Call It Courage by Armstrong Sperry

First published: 1940; illustrated

Type of work: Adventure tale

Themes: Coming-of-age, nature, and emotions

Time of work: Ancient times, before the traders and missionaries came

Recommended Ages: 10-13

Locale: The South Seas of the Pacific

Principal Characters:

• Mafatu, whose name means Stout Heart, a fifteen-year-old Polynesian boy and the son of Tavana Nui, the great chief
• Uri, a small yellow dog, Mafatu’s constant companion
• Kivi, an albatross with a defective leg, whom Mafatu has befriended in the past

The Story

Written in the guise of an ancient Polynesian legend, Call It Courage is the story of Mafatu, the Boy Who Was Afraid. Mafatu, the fifteen-year-old son of the island chief, has feared the sea ever since he was three, when he nearly died in the hurricane that caused his mother’s death. The people of the island of Hikueru treat Mafatu, whose name ironically means Stout Heart, with indifference and scorn for his cowardice, because the sea is a necessity for their survival.

Shamed by the contempt of the others and particularly his father’s silence, Mafatu sets out to challenge the sea in a small outrigger canoe with his only companions, his small dog Uri and the albatross Kivi, leading the way overhead. Alone in the ominous and oppressive world of Moana, the sea god, Mafatu barely survives a violent storm in which he loses his boat’s sail and mast, his provisions, and even his clothes. Eventually, an ocean current, the Ara Moana, carries the boy and small dog, helpless in the hull of the boat, to a strange, new island, where Mafatu barely manages to crawl to shore. On the island Mafatu finds abundant food and materials for shelter and weapons, but he also discovers on the opposite side of the island an ancient and sinister shrine, where human sacrifices apparently still occur.

Mafatu’s time on the island demonstrates his resourcefulness and also shows that his time learning crafts and doing chores in his village was well spent. Everything that is necessary for survival he makes for himself: fire, shelter, fishing tools, weapons. He even builds himself a new canoe.

Three exciting and dangerous encounters give Mafatu the opportunity to test his courage. He saves Uri from the jaws of a hungry shark; he stands his ground in the attack of a wild boar; and he battles a giant octopus in order to retrieve his most essential weapon, his knife, from the bottom of the lagoon. At last, confident of his courage, Mafatu makes final preparations for his voyage home the next day. That night, the sound of drums awakens him. Stealing back to the forbidden shrine, he finds that the cannibals have returned for their terrible ritual. Mafatu, seen and chased by the savages, flees back to his canoe, and he and Uri narrowly escape. For nearly two days, Mafatu is pursued by the savages in their war canoes, but they finally turn back.

Again, Mafatu finds himself and Uri alone on the ocean. For days he is becalmed and eventually runs out of food and water. Moana has seemingly won. Yet Mafatu’s defeat turns into triumph when he realizes that he is able to laugh in the face of Moana. He realizes that he can die, but he cannot be defeated. At that moment, looking across at the horizon, he sees the reflection of his island in the sky and Kivi the albatross guiding him home.

As the people on the beach of Hikueru watch, a thin but straight figure, with courage blazing from his eyes, wearing a necklace of boar’s teeth and carrying a spear, disembarks from a small canoe.

Context

Call It Courage is Armstrong Sperry’s best-known and most accomplished children’s book, winning in 1941 the John Newbery Medal given by the American Library Association for the most distinguished contribution to literature for children. It is unique among his writings. Even though Sperry used the sea as a setting in many of his other books, they are adventure tales of more modern eras such as Black Falcon (1949), set during the War of 1812, and Hull-Down for Action (1945), set during World War II. The main character, usually a young American, in these stories is still faced with an obstacle to overcome and a testing of his courage, as was Mafatu in Call It Courage. In his other books, however, Sperry gives the reader less well-defined characters, conventional villains, and plots that are more standard adventure fare.

Call It Courage, with its simple and direct folklore style and cadenced phrasing, has a timeless quality that Sperry’s other works lack. Sperry’s use of native Polynesian words and songs adds to this effect. The book has been compared to the hero legends in which the hero must leave his homeland and go forth on a quest that will prove his manhood. Mafatu, like the legendary hero, leaves on a quest, goes through a series of tests, and returns home triumphantly. The survival theme in Call It Courage is similar to Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719), though Mafatu is an untried boy compared to the mature adult of Crusoe. In this respect, it has also been compared to Scott O’Dell’s The Island of the Blue Dolphins (1960), in which a young Indian girl must survive alone on an island.

On another level, Call It Courage has been viewed as an allegory of puberty. Mafatu must face many trials before being accepted as an adult. His fear of the sea may represent a fear of the future, the unknown, and this concept of the sea as an elemental force against which man struggles is a theme seen in many other works of literature. The archetypal character of Call It Courage in terms of its theme of initiation into manhood has contributed to its enduring popularity with children.