Primitive Love and Love-Stories Part 52

One of these monsters, whom Williams knew, sent his wife to fetch wood and collect leaves to line the oven. When she had cheerfully and unsuspectingly obeyed his orders, he killed her, put her in the oven, and ate her. There had been no quarrel; he was simply hungering for a dainty morsel. Even after death the women are subjected to barbarous treatment.

"One of the corpses was that of an old man of seventy, another of a fine young woman of eighteen.... All were dragged about and subjected to abuse too horrible and disgusting to be described."[185]

FIJIAN MODESTY AND CHASt.i.tY

With these facts in mind the reader is able to appreciate the humor of the suggestion that it is "ideas of delicacy" that prevent Fijian husbands from spending their nights at home. Equally amusing is the blunder of Wilkes, who tells us (III., 356) that

"though almost naked, these natives have a great idea of modesty, and consider it extremely indelicate to expose the whole person. If either a man or woman should be discovered without the 'maro' or 'liku,' they would probably be killed."

Williams, the great authority on Fijians, says that "Commodore Wilkes's account of Fijian marriages seems to be compounded of Oriental notions and Ovalan yarns" (147). Having been a mere globe-trotter, it is natural that he should have erred in his interpretation of Fijian customs, but it is unpardonable in anthropologists to accept such conclusions without examination. As a matter of fact, the scant Fijian attire has nothing to do with modesty; quite the contrary. Williams says (147) "that young unmarried women wear a _liku_ little more than a hand's breadth in depth, which does not meet at the hips by several inches;" and Seeman writes (168) that Fijian girls

"wore nothing but a girdle of hibiscus fibres, about six inches wide, dyed black, red, yellow, white, or brown, and put on in such a coquettish way that one thought it must come off every moment."

Westermarck, with whom for once we can agree, justly observes (190) that such a costume "is far from being in harmony with our ideas of modesty," and that its real purpose is to attract attention. As elsewhere among such peoples the matter is strictly regulated by fashion. "Both s.e.xes," says Williams (143), "go unclad until the tenth year and some beyond that. Chiefs' children are kept longest without dress." Any deviation from a local custom, however ludicrous that custom may be, seems to barbarians punishable and preposterous. Thus, a Fijian priest whose sole attire consisted in a loin-cloth (_masi_) exclaimed on hearing of the G.o.ds of the naked New Hebrideans: "Not possessed of masi and pretend to have G.o.ds!"

The alleged chast.i.ty of Fijians is as illusive as their modesty. Girls who had been betrothed as infants were carefully guarded, and adultery savagely punished by clubbing or strangling; but, as I made clear in the chapter on jealousy, such vindictive punishment does not indicate a regard for chast.i.ty, but is merely revenge for infringement on property rights. The national custom permitting a man whose conjugal property had been molested to retaliate by subjecting the culprit's wife to the same treatment in itself indicates an utter absence of the notion of chast.i.ty as a virtue. Like the Papuan, Melanesian, and Polynesian inhabitants of the Pacific Islands in general, the Fijians were utterly licentious. Young women, says Williams (145) are the victims of man's l.u.s.t;

"all the evils of the most licentious sensuality are found among this people. In the case of the chiefs, these are fully carried out, and the vulgar follow as far as their means will allow. But here, even at the risk of making the picture incomplete, there may not be given a faithful representation" (115).

When a band of warriors returns victorious, they are met by the women; but "the words of the women's song may not be translated; nor are the obscene gestures of their dance, in which the young virgins are compelled to take part, or the foul insults offered to the corpses of the slain, fit to be described.... On these occasions the ordinary social restrictions are destroyed, and the unbridled and indiscriminate indulgence of every evil l.u.s.t and pa.s.sion completes the scene of abomination" (43). Yet,

"voluntary breach of the marriage contract is rare in comparison with that which is enforced, as, for instance, when the chief gives up the women of a town to a company of visitors or warriors. Compliance with this mandate is compulsory, but should the woman conceal it from her husband, she would be severely punished" (147).

EMOTIONAL CURIOSITIES

When Williams adds to the last sentence that "fear prevents unfaithfulness more than affection, though I believe that instances of the latter are numerous," we must not allow ourselves to be deceived by a word. Fijian "affection" is a thing quite different from the altruistic feeling we mean by the word. It may in a wife a.s.sume the form of a blind attachment, like that of a dog to a cruel master, but is not likely to go beyond that, since even the most primitive love between parents and children is confessedly shallow, transient, or entirely absent. Williams (154, 142) "noticed cases beyond number where natural affection was wanting on both sides;" two-thirds of the offspring are killed, "such children as are allowed to live are treated with a foolish fondness"--and fondness is, as we have seen, not an altruistic but an egoistic feeling. In writing about Fijian friendships our author says (117):

"The high attainments which const.i.tute friendship are known to very few.... Full-grown men, it is true, will walk about together, hand in hand, with boyish kindliness, or meet with hugs and embraces; but their love, though specious, is hardly real."

