THE SUBLIMATED, SAVAGE FIJIANS
1
Fiji is to the Pacific what the eye is to the needle. Swift as are the
vessels which thread the largest ocean on earth, travelers who do more
than pass through Fiji on their way between America and the Antipodes
are few. Yet the years have woven more than a mere patchwork of romance
round these islands. In climate they are considered the most healthful
of the South Sea groups, though socially and from the point of view of
our civilization they do not occupy the same place in our sentiments as
do Samoa, Tahiti, the Marquesas, and the Sandwich Islands. Largely, I
suppose, because of the ethnological accident that planted there a race
of people that is farther from Europeans than the Polynesians. The
Fijians are Melanesians, a negroid people said by some to be a
"sub-branch" of the Polynesians. They have been slightly mixed through
their contact with the Tongans and the Samoans, but they are not
definitely related to either and full mixture is unlikely.
A century ago a number of Australian convicts escaped to Fiji. They
brought to these savage cannibal islanders all the viciousness and
arrogance of their type, and imposed themselves upon the primitive
natives. The effect was not conducive of the best relations between
white people and natives, nor did it have an elevating influence upon
the latter. However, despite their cannibalism and their unwillingness
to yield to the influence of our benign civilization, the Fijians are a
people in many ways superior to both the Polynesians east of them and
the true Melanesians or Papuans to the west. They are more moral; they
are cleanly; their women occupy a better position in relation to their
men; and in character and skill they are superior to their neighbors. I
was impressed with this dignity of the Fijians, conscious and
unconscious, from the time I first laid eyes on them. I felt that,
notwithstanding all that was said about them, here was a people that
stood aloof from mere imitation.
Yet such is the nature of reputation that when I announced my intention
of breaking my journey from Honolulu to Australia at Fiji, my
fellow-passengers were inclined to commiserate with me. They wondered
how one with no special purposes--that is, without a job--could risk
cutting loose from his iron moorings in these savage isles. Had they not
read in their school geographies of jungles and savages all mixed and
wild, with mocking natives grinning at you from behind bamboo-trees,
living expectations of a juicy dinner? They warned me about dengue
fever; they extolled the virtues of the Fijian maidens, and exaggerated
the vices of the Fijian men. The word "cannibals" howled round my head
as the impersonal wind had howled round the masts of the steamer one
night. But the adventurer soon learns that there is none so unknowing as
the average globe-trotters (the people who have been there); so he
listens politely and goes his own way.
When, therefore, I got the first real whiff of tropical sweetness, mixed
though it was with copra and mold, all other considerations vanished.
From the cool heights the hills looked down in pity upon the little
village of Suva as it lay prostrate beneath the sun. If there was any
movement to be seen, it was upon the lapping waters of the harbor, where
numerous boats swarmed with black-bodied, glossy-skinned natives in that
universal pursuit of life and happiness. As the _Niagara_ sidled up to
the pier and made fast her hawsers, these black fellows rushed upon her
decks and into the holds like so many ants, and what had till then been
inanimate became as though possessed.
2
I had been under the impression that the natives were all lazy, but the
manner of their handling of cargo soon dissipated that notion. Further
to discredit the rumor-mongers, three Fijians staged an attempt to lead
a donkey ashore which would have shamed the most enthusiastic believer
in the practice of counting ten before getting angry and trying three
times before giving up. The Fijian is as indifferent to big as to little
tasks, and seems to be alone, of all the dwellers in the tropics, in
this apathetic attitude toward life. There is none in all the world more
lazy, indolent, and do-nothing than the white man. As soon as he comes
within sight of a native anywhere, that native does his labor for him;
you may count on it.
So it was that with fear and trembling I announced to the stewards that
I had a steamer trunk which I wanted ashore with me. They grunted and
growled as the two of them struggled with it along the gang-plank and
dropped it as Atlas might have been expected to drop the earth, and
stood there with a contemptuous look of expectation. I took out two
half-dollars and handed one to each. The sneer that formed under their
noses was well practised, I could see, and they took great pains to
inform me that they were no niggers, they would not take the trunk
another foot. There it was. I was lost, scorned, and humiliated. Why did
I have so much worldly goods to worry about? Just then a portly Fijian
stepped up. Beside him I felt puny, doubly humble now. Before I had time
to decide whether or not he was going to pick me up by the nape of the
neck and carry me off to a feast, he took my trunk instead. Though it
weighed fully a hundred and sixty-five pounds, it rose to his
shoulders--up there a foot and a half above me--and the giant strode
along the pier with as little concern as though it were empty. The two
stewards stood looking on with an air of superiority typical of the
white men among colored.
I cannot say that mere brawn ever entitles any man to rank, and that the
white generally substitutes brain for brawn is obvious. But I failed to
see wherein they justified their conceit, for to men of their type the
fist is still the symbol of their ideal, as it is to the majority of
white men. And as I came away from the ship again that afternoon I found
a young steward, a mere lad, standing in a corner crying, his cheek
swollen and red. I asked him what happened. "The steward hit me," he
said, trying to restrain himself from crying. "I thought I was through
and went for my supper so as to get ashore a bit. He came up and asked
me what I was doing. I told him, and he struck me with his fist." Yet
the stewards thought themselves too good to do any labor with black men
about. No ship in a tropical port is manned by the sailors; there they
take a vacation, as it were.
