GIVE US OUR VU GODS AGAIN!
1
Some of the gravest mistakes the white man has made in his efforts to
regenerate the Pacific peoples have been indirect rather than direct.
This fact is best illustrated by the method Australia and New Zealand
resorted to in order to exterminate certain pests. To eliminate the
rabbit they introduced the ferret. The ferret then began to reproduce so
rapidly that it, too, soon became a pest. So the cat was let loose upon
the ferret. Forthwith the cat ran wild and is now one of the most
serious problems in Australia.
So has it been in the matter of many of the native races. Commercial
greed, which was not satisfied to use what native labor was extant
because it is never the manner of natives to be willing serfs to their
conquerors, looked everywhere about for people who might be imported
under crushing conditions and then cast out. It was that which created
the Japanese and Chinese situation in Hawaii; and it is that which has
created a similar situation in Fiji.
One would have to be an unadulterated sentimentalist to contend that the
passing of the natives is not justified by the present development of
the Antipodes. None of the native elements--the Australoids or the
Tasmanians or the Maories--would, of their own accord, even with years
of Caucasian example and precedent, have made of these dominions the
healthful, productive lands they now are. As long as the problem remains
one of the ascendancy of the fittest over the fit, it is simple, and
the present solution justifiable. But the introduction of other races
who have only their servility to recommend them is a poor practice and
soon turns into a more serious problem still. In most cases, a little
patience and foresight would have obviated such contingencies. Had the
white folk who tried to exploit Hawaii contented themselves with a
slower development, the Hawaiians would to-day be as secure as are the
Samoans and the Maories. In all cases such as these and that of the
Philippines, the native, when given a chance, soon justifies his
existence and our faith in him.
In Fiji we have an example of the introduction of the Hindu to the
extinction of the Fijian for the sake of the enrichment of the white
man. The indentured Indian, small and wiry, who seems too delicate for
any task and is stopped by none, acts as a reinforcement in the South
Sea labor market. He glides along in purposeful indifference. As coolie,
he may be seen at any time wending his way along Victoria Parade,
bareheaded, a thin sulu of colored gauze wound about his loins. As freed
man, he is the tailor, the jeweler, the grocer, and the gardener. As
proprietor he is buying up the lands and becoming plantation-owner. Then
he bewails the woes of his native land, India, far off in the distance.
Here in Fiji, where the coolie has a chance to start life anew, the
longing for rebirth in this world, still fresh, bursts into being. But
no sooner does it see the sunlight than it turns to crush the Fijian, in
whose lands the Hindu is as much of an invader as ever Briton was in
India.
The introduction of the Indian into Fiji was not accomplished without
considerable protest from small planters, who saw in it and the taxation
scheme introduced over thirty years ago, great danger to the Fijian
laborer. Aside from the burdens imposed upon the people by a law which
compelled them to work for their chiefs without wages, for the same
length of time that they worked for some plantation-owner with wages,
there was the equally bad law being "experimented" with which compelled
the people to pay in kind instead of in money. So serious had the
situation become that the "Saturday Review" of June 19, 1886, declared:
"As the Natives must eat something to live, it is perhaps not unnatural
that many people who know Fiji entertain distinct fears that the
combination of over-taxation and want of food will drive the Fijians to
return to cannibalism." The charge of cannibalism was denied by the Rev.
Mr. Calvert, though further evidence is not at hand, as I have seen only
the Government's side of the case.
However, with the admission of some 3,800 Indians as indentured laborers
in 1884 (or thereabouts) among a population of 115,000 natives, the
vital statistics of the islands have changed so that there were only
87,096 Fijians against 40,286 Indians in 1911, and 91,013 Fijians
against 61,153 Indians in 1917. This would seem to indicate a healthier
state of affairs for the Fijians as well as for the Indians, were not
the comparison of births with deaths for the last year named taken into
consideration. This shows that to 3,267 births there were 2,583 deaths
among the Fijians; while among the Indians the births were 2,196 as
against only 588 deaths. This proportion obtained also in 1911. The
struggle between the Fijians and the indentured Indians, even if the
former were not to become extinct within the century, would place the
Fijians in the minority in no time; and what were their lands would be
theirs no more.
