A DOCTOR EX OFFICIO
I was a dog without a collar, medically speaking. Official Fiji
had heard about the avaricious Yankee, planting himself on foreign
soil to amass a dishonest fortune. In 1922 a law was passed, for
my personal benefit, to the effect that no American could practise
medicine in Fiji without a “special permit.” The special permit was
far less potent than a chauffeur’s license, and my official status,
if any, was somewhat lower than that of the N.M.P. (Native Medical
Practitioner). Until 1937 I was not legally qualified to treat anything
but hookworm. In the meantime I had treated and been responsible for
the care of hundreds of thousands of cases of hookworm, yaws, malaria,
tuberculosis, ringworm and so on. Come to think of it, I hadn’t been a
lawfully qualified physician in Papua and New Guinea. When Dr. McGusty
came to power in Suva, he huffed and he puffed and he said, “All
nonsense!”--and proceeded to get me a respectable license. In 1937 the
Empire discovered that I was in Fiji, and I joined the British Medical
Association.
Not that it mattered. Montague and I were together, never slipping a
cog. He wasn’t the sort who fishes for praise, and he never failed to
give me credit, if credit were due.
Fiji was a case of racial decline, with a trend upward. Briefly, the
population fell from its 200,000 in the hearty cannibal days of 1870
to 105,000 in the Christian year 1891. The census of 1905 showed an
appalling drop to 87,000; epidemics of endemic dysentery and whooping
cough had decimated them every year; then measles swooped down on these
non-immunes. A pause in the death rate, and in 1911 a slight increase
in population which was to continue until 1917 when there were 91,000
living Fijians. They might have risen in eight years to the 1891 level
but for the withering blast of influenza in 1918-1919. Once again they
recovered from a low of around 82,000 until the New Year of 1937 showed
a population of 98,291.
Discounting the World War’s gift of flu, which baffled all medicine,
Fiji shows how the gradual fall in the death rate can almost be
measured in terms of medical effort. I wish we could be smug and say
that the trick is turned, both in Fiji and Western Polynesia. But
there’s the other puzzling factor: the East Indian.
Today in Suva the tourist admires the picturesqueness of these
Asiatics, brightening the streets with turbans and silken _saris_. In
the early ’80’s they were first brought in as laborers, and succeeding
shiploads increased them to 50,000. With natural progeny they grew to
some 85,000, by the 1936 census. Fiji colonials began by believing that
such immigrants were needed for industrial development; but in 1916 the
indenturing of Indians ceased. Since then more of them have left than
have entered. Those who leave are usually old; the re-entering ones are
usually young adults.
During forty-five years the Indian birth rate far surpassed the Fijian.
The steadier Fijian rate shows a rise. In the early ’90’s there was
an excess of 7,000 native males over females, but the margin steadily
narrowed until 1936 when the excess was reduced to 2,087. This
indicates a healthy tendency. But wait. The Colony’s annual medical and
health reports, 1921-1936, show that the Indian woman outbreeds the
Fijian woman by 25 per cent; soon the Indian population must overtake
the native Fijian. There is a greater loss by death among Fijians than
among Indians. The Fijians lose more people from tuberculosis than the
Indians do _from all causes_; the Fijians lose more children under
five than the Indians do _from all causes_; the Fijians lose more from
causes other than tuberculosis and death under five than the Indians do
_from all causes_.
Add this up. Fijian mortality is three times that of the Indian, and
the fertility of the Indian woman is 25 per cent higher than that of
the Fijian woman.
The Indians in Fiji are survivals of thousands of ancestral generations
of exposure to disease. Fiji with her better food, wages, housing and
free medical attention was an unmixed blessing to these newcomers.
Far from the teeming Punjab they dropped the shackles of caste, and
brought with them a devouring hunger for land and freedom. The larger
the family the larger the workable holdings; and there is no stigma on
illegitimacy.
In 1922 the East Indians were spreading. Today they are spreading
even faster until Fiji is threatened with becoming an annex to India.
The Asiatic population is running about neck-and-neck with the native.