From the customs shed to my hotel the selfsame Fijian carried my trunk
majestically. I felt hopeful that for a time at least I should see the
last of stewards and their ilk. But before I was two days in Suva I
learned that shore stewards are often not any better, and was happy to
get farther inland away from the port for the short time I could afford
to spend in the tropics.
Meanwhile, some of the younger of my fellow-passengers came on shore and
began doing the rounds, into which they inveigled me. From one store to
the other we went, examining the moldy, withered, incomplete stocks of
the traders. Magazines stained brown with age, cheap paper-covered
novels, native strings of beads formed part of the stock in trade. We
soon exhausted Suva.
At the corner of the right angle made by Victoria Parade and the pier
stood a Victoria coach. A horse slept on three legs, in front of it,
and a Hindu sat upon the seat like a hump on an elongated camel. We
roused them from their dozing and began to bargain for their hire. Six
of us climbed into the coach and slowly, as though it were fastened to
the ground, the horse began to move, followed by the driver, the
carriage, and the six of us. For an hour we continued in the direction
in which the three had been standing, along the beach, up a little
knoll, past corrugated-iron-roofed shacks, and down into Suva again; the
horse stopped with the carriage behind him in exactly the same position
in which we had found them, and driver and beast went to sleep again.
Much is heard these days about the effects of the railroad and the
steamer and the wireless telegraph on the unity of the world, but to
those travelers and that Hindu and to the Fijians whom we passed en
route, not even the insertion of our six shillings in the driver's
pocket has, I am sure, as much as left the faintest impression on any of
us except myself. And on me it has left the impression of the utter
inconsequence of most traveling.
Thus Suva, the eye of Fiji and of the needle of the Pacific, is
threaded, but there is nothing to sew. The unexpected never happens.
There are no poets or philosophers, no theaters or cabarets in Suva, as
far as mere eye can see,--nothing but smell of mold and copra (cocoanut
oil).
In Suva one cannot long remain alert. The sun is stupefying. The person
just arrived finds himself stifled by the sharp smells all about him as
though the air were poisoned with too much life. The shaggy green hills,
rugged and wild in the extreme, show even at a distance the struggle
between life and death which moment by moment takes place. Luxuriant as
on the morning of creation, the vegetation seems to be rotting as after
a period of death. In Suva everything smells damp and moldy. You cannot
get away from it. The stores you buy in, the bed you sleep in, the room
you eat in,--all have the same odor. The books in the little library
are eaten full of holes through which the flat bookworms wander as by
right of eminent domain. Offensive to the uninitiated is the smell of
copra. The swarms of Fijians who attack the cargo smell of it and
glisten with it. The boats smell of it and the air is heavy with it. If
copra and mold could be banished from the islands, the impression of
loveliness which is the essence of the South Seas would remain
untainted. Yet to-day, let me but get a whiff of cocoanut-oil from a
drug store and I am immediately transported to the South Seas and my
being goes a-wandering.
3
I seldom dream, but at the moment of waking in strange surroundings
after an unusual run of events my mind rehearses as in a dream the
experiences gained during consciousness. When the knuckles of the
Fijian--and he has knuckles--sounded on my door at seven to announce my
morning tea, I woke with a sense of heaviness, as though submerged in a
world from which I could never again escape. At seven-fifteen another
Fijian came for my laundry; at seven-thirty a third came for my shoes.
Seeing that it was useless to remain in bed longer, I got up. I was not
many minutes on the street before I realized the urgency in those
several early visits. Daylight-saving is an absolute necessity in the
tropics, for by eight or nine one has to endure our noonday sun, and
unless something is accomplished before that time one must perforce wait
till late afternoon for another opportunity. To keep an ordinary coat on
an ordinary back in Suva is like trying to live in a fireless cooker
while angry. Even in the shade one is grateful for white duck instead of
woolens, so before long I had acquired an Irish poplin coat. Yet Fiji is
one of the most healthful of the South Sea islands.
Owing to the heat, most likely--to give the white devils their
due--procrastination is the order of life. "Everything here is 'malua,'"
explained the manager of "The Fiji Times" to me. "No matter what you
want or whom you ask for it, 'wait a bit' will be the process." And he
forthwith demonstrated, quite unconsciously, that he knew whereof he
spoke. I wanted to get some information about the interior which he
might just as easily have given me off-hand, but he asked me to wait a
bit. I did. He left his office, walked all the way up the street with me
to show me a photographer's place where I should be able to get what I
was after, and stood about with me waiting for the photographer to make
up his mind whether he had the time to see me or not. There's no use
rushing anybody. The authorities have been several years trying to get
one of the off streets of Suva paved. It has been "worked on," but the
task, turned to every now and then for half an hour, requires numerous
rest periods.
In Fiji, every one moves adagio. The white man looks on and commands;
the Indian coolie slinks about and slaves; the Fijian works on occasion
but generally passes tasks by with sporty indifference. Yet there is no
absence of life. Beginning with the noise and confusion at the pier,
there is a steady stream of individuals on whom shadows are lost, though
they have nothing on them but their skins and their sulus. The Fijian
idles, allows the Indian to work, happy to be left alone, happy if he
can add a shilling to his possessions,--an old vest, a torn pair of
trousers of any shape, an old coat, or a stiff-bosomed shirt sans coat
or vest or trousers. Tall, mighty, and picturesque, his coiffure the
pride of his life, he watches with a confidence well suited to his
origin and his race the changes going on about him.