This, briefly, is the story of the submersion of the Fijians.
[Illustration: AN INDIAN COOLIE VILLAGE
Near the sugar factory, Fiji
Western Pacific-Herald Post Card Series]
[Illustration: THIS HINDU HAS USURPED THE JOB OF THE CHIEFTAINS'
DAUGHTERS
He is grinding the Kava root in a mortar. What the girls are doing
with their teeth now no one knows]
[Illustration: A MAORI HAKA IN NEW ZEALAND
It is a procession of gesticulating, grimacing savages whose
protruding tongues are not the least attraction]
[Illustration: A MAORI CANOE HURDLING RACE
At Ngaruawahia, North Island, N. Z.]
In itself, the situation is not very serious. What if the Fijian passes,
or gives way to the Indian? The contribution of the Fijian to the
culture or the romance of the Pacific is small compared with that of
other races, such as the Samoans or the Marquesans. Of that more anon.
But there are problems involved that are of more immediate import.
Two races like these cannot live together without creating a situation
of strength or of weakness that is very far-reaching. We are concerned
with the attitude they assume toward each other, or in the substitution
of a race like the Indians, with their fixed traditions and destructive
castes, which will introduce Hindu problems into the very heart of the
Pacific. India is no longer within bounds, and sooner or later we shall
be face to face with new conditions. In eliminating the Fijian or the
Hawaiian, or any other Pacific islander, by the Indian or the Japanese
coolie process, we are only intensifying the difficulty, unless we are
ready completely to overlook the questions of likes and dislikes.
2
In Fiji one is not yet compelled to ask, "Where are the Fijians?" As
long as one's gaze is fixed slightly upward, the Fijian face with the
bushy head of coarse, curly hair stands out against the green of the
hills. But let the eye fall earthward and the resultant confusion of
forms and manners forthwith raises the problem of the survival of the
fittest. For among these towering negroids there now dwell over sixty
thousand Telugus, Madrasis, Sardars, Hindustanis, and a host of other
such strange-sounding peoples from India, and "Sahib" greets one's ears
more frequently than the native salutation. In the smaller hotels the
bushy head bows acknowledgment of your commands; in the one fashionable
and Grand Hotel the turban does it. In the course of the day's demands
for casual service, the assistant is the stalwart one; for the more
permanent work--as, for instance, the making of a pongee silk suit--the
artisan is the slender one. If your mood is for sight of sprawling
indolence, you wander along the little pier and open places among the
Fijians; if it is for the damp, cool, darkly kind to help you visualize
the dreams of the Arabian Nights, you enter some little shop in an
alley with an unexpected curve, in the district of transplanted India.
Feeling venturesome, I let fancy be my guide, though, to tell truth, I
was escaping from the burning sun. Life on the highway was alluring,
but, large as the Fijian is, his shadow is no protection. I hoped for
some sight of him within-doors. The row of shops which walls in the
highway, links without friction the various elements of Suva's humanity.
In a dirty little shop I ran into an unusual medley of folk. A blind
Indian woman in one corner; a Fijian chatting with an Indian in another;
a boy whistling "Chin-chin"; boys and girls fooling with one another;
while in the little balcony, like a studio bedroom hung in the deeper
shadows of the rafters, slept one whose snoring did not lend distinction
to his paternity. The place was evidently a saloon, but minus all the
glitter so requisite in colder regions. Here the essential was dampness
and coolness and improvised night. Hence the walls had no windows and
the floors no boarding. Hence the brew had need of being cool and
cutting, regardless of its name; and whether one called it _yagona_,
_kava_, _buza_ or beer, it had the effect of making a dirty little
dungeon in hiding not one whit worse than the Grand Hotel in the beach
breezes. Better yet, where in all Fiji was fraternization more simple?
Still, too much love is not lost between the sleepy Fijian dog and his
Indian flea. Does the Fijian not hear the white man--whom he respects,
after a fashion--call his slim competitor "coolie?" And is not _kuli_
the word with which he calls his dog? Infuriated, conscious of his
centuries of superiority, the Indian retorts with _jungli_, and feels
satisfied. His indentured dignity shall not decay. At any rate, he knows
and proves himself to be the cleverer. The future is his. While the
Fijian, seeing that the importation the white man calls "dog" gets on in
life none the less, seeks to steep himself in the Indian's immorality
and trickery in the hope that he may thereby acquire some of that
shrewdness, as when he devoured a valiant enemy he hoped to absorb that
enemy's strength. Thus in that dark little underworld the Fijian Adonis
vegetates in anticipation of the future Fiji some day to spring into
being.