Something should be done about it, of course, but what? Is it survival
of the fittest? Not entirely. It is partly the artificial stimulation
given to the oriental through medical science and a vastly improved
environment. Some evils have come with the banishment of their old
caste system. There is no longer the invisible barrier between Hindu,
Brahman, Chamar, Pariah--and Moslem. The Indian found a new freedom
in the tropic isles, and the immigrants were mostly very low-caste.
Their ideals were vague, their women scarce, the recruiting system led
to degeneracy, the marriage tie weakened, little girls were offered
for barter. Cult priests from India would froth up fanaticism and
loud-mouthed little Gandhis kept the pot boiling. India’s Nationalist
Movement made a pretty mess of attempted social equality. The Indians
had been allotted three seats on the Legislative Council on an
equality with elected Fijian chiefs. The Asiatic members put up a howl
for a common franchise, and when this was defeated in council, they
promptly resigned. Then came the school question. It was fantastically
impossible for the Government to build the hundred schools which the
Indians demanded, while they declined to contribute their share to
Government-fostered mission and private schools. So about a sixth of
their children went without education.
I am taking no sides. I only report that the Indians are becoming
conquerors by infiltration of an archipelago where the native deserves
his own land and customs. In Fiji the Asiatic is developing a kindly
fraternalism which Mother India never quite crushed out of him. Very
often when one of them has been stranded in India, after a holiday, his
friends in Fiji--Hindu, Pariah and Moslem--will chip in on a purse to
fetch him back. At one time in our Suva household we had three Indian
servants of three discordant faiths: a Hindu cook, a Moslem gardener,
a Christian chambermaid. Back in the old home-town they might have cut
each other’s throats every morning before breakfast. But here it was
the song of songs, close harmony. I wish Eloisa had them now....
No, I am not against the experiment to bring back the East Indian. Only
I wish they hadn’t tried it on Fiji, whose native people I have learned
to love deeply.
Now how about the Fijian?
When you number his islands at 250 you include large Viti Levu, which
bulks about 4,000 square miles, and its slenderer, somewhat smaller
sister Vanua Levu to the northeast; then there is a scattering of
fair-sized fellows scaling down to mere pin-points on the map. If some
super-Hitler should decide to combine them there would be enough to
fill New Jersey, almost. They are heavenly things, the tiny islands,
with rounded bases of iron-brown rock and palms dipping toward the sea;
so many fern baskets set around surprising blue inlets--blue and silver
in the morning. Then you coast around toward larger footholds, elegant
cliffs with threads of waterfall and great white shells on the shore,
like bleaching skulls. In summer, which is December, the thermometer
seldom rises above ninety-two degrees, and July Fourth is in the very
ecstasy of spring. I have no real estate to sell in Fiji. So I speak
only out of a homesick heart when I say that it is the best winter
climate in the world, and the best climate, any time, for me.
Early discoverers called it “Feejee,” although the official name is
Fiji--and that, too, is wrong. The correct name for it is Viti. Captain
Cook made the mistake when he touched at the Tongan Islands, near
neighbors, and heard the Polynesians say “Viti” in their own way. This
group was honestly named “the Cannibal Islands.” The transit of fierce
tribes from man-eating to prayer-meeting is miraculous. In 1927 when
Martin Egan, as a traveler, saw a long file of sedate natives going
to church, he remarked, “From Cannibalism to Calvinism!” And this
describes it, although the predominant Church happens to be Wesleyan.
It is almost impossible to believe that these quiet, law-abiding people
have emerged so soon and gone so far.
The Fijians not only were cannibals, but were inordinately cruel. When
a chief’s dwelling was being built captives were made to stand in the
postholes “to hold up the house,” and were buried alive. A chief’s
canoe was launched over living bodies, human rollers. When there was
a shortage of enemy meat, hunters would stalk women and children of
their own tribe; women and children were regarded as delicacies fit for
visiting chiefs. When there were plenty of captives the resident chief
would order out his livestock in the morning, to choose his meat. If
one of them sneezed, which was considered an evidence of cowardice,
the chief would cry “_Mbula!_” which meant, disdainfully, “I give
you life.” No proper man ever ate coward-meat. Then the sneezer would
reply, “_Moli_,” which meant, in effect, “Your words are like the sweet
juice of the orange to me.” The word “_Mbula_” is often heard today,
a pleasant greeting: “How’s your health?” “_Mbula vinaka_” is like a
casual “My health is good.”