Thus, while his island's fruits are being crated and carted off by the
ship-load for foreign consumption, he helps in the process for the mere
privilege of subsidized loafing. All the fun he gets out of trade in the
tropics seems to be the opportunity of swearing at his fellows in
fiji-ized versions of curses taught him by the white man. Or he stands
erect on the flat punt as it comes in from regions unknown, bearing
bananas green from the tree, the very picture of ease and contentment.
Yet one little tug with foreign impertinence tows half a dozen punts,
depriving him even of this element of romance in his life.
Still, there is nothing sullen in his make-up. A dozen
mummy-apples--better than bread to him--tied together with a string,
suffice to make his primitive heart glad. Primitive these people are;
their instincts, never led astray very far by such frills and trappings
as keep us jogging along are none the less human. Unfold your camera and
suggest taking a picture of any one of them and forthwith he straightens
up, transforms his features, and adjusts his loin-cloth; nor will he
forget to brush his hair with his hand. What a strange thing is this
instinct in human nature anywhere in the world which substitutes so much
starch for a slouch the moment one sees a one-eyed box pointing in his
direction! None ever hoped to see a print of himself, but all posed as
though the click of that little shutter were the recipe for perpetual
youth.
The motive is not always one of vanity. Generally, at the sound of the
shutter, a hand shoots out in anticipation of reward. In the tropics it
is no little task to bring oneself together so suddenly, and the effort
should be fully compensated. The expenditure of energy involved in
posing is worthy of remuneration. Nevertheless, vanity is inherent in
this response. The Fijian is a handsome creature, and he knows it. He
knows how to make his hair the envy of the world. "Permanent-wave"
establishments would go out of business here in America if some skilled
Fijian could endure our climate. He would give such permanence to
blondes and brunettes as would cost only twenty-five cents and would
really last. He would not plaster the hair down and cover it with a net
against the least ruffle of the wind. When he got through with it it
would stand straight up in the air, four to six inches long, and would
serve as an insulator against the burning rays of the sun unrivaled
anywhere in the world. While I squinted and slunk in the shade, the
native chose the open highway. Give him a cluster of breadfruit to carry
and a bank messenger with a bag of bullion could not seem more
important.
The Fijians, notwithstanding the fact that they take less to the
sentimental in our civilization than the Samoans, are a fine race. Their
softness of nature is a surprising inversion of their former ferocity.
What one sees of them in Suva helps to fortify one in this conclusion; a
visit farther inland leaves not a shadow of doubt. And pretty as the
harbor is, it is as nothing compared with the loveliness of river and
hills in the interior.
I was making my way to the pier in search of the launch that would take
me up the Rewa River, when a giant Fijian approached me. He spoke
English as few foreign to the tongue can speak it. A coat, a watch, and
a cane--a lordly biped--he did not hesitate to refer to his virtues
proudly. He answered my unspoken question as to his inches by assuring
me he was six feet three in his stocking feet (he wore no stockings) and
was forty-five years old. For a few minutes we chatted amicably about
Fiji and its places of interest. There was never a smug reference to
anything even suggestive of the lascivious--as would have been the case
with a guide in Japan, or Europe--yet he cordially offered to conduct
and protect me through Fijiland. Had I had a billion dollars in gold
upon me I felt that I might have put myself in his care anywhere in the
world. But I was already engaged to go up the Rewa River and could not
hire him. Cordially and generously, as an old friend might have done, he
told me what to look for and bid me have a good time.
4
I took the launch which makes daily trips up the Rewa. The little vessel
was black with natives--outside, inside, everywhere, streaming over to
the pier. It was owned and operated by an Englishman named Message. Even
in the traffic on this river combination threatens individual
enterprise. "The company has several launches. It runs them on schedule
time, stopping only at special stations, regardless of the convenience
to the Fijians. It is trying to force me out of business," said Mr.
Message, a look of troubled defiance in his face. "But I am just as
determined to beat it."
So he operates his launch to suit the natives, winning their good-will
and patronage. It was interesting to see how his method worked. No
better lesson in the instinctive tendency toward coöperation and mutual
aid could be found. He had no white assistant, but every Fijian who
could find room on the launch constituted himself a longshoreman. They
enjoyed playing with the launch. They helped in the work of loading and
unloading one another's petty cargo, such as kerosene, corrugated iron
for roofing (which is everywhere replacing thatch), and odd sticks of
wood. And the jollity that electrified them was a delightful commentary
on this one white man's humanity.
Delight rides at a spirited pace on this river Rewa. The banks are
seldom more than a couple of feet above the water. The launch makes
straight for the shore wherever a Fijian recognizes his hut, and he
scrambles off as best he can. Here and there round the bends natives in
_takias_ (somewhat like outrigger canoes with mat sails, now seldom
used), punts, or rowboats slip by in the twilight.
The sun had set by the time all the little stops had been made between
Suva and Davuilevu, the last stopping-place. Each man, as he stepped
from this little float of modernism, clambered up the bank and
disappeared amid the sugar-cane. What a world of romance and change he
took into the dark-brown hut he calls his own! What news of the world
must he not have brought back with him! A commuter, he had probably gone
in by that morning's launch, in which case he spent three full hours in
"toil" or in the purchase of a sheet of corrugated iron or a tin of oil.
He may have helped himself to a shirt from somebody's clothes-line in
the spare time left him. One thing was certain, there were no chocolates
in his pockets, for he had no pockets, and I saw no young woman holding
a baby in her arms for daddy to greet.