Though the Indians are said to despise the Fijians, I saw
representatives of the two races sitting sociably together upon the
launch up the Rewa River, smoking and chatting quite without any signs
of friction. Indian women, all dressed in colored-gauze raiment and
laden with trinkets, huddled behind their men. They seemed a bit of
India sublimated, cured of the ills of overcrowding. One woman had
twelve heavy silver bracelets on each wrist, a number on her ankles,
several necklaces and chains around her neck, and many rings on each of
her fingers and toes, with ornaments hanging from her nose and ears. But
there was more than vanity in this, for, pretty as she was, she refused
to permit me to photograph her. Not so the men. One Indian had his
flutes with him and began to play. His eyes rolled as he forced out the
monotonous tones, over and over again. His heart and his soul must have
had a hard time trying to emerge simultaneously from these two tiny
reeds. One bearded patriarch smiled and rose with a jerk when I asked if
he would pose for me. A young Indian woman crouched on the floor, all
covered with her brilliantly colored veil. She shared a cigarette with a
Fijian boy in a most Oriental fashion. But those who know distrust this
fraternization. It is the subtle demoralization of the Fijian.
For the type of Indian men and women who now accept the terms of
indenture are even worse than those who did so formerly, and the
conditions under which they are compelled to carry out their "contracts"
are such as to develop only the worst traits of Indian nature. In
consequence, the Fijian is being ground between the upper (white) and
nether (Indian coolie) mill-stones. His primitive taboos which worked
so well are taboos no longer. The missionary has destroyed them
well-meaningly; the plantation-owner has preyed upon them knowingly, has
turned the predatory native chiefs upon them; and now the riffraff of
India is loose upon them, too. I am convinced, from what I saw in the
missionary settlements, that had the missionaries alone been left to
lead these people away from barbarism, they would have accomplished
it,--as they partially have. But unfortunately, the one weakness in
their civilizing process, the overestimation of minor conventions, such
as the wearing of clothing, only left an opening for the intake of
diseases and defects of our civilization. The insistence on monogamy is
another weakness, for to that the steady decline of the native can be
traced.
This dual process of degradation going on in Fiji is a great
disappointment to the adventurous. Though the natives number 91,000,
their ancient rites and festivities are without newer expression,
without newer form. And though one hears much of Fiji as another India,
because nearly half the population is Indian, still, as C. F. Andrews
has pointed out, the utter absence of anything Indian in the
architecture, the religious practices, or the other expressions of
Indian ideals leaves one wondering what is wrong with that newer world.
Everywhere one hears the appeal, "Give the man a chance," and democracy
and the advocates of self-determination for nations repeat and repeat
the plea. One believes that somehow if India were partially depopulated
and the remaining Indians were given a chance, the soul which is India
would blossom with renewed life and glory. One believes that here in
Fiji such a miracle might occur. But no promise of regeneration greets
the seeker, go where he may. Then, too, there is something lacking in
the native. One is led to conclude that the inhibitions upon the mind
and the soul of all the Fijians, through the preaching of doctrines
strange to them, or through the practices of foreigners over them, has
put the seal upon their lips. Trying to approximate the ruling religions
and to live in their ways must create emotional complexes in the natives
that are clogging the wells of their beings.
From Suva for forty miles up the Rewa River, the only manifestation of
life is in labor. Aside from the crude ornaments on the limbs of the
women of India there is virtually nothing of art or higher expression to
be seen. Nothing but the tropical loveliness, which cannot be denied.
3
The regeneration of the Fijian seemed more possible after I had spent a
few moments in the hut of the chief of the district. In the middle of
the village stood one plain, unpainted wooden house, distinctive if not
palatial. It was altogether wanting in decoration and with us might have
passed as a respectable shed. But here, surrounded by thatched huts,
picturesque when not too closely scrutinized, it assumed exceeding
importance through contrast.
