FAMILY LIFE
Among the tribes in Fiji, where Melanesian blood predominates, the
_mbure-ni-sa_, or unmarried man's house, was a universal institution. In
the Lau group the strong admixture of Polynesian blood had in some
degree broken down the social laws connected with this house, although
in most villages the house existed. Among the purer Melanesian tribes of
the interior of Vitilevu, after twenty-five years of Christianity and
settled government, the _mbure-ni-sa_ exists as a part of the social
life of the village, as if obedience could still be enforced.
The _mbure-ni-sa_ was usually the largest house in the village. It was
the men's club in the day-time and the men's sleeping house at night. No
woman could enter it without committing a grave breach of propriety.
Young boys below the age of puberty went naked and slept with their
parents at home; but, from the day that they assumed the _malo_, or
perineal bandage, they removed to the _mbure-ni-sa_ at nightfall, and
slept there under the eyes of the elders who either had no home of their
own or had adopted the mbure-ni-sa from choice. When the young man
reached the age for marriage his mother chose a wife for him from among
his concubitant cousins, _i.e._ the daughters of his maternal uncle; and
immediately after the marriage he removed from the _mbure-ni-sa_ to a
house of his own, or to that of his parents. In parts of Vanualevu,
where uterine descent was still recognized, he removed to the village of
his wife's parents.
As soon as his wife was confined he was banished again to the
_mbure-ni-sa_ for the entire suckling period, which lasted from two to
three years. During the whole of this time, unless he had more than one
wife, he was obliged to live a life of celibacy.
In the above description I am, of course, speaking of the ordinary
middle-class Fijian. The higher chiefs, having several wives, provided a
separate house for the confinement, and never saw the _mbure-ni-sa_
again after their marriage. Men of the lowest rank had generally no
wives at all.
The _mbure-ni-sa_ thus served a double purpose. The girls of the tribe
sleeping with their parents, and the young men being practically
incarcerated every night under the eyes of their elders, there was
little opportunity for immorality before marriage. With the duties of
defence, of fighting, of providing food and of fishing, the young men
had little time for philandering, and it is asserted by many of the
elder natives that it was a rare thing for a girl to have lost her
virtue before marriage. Such sexual immorality as took place was between
the young men and the older married women.
But the chief value of the _mbure-ni-sa_ undoubtedly lay in the
separation of the parents of a child during the suckling period.
Natives, when asked to account for the decrease in their numbers, have
for years mentioned the breaking down of this custom of abstinence as
the principal cause, asserting that cohabitation injures the quality of
the mother's milk. Not understanding the true cause that lay behind this
belief, Europeans, medical men as well as missionaries, have treated the
opinion with contempt, without, however, shaking the natives' fixed
belief. Within the last few years a missionary, the late Rev. J. P.
Chapman, characterized this custom of abstinence as an "absurd and
superstitious practice."
[Illustration: The Mbure-ni-sa (Club House).]
The teaching of the missionaries, who believed that the only perfect
social system was to be found in the English mode of family life, and
the example of the Europeans settled in the group, have broken down the
custom of the _mbure-ni-sa_ in all parts of the islands, except the
mountain districts of Vitilevu. The example of the native teachers, one
of whom is to be found in every village, was in itself enough to
discourage a custom which the men had long found irksome, and the
natives assert that a large number of infant deaths might have been
prevented if public opinion still sufficed to keep the parents apart.