Yet even from a distance one recognized something of family affection.
To enter and examine closely would perhaps have made a difference in my
impressions. I was content with these hazy pictures, to see these
dark-skinned people merge with their brown-thatched huts curtained by
shadows within the cane-fields. When night came on all was dissolved in
shadow, and voices in song rose on the cool air.
5
The Rewa River runs between two antagonistic institutions. At Davuilevu
(the Great Conch-Shell) there is a mission station on one side and a
sugar-mill on the other. Both are deeply affecting the character and
environment of the Fijians, yet the contrast in the results is too
obvious to be overlooked by even the most casual observer.
As I stepped off the boat a young New Zealander whose cousin had come
down with us on the _Niagara_ and whom I had met the day of our arrival
in Suva, came out of a building across the road. He was conducting a
class in carpentry composed of young Fijian students of the mission.
They were so absorbed in their work that they barely noticed me, and the
atmosphere of sober earnestness about the place was thrilling. From
time out of mind the Fijians have been good carpenters, the craft being
passed down from generation to generation within a special caste. Their
shipbuilding has always been superior to that of their neighbors, the
Tongans. It was not to be wondered at, therefore, that the main
department here should be that of wood-turning, and some of the work the
students were doing at the time was exceptionally fine.
The buildings of the mission had all been constructed with native labor
under the direction of the missionaries. They were simply but firmly
built, the absence of architectural richness being due fully as much to
the spirit of the missionaries as to the lack of decorativeness in the
character of the natives.
However, there was something to be found at the mission which was
harshly lacking at the sugar-mill. The students moved about in a
leisurely manner, cleanly and thoughtful; whereas across the river not
only were the buildings of the very crudest possible, but the Hindus and
the Fijians roamed around like sullen, hungry curs always expecting a
kick. Those who were not sullen, were obviously tired, spiritless, and
repressed. Their huts were set close to one another in rows, whereas the
mission buildings range over the hills. The crowding at the mill, upon
such vast open spaces, gave the little village all the faults of a
tenement district. Racial clannishness seems to require even closer
touch where space is wide. The very expanse of the world seems to
intensify the fear of loneliness, so men huddle closer to sense somewhat
of the gregarious delights of over-populated India. But there is also
the squeezing of plantation-owners here at fault, and the total
disregard of the needs of individual employees.
The mill is worked day and night, in season, but it is at night that
one's reactions to it are most impressive. The street lamps, assisted by
a dim glow from within the shacks, the monotonous invocation of prayer
by Indians squatting before the wide-open doors, the tiny kava
"saloons," and the great, giant, grinding, grating sugar-mills crushing
the juice out of the cane and precipitating it (after a chain of
processes) in white dust for sweetening the world, are something never
to be forgotten. The deep, pulsating breath of the mill sounded like the
snore of a sleeping monster. Yet that monstrous mill never sleeps.
The sound did not cease, but rather, became more pronounced after I
returned that night. Deeply imprinted on my memory was the figure of a
sullen-looking Indian at his post--small, wiry, persistent--with the
whirring of machinery all about him, the steaming vats, the broken
sticks of cane being crunched in the maw of the machine. The toilers
sometimes dozed at their tasks. I was told that once an Indian fell into
one of the vats in a moment of dizzy slumber. The cynical informer
insisted that the management would not even stop the process of turning
cane into sugar, and that into the tea-cups of the world was mixed the
substance of that man. My reflection was along different lines,--that
into the sweets of the world we were constantly mixing the souls of men.
6
But unfortunately those who look after the souls of these men at the
mission are apt to forget that they have bodies, too, and that body is
the materialization of desire. There is something wonderful, indeed, in
the sight of men known to have been of the most ferocious of human
creatures going about their daily affairs in an attitude of great
reverence to the things of life. And reverence added to the extreme
shyness of the Fijian is writ large in the manner of every native across
the way from the mill. Sometimes I felt that there was altogether too
much restraint, too much checking of wholesome and healthy impulses
among them for it to be true reverence. That was especially marked on
Sunday morning, when from all the corners of the mission fields gathered
the sturdy black men in the center of the grounds where stood the little
church.
[Illustration: A CORNER OF SUVA, FIJI
The unexpected happened--the cab moved]
[Illustration: FOOD FOR A DAY'S GOSSIP]
[Illustration: THE LONG AND THE SHORT OF IT
My Fijian guides]
[Illustration: A HINDU PATRIARCH
On board the launch going up the Rewa River, with shy Fijians all
about]
They were a sight to behold, altogether too seriously concerned to be
amusing, and to the unbiased the acme of gentleness. There they
were--muscular, huge, erect, and black, their bushy crops of coarse hair
adding six inches to their heads; dressed in sulus neatly tucked away,
and stiff-bosomed white shirts over their bodies. Starched white shirts
in the tropics! And the Bible in Fijian in their hands. In absolute
silence they made their way into the church, the shuffle of their unshod
feet adding intensity to that silence. When they raised their voices in
the hymns it seemed to me that nothing more sincere had ever been sung
in life. But then something occurred which made me wonder.
From the Solomon Islands had come on furlough the Rev. Mr. Ryecroft and
his delicate wife. He was a man of very gentle bearing and great fervor.