The door, reached by a flight of four or five steps, stood wide open.
The interior was not partitioned into rooms. Half of it was a raised
platform-like divan or sleeping-section, spread with native mats. Upon
this elevation sat a fine-looking man,--clean-shaven, with a head as
bald as those of his brethren are bushy, dressed in clean and not
inexpensive materials, and wearing a gold watch on his left wrist. On my
being introduced, he greeted me in English so fluent and pure that I was
considerably taken aback. He was as self-possessed as most Fijians are
shy. This was Ratu Joni, Mandraiwiwi, chief of eighty thousand Fijians,
one of the only two native members of the Legislative Council, highly
respected, and the most powerful living chief of his race.
He remained seated in native fashion, legs crossed before him, and after
a few general remarks indicated a desire to resume his confab with the
half-dozen natives--all big, powerful men--facing him on the lower
section of the chamber. His reception of me was cordial, yet his was the
reserve of a prime minister. His bearing gave the impression of a man
intelligent, calm, just, and not without vision. He knew his rank. Had I
been a native and dared to cross his door-step--plebeian that I am--I
should most likely have seen dignity in anger. But, though an
insignificant white man, I still bore the mark of "rank" sufficient to
gain admission unceremoniously and was given a place beside him on the
divan. But he had an uncanny way of making me feel suddenly extremely
shy. I was aware of intruding, of having been presumptuous,--an
uninvited guest. So I withdrew.
The district over which he rules, though inferior to many another in
productivity, has always had the reputation for being well kept up and
in healthful condition and was pointed out as an example to the other
chiefs as early as 1885. At Bau, five miles the other side of the river,
Ratu Joni has a home European in every detail. It forms an interesting
background for his European entertainments. His income is enough to make
a white man envious. One son, an Oxford man, was wounded in Flanders at
the outbreak of the war; another was at the time attending college in
Australia. Ratu Joni is _Roko_ (native governor) of the province of
Tailevu (Greater Fiji).
Mr. Waterhouse, the missionary who kindly went about with me and made it
possible for me to meet this chief and to understand some of the native
problems, gave me a brief story of this impressive man's life. Though
his father had been hanged or strangled for plotting against the life of
the chief who ruled then, Ratu Joni succeeded in making his way to the
fore in Fijian politics. He set himself the task of cleaning up his
country. Of him it could not be said that he ever had reason to be
ashamed of his rule. Of him none could say as did a British governor in
a speech say of another Fijian: "What! has this chief been indolent?
Perhaps he limes his head, paints his face, and stalks about, thinking
only of himself; or is it that he squabbles with his neighbors about
some border town, and lets his people starve?"
One cannot judge a people by the conditions of its chiefs or rulers; but
with regard to the natives of the Pacific, as in the case of other
people accustomed to the rigorous life of battle, their safety lies in
the uses to which they have been put by their conquerors. The British
Government has utilized the Sikhs, its most difficult Indians, by making
them the constabulary throughout the length and breadth of its Asiatic
empire. This has been done in Fiji, too. But the most hopeful sign to me
in these islands on the 180th meridian was the Fijian constabulary. A
finer lot of men could not be found anywhere in the world. Not only
their physique but their intelligent faces and their alacrity suggest
great promise. One of them came on board our ship with his clean, tidy,
sturdy wife--a public companionship rare for these people--and was
received by the officers. His white sulu, serrated on the edge like some
of the latest fashions on Broadway, hung only to his knees. His massive
legs and broad shoulders were a delight to look upon. His wife was as
handsome a woman as I have seen in the tropics. The two gladly posed for
me, and asked me to send them a print.
4
Generally the thought and feeling of the natives in the South Seas come
to the outer world through the works of white men,--missionaries and
scientists. But rare indeed is the revelation of the mind of a strange
people brought to us pure and clear without the white man's bias or
reaction. Here and there I have run across snatches of native thinking
that were revelations, but no others so full and vivid as the essay by
a native Fijian on the decline of his race, which appeared in the
"Hibbert Journal" (Volume XI). The translator opens the door to the
Fijian mind as by magic. After reading that, I felt that personal
contact with these natives akin to contact with any other human being,
for I looked behind dark skin and bushy head, and saw the spirit of hope
within. The translator says:
It shows exactly how an intelligent Fijian may conceive
Christianity. That is a point we need to know badly, for most
missionaries see the bare surface. It also contains hints how the
best intentions of a government may be misconstrued, and suspicion
engendered on one side, impatience and reproaches of ingratitude on
the other, which a more intimate knowledge of native thought might
remove.
