! Your maternal instincts cried out within you: HOW CUTE! HOW ADORABLE!

Beagle puppies milling about their beagle mother’s teats.

You couldn’t nurse them yourself since you had no milk, but you were enthralled.

When you weren’t helping to look after the puppies, you played on the beach. In July, you discovered something unusual on the one you frequented most often. A boat. A double canoe. It had two masts, two sails, and it was a little less than twenty meters long. It was totally different from an ordinary canoe.

Humans, both haole and pure Hawaiians, had clustered around the double vessel and were learning how to operate it. They came back the next day and the day after that, and since the beach had essentially become part of your territory, you watched them as they worked. You mingled with the people, wandering among them. When a man patted you on the head, you licked his hand. Good dog, he said. Good dog, they said, again and again. They remembered you, just as you had remembered them.

“You know what I heard,” one haole announced to the party in English. “Seems this guy was a military dog! Heard it from his owner. Could have knocked me over with a feather! He’s got two medals. Real medals! He had a showdown with a spy, and the spy shot him, and he didn’t even flinch. Incredible, huh?”

Wow! Cool! the humans cried. In recognition of your distinguished career, they let you onto the boat. The view from there was amazing. You stood at the prow.

The people could see you liked it.

Then one day in September, one of the crew members, excited, called out, “C’mon, girl!” He was inviting you to accompany them on a short practice sail, just forty or fifty minutes. The time had come. Woof! you barked. And you jumped up with them.

You weren’t at all afraid.

Indeed, you were excited to see another face of the sea.

You didn’t get seasick.

The peculiar double canoe was the embodiment of a dream. An embodiment of the thrill of the Hawaiian renaissance and its effort to revive ancient Hawaiian culture. The West had its first encounter with the Hawaiian Islands in 1778 when the explorer James Cook landed there in the course of one of his voyages, and from that point people puzzled over the question of how humans could possibly have reached the islands, which were completely isolated—set down plop in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, near no continent. And when Cook arrived, the Hawaiians didn’t have the technology necessary to set out on long trips across the sea. What they had was a legend, an old chant that said, “Our ancestors came from Tahiti.”

Tahiti was south of the equator.

Far, far away, in the South Pacific.

Could this be true?

A group of people decided to try and find out. Decided to demonstrate that before it was polluted and degraded by the influx of Western civilization, in its very earliest years, Hawaii had possessed a sophisticated culture of its own. The Polynesian Voyaging Society was founded in Hawaii in 1973. Its goal was to build a replica of a prehistoric Hawaiian voyaging canoe, and to sail it all the way to Tahiti. The project was intended as a sort of experimental archaeology. It was also an adventure. They would set out for the South Pacific relying only on ancient navigation techniques, reading the position of the constellations, the wind, the tides.

In Hawaii, the Polynesian Voyaging Society project was made part of the US’s bicentennial celebrations.

The boat you rode on its trial run, Goodnight, was not, however, the replica the Polynesian Voyaging Society had created.

It was a replica of the replica.

Secretly built in California, it had been transported to Oahu in July. The humans had gotten into a dispute. Since the techniques for navigating long sea voyages had not survived in Hawaii, a Micronesian—a man from Satawal, an atoll of the Central Caroline Islands—had been brought in to steer the vessel. There was a faction who disapproved. The first project was being led by a California-born surfer and professor of anthropology, but he had a competitor: a researcher who was jealous of him. Who was, in addition, a wealthy brat. At the same time, another navigator turned up asking to be chosen. He was a Polynesian from Rarotonga, one of the Cook Islands, and all he wanted was the fame.

Thus, a group of people angry with the Polynesian Voyaging Society made up their minds to break away, to try and beat the original adventurers at their own game.

Indeed, the wealthy researcher decided that he would go a step further and outdo the professor who made him insanely jealous. To crush him once and for all. Long ago, when the first sea voyagers immigrated en masse to Hawaii, they had taken twenty or thirty plant species along with them for cultivation. They had also taken pigs, intentionally, and rats, unintentionally. And chickens. And dogs.

At the time, the oldest dog fossils that had been unearthed on the Hawaiian Islands dated from sixteen hundred years earlier.

That was exactly when the ancient Polynesians were thought to have immigrated.

Well then, why not include that element in the experiment—in this essay in experimental archaeology? That would really prove that it could be done!

Yes, the wealthy researcher thought, stunned by the brilliance of his idea. A dog .

Hey, dog!

This time you didn’t bark in response to the call, you just cocked your head.

The wealthy researcher was moved, now, by the engine of his ambition. He knew a dog that wouldn’t be afraid to cross the sea in a canoe. And the dog was a strong, healthy, purebred German shepherd. And it had gotten friendly with everyone on the project, the entire crew. And… and…

Your owner immediately agreed to let him have you. The negotiations occurred in October. “Are you serious? That’s quite a promotion,” the former lieutenant said. “He’s really going to be an important player in this project, part of the great Hawaiian Renaissance?” The researcher assured him you would with a terse, “He will have that honor.” And that was all it took to sell the former lieutenant. “Oh my god! Oh my god oh my god I can’t believe it!” he yelled. “The honor! The glory! I was a military man, you know, and so was she! Well, she was a military dog. Honor above everything! Right? Isn’t that right, girl?” he asked you. “Besides, she really likes to go out and enjoy the ocean. I’m sure she’ll love it, I’m happy to let her go. What an adventure! Go out and bring us something back to show for it!” he told you. “A third medal! You know what I’m saying? You understand?”

Though your master didn’t mention this, his family had grown too large. There were too many of you. The beagle’s pregnancy had been entirely unexpected, and in the past six months the four puppies had grown almost into adult dogs. The family had been unable to find anyone to take them. That, ultimately, was what mattered. You were a burden, so he got rid of you. He didn’t have to feel guilty, and he got a $500 reward to boot.