My Friends the Savages Part 25

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 12: The author of this book has given the p.r.o.nunciation of the above words according to the sounds and rules of Italian and it has been a difficult task to present them in a sufficiently orthoepical form for English readers to understand, for the reason that all the vowels and many of the consonants are so differently articulated in the two languages.

Where _a_ is followed by _h_ it should be p.r.o.nounced as in _father_; by _w_ as in _all_; by _y_ as in _may_. The consonants _g_ _k_ and _n_ which precede certain words and which would be mute in English must be very lightly accented with the same sound they have in the alphabet.--_Translator's Notes._]

[Footnote 13: The _scudiscio_ is a very large fungus that grows upon trees. It is easily broken into strips which the Indigines use for tying up things and for putting round their necks to protect them from fever.

The Sakais call it _tennak kahrah_ that means literally "the root of a stone".]

[Footnote 14: Go back over the Alps and we shall be brothers again.]

CHAPTER XIII.

First attempts at industry--The story of a hat--Multiplicity-- Primitive arts--Sakai music--Songs--Instruments--Dances--Ball dresses--Serpentine gracefulness--An unpublished Sakai song.

Primitive, like their language and their agriculture, are also Art and Industry among the Sakais.

They make blowpipes, arrows and quivers from bamboo, strings from twisted vegetable fibres, ear-rings and ornamental combs for the women.

Now, under my direction, they have begun to plait mats with dried gra.s.ses, as well as bags and even hats, using for the latter the fibrous part of the panda.n.u.s, and copying one of Panama which I gave them as a model. I cannot give an estimate of the time and patience I spent over this new branch of industry.

The first time I mentioned such a thing to the women I had the unenviable success of making them laugh heartily. And I laughed with them, remarking however, that as they were so good and clever they would have no difficulty in accomplishing the feat if they would only set themselves to try.

Vanity is the great spring of a woman's soul that cannot resist the charm of flattery. This is proved by History from the time of Eve to our days and I myself proved it when I again spoke on the subject of hats.

The laughter was not so loud and soon ceased altogether. At last the women answered me, with an annoyed and discontented air, that my insistance vexed them. Then I knew that the fortress was about to capitulate and re-doubled my attacks.

The day of surrender was near.

A girl, accompanied by a group of inquisitive, mocking companions, presented herself at my hut bringing with her something in the shape of a hat which was meant to be an imitation of mine. It was full of knots, puckers and other defects.

The little artist was very confused and mortified but I praised her work a great deal and after showing her the mistakes she had made I gave her several bead-necklaces.

In a few days the hats multiplied. The other girls and the women, seeing the presents I had given their companion, felt offended and devoted themselves with fury to the manufacture of the head-covering I desired, improving the form so much as to obtain an exact copy of the pattern one.

When some were finished they brought them to me and throwing them on the ground with a gesture of scorn cried:

"There! take your hats!". But a generous distribution of beads soon made their good-temper return.

Thus I was able to start this new industry by flattering the vanity of the Sakai females ("oh, Vanity, thy name is Woman" even among the savages) and the goods produced, after having been awarded a silver medal and a diploma at Penang were the object of general admiration at the Milan Exhibition of 1906.

It is some time now that I have got the men to work in iron. I provide them with the raw material and it is really a wonder to see how well they manage to make knives without possessing any of the tools used in the trade.

When they understood the necessity of a very fierce fire for reducing the metal into such a state as to enable them to make it take the wished-for form, they attempted to put together a sort of bellows and at length succeeded in the following way.

At the bottom of a very big piece of bamboo, they cut a hole into which they inserted a smaller one, joining and fixing them together with gum that the air might not escape from the wrong part. Then at the extremity of a thick stick they fastened a bunch of leaves and gra.s.ses large enough to pa.s.s with difficulty into the bamboo tube. By working this as a piston the air was expelled from the lower bamboo cane and kindled a bright fire.

After the iron has taken the form required, whilst it is still red-hot, they throw it into a bluish-coloured mud which smells of sulphur and leave it there to temper.

In fact the metal tempers and becomes very hard but I could not tell anyone what properties this slimy earth contains or how the Sakais came to know its value in connection with iron. I only know that they have to dig very deep in the ground before getting at it, a thing that is not either easy or agreeable owing to the lack of necessary implements.