He and his plucky wife had suffered much for their convictions. All men
who really believe anything suffer. The missionary is as much anathema
in his field as the anarchist is in America, and is generally as violent
an agent for the disruption of custom. Mr. Ryecroft rose to speak before
the congregation. He spoke in English and was interpreted by the
missionary in charge. He told of his trials in the Solomon Islands, and
appealed for Fijian missionaries to go back with him and save the
blood-thirsty Solomons. I watched the faces of these converted Fijians.
Some of them were intent upon the speaker, repugnance at the cruelties
rehearsed coming over them as at something of which they were more
afraid as a possible revival in themselves than as an objective danger.
Some, however, fell fast asleep, their languid heads drooping to one
side. I am no mind-reader, nor is my observation to be taken for more
than mere guess-work, but I felt that there were two conflicting
thoughts in the minds of the listeners, for while Mr. Ryecroft was
urging them to come arrest brutality in the Solomons there were other
recruiters at work in Fiji for service in Europe. While one told that
the savage Solomon Islanders swooped down upon the missionary compound
and left sixteen dead behind them, in Europe they were leaving a
thousand times as many every day, worse than dead. To whom were they to
listen!
That afternoon Mr. Waterhouse, one of the missionaries, asked me to give
the young men a little talk on my travels, he to interpret for me. I
asked him what he would like to have me tell them and he urged me to
advise them not to give up their lands. I complied, pointing out to them
how quickly they would go under as a race if they did so. The response
was more than compensating.
The outlook is all the more reassuring when you sit of an evening as I
did in the large, carefully woven native house, elliptical in shape,
with thatched roof and soft-matted floors, which serves as a sort of
night school for little tots. The children, who were then rehearsing
some dances for the coming festival, sat on tiers of benches so built
that one child's feet were on a level with the shoulders of the one in
front. Like a palisade of stars their bright eyes glistened with the
reflections of the light from the kerosene lamps hanging on wires from
the rafters. Lolohea Ratu, a girl of twenty, educated in Sydney,
Australia, spoke to them in a plaintive, modulated voice, soft and low.
All Fijian voices are sad, but hers was slightly sadder than most of
them, tinged, it seemed, with knowledge of the world. She had studied
the Montessori method and was trying to train her little brothers and
sisters thereby. But she was not forgetful of what is lovely in her own
race, primitive as it is, and was preparing these children in something
of a compromise between native and foreign dances. Round and round the
room they marched, the overhanging lamps playing pranks with their
shadows. Others sat upon the mats, legs crossed, beating time and
clapping hands in the native fashion. Their glistening bodies and
sparkling, mischievous eyes, their response to the enchanting rhythm and
melody borrowed from a world as strange to them as theirs is to us,
showed their delight. I wondered what strange images--ghostly pale
folk--they were seeing through our songs. Perhaps the music was merely
another kind of "savage" song to them, even a wee bit wilder than their
own. On the following day they were to sing and dance to the amazement
of their skeptical elders.
Thus does Fijian "civilization" steer its uncertain course between the
two contending influences from the West--the planters and the
missionaries--just as the river Rewa runs between them over the jungle
plains, struggling to supplant wild entangling growths with earth
culture.
7
And that "civilization" leans at one time toward the mill and at another
toward the mission. Frankly, Fiji grows more interesting as one gets
away from these two guy-wires and floats on the sluggish river. My
opportunity of seeing that Fiji which is least confused by either
influence came unexpectedly. The missionaries generously invited me to
go with them up the river in their launch early Monday morning.
Everywhere along the banks of the broad, deep stream stood groups of
huts and villages amid the sugar-cane fields. I gazed up the wide way of
the river toward the hazy blue mountains which stood fifty miles away.
They seemed to be a thousand miles and farther still from reality. The
Himalayas which lured the Lama priest and _Kim_ could not have been more
enticing. Because of the cloying atmosphere of the day, this distant
coolness was like an oasis in the desert, and I longed for some phantom
ship to bear me away on the breeze.
For twenty miles we glided on through cane plantations, banana- and
cocoanut-trees, and miniature palisades here and there rising to the
dignity of hills. We landed, toward noon, at a village which stood on a
little plateau,--quiet, self-satisfied, though in no way elaborate. The
best of the huts stood against the hill across the "street" formed by
two rows of thatch-roofed and leaf-walled huts. It belonged to the
native Christian teacher. He turned it over to us, himself and his wife
and baby disappearing while we lunched. Much of our repast remaining,
the missionary offered it to the teacher, but I noticed that he looked
displeased and turned the platter over to the flock of children which
had gathered outside,--a brood of little fellows, their bellies bulging
out before them, not even the shadow of a garment covering their
nakedness.
I returned to the hut a little later for my camera, not knowing that any
one was there. Inside, in one corner, lay the teacher's wife, stretched
face downward, nursing her baby, which lay on its back upon the soft
mats. She smiled, slightly embarrassed, and I withdrew. Here, then, was
the place where civilization and savagery met.
There were few Fijians in the village, mostly children and several old
women. A Solomon Islander, who had got there during the days when
blackbirding or kidnapping was common, moved among them. He had quite
forgotten his own language and could not understand Mr. Ryecroft when
the missionary spoke to him. An elderly man beckoned to me from his hut
and there offered to sell me a heavy, ebony carved club that could kill
an ox, swearing by all the taboos that it was a sacred club and had
killed many a man in his father's time.
