TALES OF THE TIKONGS by Epeli...

TALES OF THE TIKONGS by Epeli Hau’oa (University of Hawaii Press: $9.95; 93 pp., paperback original). Development with a capital D threatens to engulf the imaginary Polynesian island of Tiko in these darkly sardonic tales. British colonial policies and Sabbatarian missionaries have eroded the traditional customs of the Tikongs. But Hau’oa’s characters play the game by their own time-sanctioned rules, much to the consternation of the Westerners with silly notions of efficiency, morality and progress: “The Lord moves one way, followed by Christians everywhere, and Tiko goes in the opposite direction, all on its own.”