The argument of the essay is that "The decline of native population is
due to our abandoning the native deities, who are God's deputies in
earthly matters. God is concerned only with matters spiritual and will
not harken to our prayers for earthly benefits. A return to our native
deities is our only salvation."
The native reflects:
Concerning this great matter, to wit the continual decline of us
natives at this time, it is a great and weighty matter. For my part
I am ill at ease on that account; I eat ill and sleep ill through
my continual pondering of this matter day after day. Three full
months has my soul been tossed about as I pondered this great
matter, and in those three months there were three nights when
pondering of this matter in my bed lasted even till day, and
something then emerged in my mind, and these my reflections touch
upon religion and touch upon the law, and the things that my mind
saw stand here written below.
He then takes up the points that have disturbed him:
Well, if the very first thing that lived in the world is Adam,
whence did he come, he who came to tell Eve to eat the fruit? From
this fact it is plain that there is a Prince whom God created first
to be Prince of the World, perchance it is he who is called the Vu
God [Noble Vu].... Consider this: It is written in the Bible that
there were only two children of Adam, to wit Cain and Abel. But
whence did the woman come who was Cain's wife?...
It seems to me as though the introducers of Christianity were
slightly wrong in so far as they have turned into devils the Vu
Gods of the various parts of Fiji; and since the Vu Gods have
suddenly been abandoned in Fiji, it is as though we changed the
decision of the Great God, Jehovah, since that very Vu God is a
great leader of the Fijians. That is why it seems to me a possible
cause for the Decline of Population lies in the rule of the Church
henceforth to treat altogether as devil work the ghosts and the
manner of worshiping the Vu Gods of the Fijians, who are their
leaders in the life in the flesh, whom the Great God gave, and
chose, and sent hither to be man's leader. But now that the Vu Gods
whom Jehovah gave us have been to a certain extent rudely set
aside, and we go to pray directly to the God of Spirit for things
concerning the flesh [life in the flesh], it appears as if the
leader of men resents it and he sets himself to crush our little
children and women with child. Consider this:
If you have a daughter, and she loves a youth and is loved of him,
and you dislike this match, but in the end they none the less
follow their mutual love and elope forthwith and go to be married,
how is it generally with the first and the second child of such a
union, does it live or does it die? The children of Fijians so
married are as a rule already smitten from their mother's womb.
Wherefore? Does the woman's father make witchcraft? No. Why then
does the child die thus?
Simply that your Vu sees your anger and carries out his crushing
even in its mother's womb; that is the only reason of the child's
death. Or what do you think in the matter? Is it by the power of
the devil that such wonders are wrought? No, that is only the power
that originates from the God of Spirit, who has granted to the
Prince of men, Vu God, that his will and his power should come to
pass in the earthly life.
He develops this theme with ever-increasing emotion, until his poor mind
can think no more.
Alas! Fiji! Alas! Fiji is gone astray, and the road to the
salvation of its people is obstructed by the laws of the Church and
the State. Alas! you, our countrymen, if perchance you know, or
have found the path which my thoughts have explored and join
exertions to attain it, then will Fiji increase.
But Fijians have prayed to God, yet they have not increased, he
exclaims, faced with the unalterable facts. Why not? Christianity has
been with them many years. Does God hear their prayer! He proceeds to
give his own observations of life, and asks: "Is this true, reverend
sirs? Yes, it is most true." After making some comparisons between his
land and others, neglected of God in that they have no Vu Gods, he
expostulates:
And if the Vu were placed at our head ... there would be no still
births and Fiji would then be indeed a people increasing rapidly,
since our conforming to our native customs would combine with
progress in cleanly living at the present time. Now, in the past
when the ancients only worshiped Vu Gods and there was no
commandment about cleanly living, yet they kept increasing. Then if
... this were also combined with the precept of cleanly living, I
think the villages would then be full of men. Or what, sir, is your
conclusion?