[Illustration: INSTRUCTOR OF THE FIJIAN CONSTABULARY
At Suva]
[Illustration: THE SCOWL INDICATES A COMPLEX
For he is not quite certain that the missionaries are right about that
club not being a god]
[Illustration: A FIJIAN MAIN STREET
The corrugated iron-roofed shack is the one we ate our lunch in]
[Illustration: LITTLE FIJIANS
The only things some of these had on were sores on the tops of their
heads]
A narrow path climbing the hill close behind the village led us to a
view over the long sweep of the river and its valley. The utmost of
peace and tranquillity hung, without a tremor, below us. Twenty huts
fringed the plateau, forming a vague ellipse, interwoven with lovely
salvias, coleuses, and begonias. The village seemed to have been caught
in the crook of the river, while a field of sugar-cane filled the plain
across the stream, the shaggy mountains quartering it from the rear.
Distant, reaching toward the sun, ranged the mountains from which the
river is daily born anew.
As our launch chugged steadily, easily down-stream, and the evening
shadows overstepped the sun, Fiji emerged fresh and sweet as I had not
seen it before. The missionaries, till then sober and reserved, relaxed,
the men's heads in the laps of their wives. Sentimental songs of long
ago, like a stream of soft desire through the years, supplanted precept
in their minds, and I realized for the first time why some men chose to
be missionaries. It was to them no hardship. The trials and sufferings
were romance to their natures, and the giving up of everything for
Christ was after all only living out that world-old truism that in order
to have life one must be ready to surrender it.
8
Next day Mr. Waterhouse and I wandered about the village of the sugar
factory. At the bidding of several minor chiefs who had described a
circle on the mats, we entered one of the dark huts by way of a low
door. In a corner a woman tended the open fire, and near an opening a
girl sat munching. The room was thick with smoke, the thin reeds
supporting the roof glistening with soot. Everything was in order and
according to form. They were making _kava_ (or _ava_ or _yangana_), the
native drink. This used to be the work of the chieftain's daughter, who
ground the ava root with her teeth and then mixed it with water. The law
doesn't permit this now; so it is crushed in a mortar (_tonoa_).
Specialization has reached out its tentacles even to this place, so that
now the captain of this industry is an Indian.
The ava mixed, it was passed round in a well-scraped cocoanut-shell cut
in half. As guests we were offered the first drink. Extremely bitter, it
is nevertheless refreshing. After I made a pretense of drinking, the
bowl was passed to the most respected chief. With gracious
self-restraint he declined it. "This is too full. You have given me
altogether too much." A little bit of it was poured back, and he drank
it with one gulp. He would really have liked twice as much, not half,
but there is more modesty and decorum among savages than we imagine. In
fact, our conventions are often only atrophied taboos.
But the women, not so handsome nor so elegantly coifed as the men, were
excluded from a share in the toast. They were not even part of the
entertainment. The sexes seldom meet in any form of social intercourse.
The boys never flirt with the girls, nor do they ever seem to notice
them. In public there is a never-diminishing distance between them. A
world without love-making, primitive life is outwardly not so romantic
as is ours. The "romance" is generally that of the foreigner with the
native women, not among the natives themselves.
The daughter of the biggest living Fijian chief wandered about like an
outcast. She wore a red Mother-Hubbard gown, and nothing else. Her hair
hung down to her shoulders. Having gone through the process of
discoloration by the application of lime, according to the custom among
the natives in the tropics, it was reddish and stiff, but, being long,
had none of the leonine quality of the men's hair. Andi Cacarini (Fijian
for Katherine), daughter of a modern chief, spoke fairly good English.
She wasn't exactly ashamed, but just shy. The better class of Fijians,
they who have come in contact with white people, all manifest a timid
reticence. Andi Cacarini was shy, but hardly what one could call bashful
or fastidious. She posed for me as though an artist's model, not at all
ungraceful in her carriage or her walk.
The male Fijian is extremely timid, but none the less fastidious. The
care with which he trains and curls his hair would serve as an
object-lesson to the impatient husband of the vainest of white women.
This doesn't mean that the Fijian man is effeminate in his ways, but he
is particular about his hair. The process of discoloring it is exact. A
mixture of burnt coral with water makes a fine substitute for soap. When
washed out and dried, the hair is curled and combed and anointed. From
the point of view of sanitation, the treatment is excellent, and from
that of art--just watch the proud male pass down the road!
No matter where one goes in Fiji--or any of the South Sea Islands--the
dance goes with one. Here at Davuilevu one afternoon in the hot,
scorching sun, the natives gathered on the turf for merrymaking. It was
no special holiday, no unusual event. To our way of thinking it is a
tame sort of dance they do. We hear much of the freedom between the
sexes in the tropics, and one gains the impression that there are
absolutely no taboos. But just as there is nothing in all Japan--however
delightful--to compensate the child, or even grown-ups, for the lack of
the kiss, so none of the Fijian dances fill that same emotional
requirement which with us is secured through the embrace of men and
women in the dance. From the Fijian point of view, the whirling of
couples about together must be extremely immodest, if not immoral.
Sitting in a double row, one in front of the other, were oiled and
garlanded Fijians. Behind them and in a circle sat a number of singers
and lali-players. As they began beating time, the oiled natives began to
move from side to side rhythmically. Their arms and bodies jerked in a
most fascinating and interpretative manner. No voices in the wide world
are lovelier than the voices of Fijians in chorus; no other music issues
so purely as the Fijian music from the depths of racial experience.
