Part 51 (2/2)

”We had brought with us several dozen cheap looking-gla.s.ses, so we told Iseiom, the daughter of Li Moung, our host, that if she would go and wash her face we would give her one. She treated the offer with scorn, tossed her head, and went into her father's room. But about half an hour afterwards, we saw her come into the house and try to mix quietly with the crowd; but it was of no use, her companions soon noticed she had a clean face, and pushed her to the front to be inspected. She blus.h.i.+ngly received her looking-gla.s.s and ran away, amid the laughter of the crowd.”

The example had a great effect, however, and before evening nine of the girls had received looking-gla.s.ses.[184]

FIJIAN REFINEMENTS

In the chapter on Personal Beauty I endeavored to show that if savages who live near the sea or river are clean, it is not owing to their love of cleanliness, but to an accident, bathing being resorted to by them as an antidote to heat, or as a sport. This applies particularly to the Melanesian and Polynesian inhabitants of the South Sea Islands, whose chief pastimes are swimming and surf riding. Thomas Williams, in his authoritative work on Fiji and the Fijians, makes some remarks which entirely bear out my views:

”Too much has been said about the cleanliness of the natives. The lower cla.s.ses are often very dirty.... They ...

seldom hesitate to sink both cleanliness and dignity in what they call comfort” (117).

We are therefore not surprised to read on another page (97) that

”of admiring emotion, produced by the contemplation of beauty, these people seem incapable; while they remain unmoved by the wondrous loveliness with which they are everywhere surrounded.... The mind of the Fijian has. .h.i.therto seemed utterly unconscious of any inspiration of beauty, and his imagination has grovelled in the most vulgar earthliness.”

Sentimentalists have therefore erred in ascribing to the Fijian cannibals cleanliness as a virtue. They have erred also in regard to several other alleged refinements they discovered among these tribes.

One of these is the custom prohibiting a father from cohabiting with his wife until the child is weaned. This has been supposed to indicate a kind regard for the welfare and health of mother and child. But when we examine the facts we find that far from being a proof of superior morality, this custom reveals the immorality of the husband, and makes an a.s.sa.s.sin of the wife. Read what Williams has to say (154):

”Nandi, one of whose wives was pregnant, left her to dwell with a second. The forsaken one awaited his return some months, and at last the child disappeared.

This practice seemed to be universal on Vanua Levu--quite a matter of course--so that few women could be found who had not in some way been murderers. The extent of infanticide in some parts of this island reaches nearer to two-thirds than half.”

Williams further informs us (117) that ”husbands are as frequently away from their wives as they are with them, since it is thought not well for a man to sleep regularly at home.” He does not comment on this, but Seeman (191) and Westermarck (151) interpret the custom as indicating Fijian ”ideas of delicacy in married life,” which, after what has just been said, is decidedly amusing. If Fijians really were capable of considering it indelicate to spend the night under the same roof with their wives, it would indicate their indelicacy, not their delicacy. The utterly unprincipled men doubtless had their reasons for preferring to stay away from home, and probably their great contempt for women also had something to do with the custom.

HOW CANNIBALS TREAT WOMEN

In Fiji, says Crawley (225), women are kept away from partic.i.p.ation in wors.h.i.+p. ”Dogs are excluded from some temples, women from all.” In many parts of the group woman is treated, according to Williams,

”as a beast of burden, not exempt from any kind of labor, and forbidden to enter any temple; certain kinds of food she may eat only by sufferance, and that after her husband has finished. In youth she is the victim of l.u.s.t, and in old age, of brutality.”

Girls are betrothed and married as children without consulting their choice. ”I have seen an old man of sixty living with two wives both under fifteen years of age.” Such of the young women as are acquainted with foreign ways envy the favored women who wed ”the man to whom their spirit flies.” Women are regarded as the property of the men, and as an incentive to bravery they are ”promised to such as shall, by their prowess, render themselves deserving.” They are used for paying war-debts and other accounts; for instance, ”the people submitted to their chiefs and capitulated, offering two women, a basket of earth, whales' teeth, and mats, to buy the reconciliation of the Rewans.”

”A chief of Nandy, in Viti Levu, was very desirous to have a musket which an American captain had shown him.

The price of the coveted piece was two hogs. The chief had only one; but he sent on board with it a young woman as an equivalent.”

At weddings the prayer is that the bride may ”bring forth male children”; and when the son is born, one of the first lessons taught him is ”to strike his mother, lest he should grow up to be a coward.”

When a husband died, it was the national custom to murder his wife, often his mother too, to be his companions. To kill a defenceless woman was an honorable deed.

”I once asked a man why he was called Koroi. 'Because,' he replied, 'I, with several other men, found some women and children in a cave, drew them out and clubbed them and was then consecrated.'”

So far have sympathy and gallantry progressed in Fiji.

”Many examples might be given of most dastardly cruelty, where women and even unoffending children were abominably slain.” ”I have labored to make the murderers of females ashamed of themselves; and have heard their cowardly cruelty defended by the a.s.sertion that such victims were doubly good--because they ate well, and because of the distress it caused their husbands and friends.”

”Cannibalism does not confine itself to one s.e.x.” ”The heart, the thigh, and the arm above the elbow, are considered the greatest dainties.”

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