A few more excerpts, taken here and there, will reveal the interesting
mind of this Fijian:
If this is right, then it is plain how far removed we are from
certain big countries. How wretched they are and weak, whose
medicines are constantly being imported and brought here in
bottles.[1] As for me, I simply do my duty in saying what appears
in my mind when I think of my country and my friends who are its
inhabitants; for since it wants only a few years to the extinction
of the people it is right that I reveal what has appeared in my
soul, for it may be God's will to reveal in my soul this matter.
Now it is not expedient for me to suppress what has been revealed
to me, and if I do not declare what has appeared from forth my
soul, I have sinned thereby in the eyes of the Spirit God: I shall
be questioned regarding it on the day of judgment of souls; nor is
it fitting that one of the missionaries should be angry with me by
reason of my words; it is right that they should consider
everything that I have here said, and judge accordingly. It is no
use being ashamed to change the rules of the Church, if the country
and its inhabitants will thereby be saved.
[1] The translator says in a footnote: "Whites pity Fijians,
but they find reasons to pity us. That is what white men
generally fail to realize; they put down to laziness or
stupidity their reluctance to assimilate our civilization,
whereas it arises from a different point of view; and that
point of view is not always wrong or devoid of common
sense. Is Fijian medicine more absurd than our patent
medicines, or as expensive?"
There is great hope for a people with such thinkers among them. And
if there are such hopes for the Fijians, there are still greater
possibilities for the Maories, Samoans, Tahitians, and Hawaiians.
5
Politically, as separate island races, they are no more. The little
Kingdom of Rarotonga is one of the last to remain independent. The
European war, oddly enough, in which Maories and Fijians fought for "the
rights of little nations," has sold them out completely, just as it did
Shantung in China. No one thought that a war in a continent fifteen
thousand miles away would play such havoc with the destinies of these
people. The "mandates," yielded with such cynical generosity, put the
seal upon their fate, and opened new international sores.
Pessimistic as this may sound, there are evidences of resuscitation in
the working out of these mandates, as will appear in the chapter on
Australasia. The Polynesians are becoming conscious of unity, and talk
of leadership under the New Zealand mandate is rife in Parliament.
"Nothing would hasten the depletion of the race more than the loss of
hope and confidence in themselves," says the Hawaiian "Friend." That
hope seems to be flickering into new life.
No people have suffered more, directly, from contact with the
"civilized" white races than the Polynesians. Morally undermined,
politically deprived of powers, physically subjected to scourge after
scourge of epidemic introduced by white men, their own standards of
living brushed aside as vulgar and infantile,--these heliolithic people
with their neolithic culture approached the very verge of extinction.
Then the white race began to sentimentalize over them, and sincere
scientific people to deplore their evanescence. Some of these latter
have earned the eternal gratitude not only of the natives but of the
whole world. Some of them I have mentioned in other connections. Two
others decidedly deserve recognition. Mr. Elsdon Best, the curator of
the Wellington Museum, is a tall, thin individual who has roamed all
over the Pacific. He has worked his way for years in the interests of
the Amerindians, Hawaiians, and Maories. Now he has one of the finest
museums in the South Seas--excepting that, of course, in Honolulu--in
which he treasures anything and everything that will help throw light on
the history of these interesting people. The other is Mrs. Bernice
Bishop, a part-Hawaiian woman, who established the museum in Honolulu
which bears her name. These are the centers round which we white folk
shall be able to gather for the preservation of this other type of the
human species. In the summer of 1921 a Scientific Congress under the
auspices of the Pan-Pacific Union and the immediate directorship of
Professor Gregory of Yale was held to devise ways and means of
furthering the study of these races, and its work is proceeding apace.
Museums and "models" of native architecture are the modern white man's
diaries, recalling the acts of ravishment and destruction which his
development and expansion entailed. Let us hope that out of the efforts
of scientists will spring a new consciousness of worth, which early
missionaries and scheming traders did everything to destroy. Yet it must
not be forgotten that much of our knowledge of these races comes from
those missionaries who were broad-minded enough to recognize the value
of recording customs and beliefs, even if their purpose was the more
effectively to counteract them.