I am not so sure that their cannibalism was not caused originally by a
protein shortage. There were no four-footed animals, with the possible
exception of the rat. The Fijian fainted at sight of the first horse,
as the Aztec did before Cortes’ ponies. Old tales tell of a maniacal
blood-lust: How the father of King Thakombau cut out a disobedient
brother’s tongue, roasted and ate it. How Thakombau (Evil of Mbau)
performed the same feat on the severed arm of a living captive....
Widowhood was handled with frightful practicality: during a husband’s
funeral the widow would lay her head in the lap of a seated woman, who
would put one hand over the widow’s mouth, the other at the back of her
neck; and a relative, sometimes a son, would string a vine around her
neck and finish the job.
If some man of the tribe would come forward and claim her, the widow
was spared. The very word for widow, _dawai_, is still an abusive term.
Little girls who were betrothed to little boys had the vine-noose
always waiting. If the boy happened to die it was etiquette to strangle
the girl and toss her in his grave. Sometimes she was given a chance to
return to her parents and try another marriage. Frequently the parents
were so devil-ridden that they sent her back to the executioner. Yet
the Fijians were, and are, a child-loving people. I cannot believe that
the custom-bound parents who led their daughter back to death were not
torn with genuine grief; the nice name for daughter is “rafter of the
house.” The widow who was nursing a child or was pregnant was sent home
to her father’s house and lived out her natural life.
The ceremonial over a dead chief would go on for a long time, at
intervals. In a hundred days came the final feast. Some of the warriors
would show up with a finger or two missing. They had cut them off as an
expression of grief.
The first and last King of the Cannibal Islands was named Thakombau,
and since most history books spell him “Cakobau” I must dwell on a
trick of Fijian spelling that has driven native schoolboys to despair.
Johann Sebastian Bach, descendant of the great composer and for years
Fiji’s public printer, told me how this mad spelling came about so that
the island of Mbengga, for instance, is printed “Beqa.” In the early
days the man who did the missionaries’ printing ran short of type. In
Fijian every _g_ and _d_ has an _n_ sound in front of it, so to save
_n’s_, none were used, the _n_ sound being understood in front of each
_g_ and _d_. Every Fijian _b_ has an _m_ sound in front of it so that
letter was understood there and dropped. The plentiful _th_ sound ran
the printer out of that character, so he substituted _c_ for _th_ as
there is no other use for _c_ in Fijian. The common _ngg_ was replaced
by a handy _q_. A full account of this typographical theory would
require pages, but I hope I have outlined the principle, which shows
some remarkable results.
This King called Thakombau (and spelled Cakobau) offers an example of
the native money sense, that perfect vacuum. His warriors had been
merrily destroying American trading establishments, and missions,
occasionally pausing to eat the inhabitants. In 1858 President Buchanan
sent the _Vandalia_ to press a claim for a $45,000 indemnity. The
warships looked mighty strong, and Thakombau wasn’t getting on very
well with his revolutions; the one way out seemed to be to sell his
mess of empire for the debt. He offered the bargain to the United
States and to England, but found no takers.
In 1874 home politics changed the British mind. According to current
myth Thakombau was beleaguered on Mbau’s Gibraltar-rock when a British
man o’ war lay handily offshore. A well-armed landing party scattered
the besiegers, brought the King back to his tapa-lined house, and saw
him make a cross on a paper which mentioned the payment of debt and
the delivery of the Fijis, body, soul and breeches. The story is close
enough to the truth. A little later Britain accepted the Fijis. King
Thakombau finished with a pretty gesture when he handed over his war
club as a present to Queen Victoria. Probably she never used it, but
her heart was gratified when she learned that the deposed monarch had
exchanged cannibalism for Christianity. He burned most of the heathen
temples in his fading realm, but saved his own on Mbau--for sentiment’s
sake.
The chastened Thakombau took to travel, and did his bit toward
importing foreign disease. In 1876 he came back from Australia with a
dose of measles, which he spread far and wide.