[Pageheader: PROLONGED PERIOD OF SUCKLING]
The Fijian word _ndambe_ has been loosely applied to the custom of
separating the parents while the mother is suckling her child. The word
is really an adjective signifying the injury sustained by the child
whose parents cohabit too soon after its birth. It becomes _ndambe_,
that is to say, it shows symptoms of general debility, accompanied with
an enlargement of the abdomen. The infringement of the rule of
abstinence is described at Mbau by a slang word, _nkuru vou_. During the
long period of suckling--varying from twelve to thirty-six months--the
mother abstained from cohabitation from the fear of impoverishing her
milk, a superstition which hid behind it a most important truth; namely,
that a second conception taking place during the suckling period must
cause the child to be prematurely weaned. While the _mbure-ni-sa_ still
existed, secret cohabitation between the parents was made the more
difficult by the custom of young mothers leaving their husband's house
and living with their relations for a year after the birth of a child;
since the adoption of English family life, husband and wife no longer
separate, but give their parole to public opinion to preserve the
abstinence prescribed by ancient custom. The health of the child is
jealously watched for signs that the parents have failed in their duty.
If it fall off in condition it is declared to be _ndambe_, and the
mother is compelled to wean it immediately, with an effect upon the
child which varies with its age. If it suffers it is said to be _kali
ndole_--prematurely weaned. The Fijians have no artificial food for
their infants. There is nothing between the mother's milk and solid
vegetable food, and until the digestive organs are fit to assimilate
such foods the child must be kept at the breast. Among European women
menstruation is rarely re-established during the period of suckling, and
there is therefore no particular danger to the child in cohabitation
during this period. At the worst, if conception takes place, the child
can be brought up upon artificial diet. With Fijian women, however,
menstruation often recommences at the third or fourth month after
parturition, and cohabitation, even at this early stage, often results
in a second pregnancy. The mother is physiologically incapable of
nourishing at the same time the foetus within her and the child at her
breast, and the symptoms of defective nutrition become evident in the
latter very soon after the new conception has taken place. The child
must be weaned at once, since it soon becomes too weak to undergo the
strain of a change of diet; it becomes _ndambe_. An old Fijian midwife
told me that the children of elderly men are less often _ndambe_ than
those of young men, because the older father, being less ardent, is more
likely to observe the rule of abstinence.
Nearly half the Fijian children born die within the first year. In many
cases, no doubt, death is caused by premature weaning owing to a second
conception, but there is no doubt that a number of weakly children are
brought into the world through the physical incapacity of the Fijian
mother for bearing healthy children in quick succession. This incapacity
may proceed from some inherent racial defect, or from improper or
insufficient food. Under the old wise system of abstinence, the forces
of the mother had time to recuperate before she was again called upon to
bear the strain of maternity, but with the early death of her child she
is at once pregnant. The birth-rate is increased by the production of a
weak offspring that will go in its turn to swell the death-rate; in
other words, a lower birth-rate would tend to increase the population.
In Tonga and in the Gilbert Islands the separation is rigidly enforced.
In the latter group _ndambe_ is called _ngori_. The relations of the
mother exercise extreme vigilance to prevent the couple from cohabiting,
and the husband who infringes the rule is scolded by his wife's
relations and sent for the future to sleep with the young men.
Lieutenant Matthews, who visited the Sierra Leone River between 1785 and
1791, says of the Mandingoes: "Mothers never wean their children until
they are able to walk and carry a calabash of water, which they are
instructed to do as soon as possible, as cohabitation is denied to them
while they have children at the breast." Even in Japan, where there is
artificial food for infants, prolonged suckling is still the rule. Sir
Edwin Arnold[69] says: "Japan is of all countries, except England, that
where fewest children die between birth and the age of five years;
albeit a point in favour of Japanese babies is that they are nursed at
the breast until they are two or even three years old."
The Pitcairn Islanders, who possess goats, but are otherwise as ill
provided with artificial food for infants as the Fijians, were found by
Beechey in 1831 to be suckling their children for three and even four
years."[70]
It is proper here to notice traces of the couvade, not perhaps
indicating that the couvade itself was ever practised as a custom, but
showing rather how widely spread are the ideas underlying that custom.
In the province of Namosi, where children were suckled for three years,
there is a belief that if the father, when separated from his wife, has
an intrigue with another woman his child will fall off, showing the
symptoms of _ndambe_. The sickness is called there by the suggestive
name of _veisangani tani_ (_lit._, "alien thigh-locking"). Dr. R. H.