Sometimes the dancers swung half-way round from side to side, with arms
akimbo, or extended their arms in all directions, clapping their hands
while chanting in soothing, melodious deep tones.
Judging from what I heard of the music of the Tongans, the Samoans, and
the Fijians, I give the prize to the Fijians for richness of tone. More
primitive than the plaintive Tongans, the Fijian music is a weird
combination of the intellectual, the martial, and the industrial,--more
fascinating than the passionate, voluptuous tunes and dances of the
Samoans and the Hawaiians. The Polynesians, probably because of their
close kinship with the Europeans, are much more sentimental in their
music. The Fijian is more vigorous and to me more truly artistic.
No study, it seems to me, would throw more light on the history and
unity of the human race than that of the dance and music. Why two races
so far apart as the Japanese and the Maories of New Zealand should be so
strikingly alike in their cruder dances, is hard to say. And the Fijians
seem in some way the link between these two. The Fijian doubtless
inherits some of his musical qualities from his negroid mixture, but he
has certainly improved upon it if that is so. He has no regrets, no
sentimental longings, and in consequence his songs are free from racial
affectation.
The Fijians always sing. The instant the day's work is done and groups
form they begin to sing. Half a dozen of them sit down and cross their
legs before them, each places a stick so that one end rests lightly on
one toe, the other on the ground; and while they tap upon these sticks,
others sing and clap hands, swaying in an enchantment of loveliness. One
carries the melody in a strained tenor, the others support him with a
bass drawl. Once in a while an instrument is secured, as a flute, and
the ensemble is complete. Even the tapping on the stick becomes
instrumental in its quality.
As the day draws to a close, from the cane-fields smoke rises in all
directions. The plantation workers have gathered piles of cane refuse
for destruction. Like miniature volcanoes, these, with the coming of
darkness, shine in the lightless night. It makes one slightly sad, this
clearing away of the remnants of daily toil, this purification by fire.
Then the sound of that other lali (the hollow tree-trunk), once the
war-alarum or call to a cannibal feast, now at Davuilevu the invitation
to prayer, the dampness, and the sense of crowding things in
growth,--this is what will ever remain vivid to me.
9
Poor untroubled Fijians! This simple love of harmony, a majestic sense
of force and brutality,--yet, withal, so naïve, withal so easily
satisfied, so easily led. Once a foreigner met a native who seemed in
great haste and trembling. The native inquired the time, in dread lest
he miss the launch for Suva. In his hand he carried a warrant for his
own arrest, with instructions to present himself at jail. When the
foreigner told him that it was up to the jailer to worry about it, he
seemed greatly shocked. One of the missionaries had been asked to keep
his eye on a friend's house. In the absence of the owner, the missionary
found a Fijian in the act of burglarizing. When questioned it was found
that the native wanted to get into jail, where he was sure of three
meals and shade, without worry. This is almost worthy of civilized man,
by whom it is perhaps more commonly practised.
But the kind of jail in which men were at that time incarcerated was not
enough to frighten the most liberty-loving individual. Because of the
humidity and dampness, the structure was left open on one side, only
three substantial walls and a roof being practical. Before the white man
got full control and the native had some iron injected into his nature,
it was not an arduous life the prisoners led. The missionary told me
that once the head jailer was found sitting out of sight, with the
officer in charge of the prisoners, tilting his chair against the wall
of the jail. The prisoners had been ordered to labor. The officer in
charge was to execute the command. Between puffs of tobacco, he would
shout: "Up shot!" and rest a while; then "Down shot!"--more rest. Not a
prisoner moved a muscle, the weights never rose from the ground. The men
were deep within the shadows. The period of punishment over, they were
ordered into their heaven of still more rest and more shade.
From our way of thinking, these are flagrant deceptions. But to the
Fijian (and to most South Sea races) the inducements for greater
exertion are simply non-existent. His revelries have been tabooed, his
wars have been stopped, his native arts are in constant competition with
cheap importations from our commercialized, industrialized world. What
is there, then, for him to do? Little wonder that his native
indifference to life is growing upon him. His conception of life after
death never held many horrors. Even in the fierce old days it was easy
for a Fijian to announce most casually that he would die at eight
o'clock the following day. He would be oiled and made ready, and at the
stated time he died. Most likely a state of catalepsy, but he was buried
and none thought a second time about it. One boy was recently roused
from such a condition and still lives.
The only means of counteracting this apathy are education and the
awakening of ambition through manual training and the teaching of
trades. This, the head of the mission told me, was his main object.
Missionary efforts, according to one man, were directed more to this
purpose than to the inculcation of any special religious precepts. And
there is no question that that will work. The will to live may yet
spring afresh in the Fijian.
From the nucleus formed by the mission is growing a more elaborate
educational system. Recently the several existing schools have been
amalgamated under a new ordinance. A proposal in reference to a more
efficient system of vernacular or sub-primary schools was embodied in a
bill put before the legislative council. A more satisfactory method of
training teachers was deliberated upon. The Fijians are, it is seen,
outgrowing the kindergarten stage, but the grown-ups are largely
children still.
10
A fortnight after I landed in Suva I was steaming for Levuka, the former
capital of the islands, situated on a much smaller land-drop not many
hours' journey away. These are the only two important ports in the
group, and inter-island vessels seldom go to one without visiting the
other. Levuka is a much prettier place than Suva. Its little clusters of
homes and buildings seem to have dug their heels into the hillside to
keep from sliding into the sea.