Steel being a very scarce article amongst my good friends they have learnt to make great economy with it using it solely for the blades of the knives and for other purposes. They mix the two metals with surprising skill.

This is the boldest and most intelligent step that the Sakais have made as yet in the field of industry.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Dancing.

_p._ 176.]

That Art which expresses elevated thought and refinement of spirit, in whatever form it manifests itself, is at its lowest ebb among the Sakais and especially representative art, although it is curious to notice how much more they prefer (I speak of the male s.e.x) this latter to that of sounds. Music may procure some moments of bliss to those who yield themselves to its charms but it is transitory and, with them, leaves no reminiscence for the performer or the listener; on the contrary representative art remains and can also give satisfaction to the self love of the artist. It is limited to some rough designs and still more rough incisions on the blowpipes, quivers and the women's combs and their earrings.

Bamboo is the princ.i.p.al material used in making their hunting requisites, their personal ornaments and their domestic utensils.

The combs are large and their teeth vary from 2 to 4 in number. Across them are carved, more or less deeply cut, various signs, some of an angular form that display a pretty correct geometrical precision and others in curved lines, all of which are intended by the several artists to represent birds' heads, snakes or plants. Sometimes this intention is expressed sufficiently clearly; at others there is need of interpretation.

The plants reproduced in this way are always medicinal or those to which superst.i.tion attributes some virtue, so that the primitive art is in a great measure due to the desire of possessing an amulet.

The same designs are repeated on the ear-rings, blowpipes and quivers.

The Sakais are very proud of these incisions and he who has the most upon his weapon enjoys a certain fame. As a natural consequence this makes him somewhat jealous of his finely decorated cane, much more so than he is of his wife, that for her part gives him no motive for cultivating the yellow demon's acquaintance.

Up to the time I am writing the Sakais' artistic genius has not pa.s.sed this limit, unless we reckon the horrible paintings upon their faces and bodies, but this branch of art--it may seem irreverent, though none the less true, to say so--brings to the mind dainty toilet-rooms and cosy boudoirs in other parts of the world, in the very heart of civilization, where its devotees think to beautify (but often damage) Nature.

Oh! what a chorus of silvery voices are calling me too, a savage!

The Sakais like music but nearly always the notes are accompanied by a dancing movement, sometimes lightly as if to mark the time, but at others they kick their legs about so furiously, at the same time twisting and writhing their bodies in such a strange series of contortions that an uninitiated looker-on would surely receive the impression that they were suffering from spasmodic pains in the stomach, whereas in reality they are only imitating the wriggling of a serpent.

The woman is particularly fond of dancing and with it she measures the cadencies of her own songs and gives point to the words themselves whilst her companions repeat a sort of chorus which completes the musical pa.s.sage.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Playing the "ciniloi".

_p._ 178.]

It must not be thought, however, that song as it is known among the Sakais is the melodious sound we are in the habit of considering as such. With them it is an emission of notes, generally guttural ones which are capriciously alternated without any variety of tune and which in their integrity fail to express any musical thought.

The women sing with greater monotony, but more sweetly, than the men.

Often they join in groups singing and dancing, and this, I believe, is the gayest moment of their lives and to this honest pleasure they will abandon themselves with rapture, forgetting the fatigue of the day. Then feminine coquetry triumphs before the other girls and the young men.

When night falls the air becomes cool, and even cold later on. Having finished their evening meal the old folk and the children stretch themselves out to sleep round the fire which is always kept lighted. The women sit about weaving bags, mats and hats, their work illuminated by flaring torches composed of sticks and leaves covered with the resin found in the forest. To the extent permitted by their poor language they chat and jest among themselves, laughing noisily the while.

The young men are scattered around preparing their arrows for the next day's hunt, dipping them into the poisonous decoction when it is well heated.

It is not long before work gets tedious to the girls. They jump up and daub their faces in a grotesque manner. With palm leaves they mark out a s.p.a.ce of some yards square that has to be reserved for the dancers, and then commences the women's song to which is soon added the stronger voices of the men. At times the chorus is accompanied by an orchestra of those instruments that the Sakais know how to play.