Codrington[71] says of Mota (Banks Islands): "When a child is born,
neither father nor mother eats things, such as fish or meat, which might
make the children ill. The father does not go into sacred places which
the child could not visit without risk. After the birth of the first
child the father does no heavy work for a month lest the child should be
injured." Mr. Walter Carew says of the district north of Namosi: "I have
frequently observed a father abstain from certain articles of food from
fear of affecting the child, born or unborn; and I have often joked the
people about it. Once I persuaded a man to break the tabu and eat some
fowl. Unfortunately, the child died some time afterwards, and the father
more than half believed me to have been the cause of its death." In
discussing this belief as a trace of the couvade, Starke quotes
Dobizhoffer's remarks upon the Abipones: "They comply with this custom
with the greater readiness because they believe that the father's rest
and abstinence have an extraordinary effect on the well-being of unborn
infants, and is indeed absolutely necessary for them.... For they are
quite convinced that any unseemly act on the father's part would
injuriously affect the child on account of the sympathetic tie which
naturally subsists between them, so that in the event of the child's
death the women all blame the self-indulgence of the father, and find
fault with this or that act."
Among the Lake Nyassa tribes the husband ceases cohabitation as soon as
his wife announces her pregnancy, and does not resume it until the child
is weaned. If he has no other wife "he will strive to remain chaste in
the fear lest, if he commit adultery, his unborn child will die."[72]
Among the Atonga, in the same region, the husband has no relations with
his wife for five or six months after the child's birth. If he has
access to any other woman during this period, the popular belief is that
she will certainly die.[73]
This widely extended custom of prolonged suckling among non-pastoral
peoples seems to show that Nature intended the human mother to suckle
her offspring until it had developed the teeth necessary for masticating
solid food. Civilization, ever driving Nature at high pressure, has
found artificial food for infants, leaving the mother free to bear the
stress of a second maternity. To meet this increased strain the
civilized mother is nourished and tended with a care that is never
bestowed upon her savage sister. Barbarism followed the law of Nature
and supported it by a customary law of mutual abstinence, but the
customary law of the Fijians has been mutilated and has left them
between two stools, not yet adopting the conveniences of civilization
and obliged, nevertheless, to do the high pressure work of the civilized
state without help. The reproductive powers of the Fijian woman of
to-day are forced, though her body is no better prepared by a generous
course of food to meet the strain than when she was allowed to follow
the less exacting course of Nature for which only her body is fitted.
And to make matters worse, the Fijians, recognizing the evils of too
frequent conceptions, drink nostrums to prevent them, probably injuring
thereby the child at the breast.
[Pageheader: THE MISSIONARIES' MISTAKE]
If the missionaries, as is said, are responsible for breaking down these
customs of abstinence, and still regard it as "absurd and
superstitious," it is a pity that they did not recognize another
important difference between European and Fijian society--the irregular
and insufficient nourishment for the women and the lack of artificial
food for infants--and devote their efforts to reforming this before they
discouraged a custom so admirably adapted to meet the evils of a lack of
cereals and milk-yielding animals. It is too late now to go back. The
Fijian husband will never again consent to enforced separation from his
wife. Rapid conceptions and a high birth-rate must be reckoned with, and
the only feasible remedy is to improve the diet of the nursing mother,
and induce the people generally to keep milk-yielding animals for their
children. Cattle thrive in Fiji, but the efforts of the Government to
convert the Fijian agriculturist to pastoral pursuits cannot be said to
have been successful.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 69: _Some Pictures from Japan_, by Sir Edwin Arnold.]
[Footnote 70: _Beechey's Voyage_, p. 128.]
[Footnote 71: _Notes on the Customs of Mota (Banks Islands)_, by the
Rev. R. H. Codrington, M.A.]
[Footnote 72: _British Central Africa_, by Sir H. H. Johnston.]
[Footnote 73: _Ibid._, p. 415.]