Along the shore to the left stood a group of Fijian huts,--a suburb of
Levuka, no doubt. Only a few old women were at home, and one old man.
Nothing in the wide world is more restful to one's spirit than to arrive
at a village which is deserted of toilers. Nothing is more symbolic of
the true nature of home, the village being more than an isolated home,
but a composite of the home spirit which is not tainted by any evidence
of barter and trade.
On the other side of Levuka, however, was an altogether different kind
of village, that of the shipwrights. Upon dry-docks stood the skeletons
of ships, fashioned with hands of love and ambition. In such vessels
these ancient rovers of the sea wandered from island to island,
learning, teaching, mixing, and disturbing the sweetness of nature, with
which no race on earth was more blessed.
The _Atua_, on which I had sailed from Suva, was a fairly large
inter-island steamer that made the rounds of all the important groups.
She was bound for Samoa, whither I had determined to go. There is no
better opportunity of getting a glimpse of the contrast between the
natives of the various South Sea islands than on board one of these
inter-island vessels. They are generally manned by the natives of one of
the groups,--in this case, the Fijians. These men handle the cargo at
all ports, and remain on board until the vessel returns to Fiji en route
to the Antipodes. They feed and sleep on the open deck and make
themselves as happy and as noisy as they can. A gasoline tin of tea,
baked potatoes, hard biscuit, and a chunk of fat meat, which is all
placed before them on the dirty deck (they are given no napkins),--that
is Fijian joy.
After their work, which in port sometimes keeps them up till the morning
hours, these strange creatures, untroubled by thought, stretch
themselves on the wooden hatchway and sleep. There I found them at
half-past five in the morning, all covered with the one large sheet of
canvas and never a nose poking out. Air! Perhaps they got some through a
little hole in the great sheet. Some stood and slept like tired,
overworked horses.
One queer Fijian with turbaned head grinned in imitation of none other
than himself, a vague, undefined curiosity rolling about in his skull.
He followed me everywhere, his white eyes staring and his mouth wide
open. Here was a future Fijian statesman in the process of formation.
His nebular, chaotic mentality was taking note of a creature as far
removed from his understanding as a star from his reach.
[Illustration: ONE OF THE MOST GIFTED OF FIJIAN CHIEFS
But who said that the wearing of hats causes baldness (?)]
[Illustration: CACARINI (KATHERINE), THE CHIEF'S DAUGHTER
In her filet gown of Parisian simplicity]
[Illustration: FIJIANS DANCE FROM THE HIP UP]
[Illustration: A FIJIAN WEDDING
Puzzle: find the bride. No, not the one with the hoop-skirt; that's
the groom]
One white soldier, an elderly man, wished to protect himself from the
wind, and asked a Fijian to haul over a piece of canvas. The black
man did so, but when the boatswain saw it, he was enraged. The Fijian
took all the scolding, said never a word, and quickly replaced the
sheet. As the boatswain moved away, the soldier handed the native a
cigarette, saying: "Have one of these, old sport. One must expect
reverses in war." The native grinned and felt the row was worth while.
There were Tongans, Indians, Samoans, and whites on board, and though
these are nearer kin to us, I liked the Fijians most. Yet the Tongans
are an attractive lot, refined in feature, in manner, and in person.
Perhaps that is why they have the distinction of being the only South
Sea people with their own kingdom, a cabinet, and a parliament.
The noise the Fijians make while in port is excruciating. It is
something unclassifiable. They roll their r's, shout as though mad with
anger, and then burst out in childish laughter at nothing. These boyish
barbarians enjoy themselves much more in yelling than they would in
chorus with a Caruso. How torrential is the stream of invective which
issues against some fellow-laborer! With what a terrific crash it falls
upon its victim! But how utter the disappointment when, after one has
expectantly waited for a scrap, a gurgle of hilarity breaks from the
throats which the moment before seemed such sirens of hate and malice!
And so they toil, happy to appear important, busy, honestly busy,
loading the thousands of crates of green bananas, the cargo which passes
to and fro. Happier than the happiest, sharing the scraps of a meal
without the growl so common among our sailors, each always seems to get
just what he wants and helps in the distribution of the portions to the
others. The missus never bothers him, no matter how long he is away, and
instantly labor ceases the group is "spiritualized" into a singing
society and the racial opera is in full swing.
I had anticipated relief at their absence when the steamer set off for
the colder regions south. Yet something pleasant was gone out of life
the moment the ship steamed out. The sailors moved about like pale
ghosts who had mechanically wandered back to a joyless life. The white
man's virtues are his burdens. His tasks are done so that he may
purchase pleasure. The ship was orderly, everything took its place, even
the cursing and yelling came within control. We were heading again for
civilization.
I felt somewhat like the old folks after their wish had rid the town of
all mischievous little boys, and my heart strained back for an inward
glimpse of the life behind. The smell of mold and copra returned; the
damp beds; the cool, clear night air; the moonlight upon the shallow
reefs; dappled gray breakers, playing upon the shore as upon a child's
ocean; in the dark, along Victoria Parade, the shuffle of bare feet in
the dust, the dim figures of tall, bushy-haired men and slim, wiry
Hindus; the thud of heeled boots on the dry earth. And far off there,
the sound of the lali, the singing of deep voices, the vision of an
earthly paradise,--shattered by the sighting of land ahead.