Obviously the keen-eyed missionary here had in mind the distinction between sentimentality and sentiment. Sentimentality of a most extraordinary kind is also found in the att.i.tude of sons toward parents. A Fijian considered it a mark of affection to club an aged parent (157), and Williams has seen the breast of a ferocious savage heave and swell with strong emotion on bidding a temporary farewell to his aged father, whom he afterward strangled (117). Such are the emotions of barbarians--shallow, fickle, capricious--as different from our affection as a brook which dries up after every shower is from the deep and steady current of a river which dispenses its beneficent waters even in a drought.

FIJIAN LOVE-POEMS

In his article on Fijian poetry, referred to in the chapter on Coyness, Sir Arthur Gordon informs us that among the "sentimental"

cla.s.s of poems "there are not a few which are licentious, and many more which, though not open to that reproach, are coa.r.s.e and indecent in their plain-spokenness." Others of the love-songs, he declares, have "a ring of true feeling very unlike what is usually found in similar Polynesian compositions, and which may be searched for in vain in Gill's _Songs of the Pacific_." These songs, he adds, "more nearly resemble European love-songs than any with which I am acquainted among other semi-savage races;" and he finds in them "a ring of true pa.s.sion as if of love arising not from mere animal instinct but intelligent a.s.sociation." I for my part cannot find in them even a hint at supersensual altruistic sentiment. To give the reader a chance to judge for himself I cite the following:

I

_He_.--I seek my lady in the house when the breeze blows, I say to her, "Arrange the house, unfold the mats, bring the pillows, sit down and let us talk together."

I say "Why do you provoke me? Be sure men despise coquetry such as yours, though they disguise from you the scorn they feel. Nay, be not angry; grant me to hold thy fairly tattooed hand. I am distracted with love. I would fain weep if I could move thee to tears."

_She_.--You are cruel, my love, and perverse. To think thus much of an idle jest.

The setting sun bids all repose. Night is nigh.

II

I lay till dawn of day, peacefully asleep, But when the sun rose, I rose too and ran without.

I hastily gathered the sweetest flowers I could find, shaking them from the branches.

I came near the dwelling of my love with my sweet scented burden.

As I came near she saw me, and called playfully, "What birds are you flying here so early?"

"I am a handsome youth and not a bird," I replied, "But like a bird I am mateless and forlorn."

She took a garland of flowers off her neck and gave it to me I in return gave her my comb; I threw it to her and ah me! it strikes her face!

"What rough bark of a tree are you made from?" she cries. And so saying she turned and went away in anger.

III

In the mountain war of 1876 there was in the native force on the government side a handsome lad of the name of Naloko, much admired by the ladies. One day, all the camp and the village of Nasauthoko were found singing this song, which someone had composed:

"The wind blows over the great mountain of Magondro, It blows among the rocks of Magondro.

The same wind plays in and raises the yellow locks of Naloko.

Thou lovest me, Naloko, and to thee I am devoted, Shouldst thou forsake me, sleep would forever forsake me.

Shouldst thou enfold another in thine arms, All food would be to me as the bitter root of the via.

The world to me would become utterly joyless Without thee, my handsome, slender waisted, Strong-shouldered, pillar-necked lad."

SERENADES AND PROPOSALS

At the time when Williams studied the Fijians, their poetry consisted of dirges, serenades, wake-songs, war-songs, and hymns for the dance (99). Of love-songs addressed to individuals he says nothing. The serenades do not come under that head, since, as he says (140), they are practised at night "by _companies_ of men and women"--which takes all the romance out of them. One detail of the romance of courtship had, however, been introduced even in his time, through European influence. "Popping the question" is, he says, of recent date, "and though for the most part done by the men, yet the women do not hesitate to adopt the same course when so inclined." No violent individual preference seems to be shown. The following is a specimen of a man's proposal.

Simioni w.a.n.g Ravou, wishing to bring the woman he wanted to a decision, remarked to her, in the hearing of several other persons:

"I do not wish to have you because you are a good-looking woman; that you are not. But a woman is like a necklace of flowers--pleasant to the eye and grateful to the smell: but such a necklace does not long continue attractive; beautiful as it is one day, the next it fades and loses its scent. Yet a pretty necklace tempts one to ask for it, but, if refused no one will often repeat his request. If you love me, I love you; but if not, neither do I love you: let it be a settled thing" (150).

SUICIDES AND BACHELORS

Hearts are not likely to be broken by a refusal under such circ.u.mstances, which bears out Williams's remark (148) that no distinctive preference is apparent among these men and women. Under such circ.u.mstances it may appear strange that some widowers should commit suicide upon the death of a wife, as Seernan a.s.sures us they do (193). Does not this indicate deep feeling? Not in a savage. In all countries suicide is usually a sign of a weak intellect rather than of strong feelings, and especially is this the case among the lower races, where both men and women are apt to commit suicide in a moment of excitement, often for the most trivial cause, as we shall see in the next chapter. Williams tells us (106) of a chief on Thithia who was addressed disrespectfully by a younger brother and who, rather than live to have the insult made the topic of common talk, loaded his musket, placed the muzzle at his breast, and pushing the trigger with his toe, shot himself through the heart. He knew a similar case on Vanua Levu.

"Pride and anger combined often lead to self-destruction.

... The most common method of suicide in Fiji is by jumping over a precipice. This is, among the women, the fashionable way of destroying themselves; but they sometimes resort to the rope. Of deadly poisons they are ignorant, and drowning would be a difficult thing; for from infancy they learn to be almost as much at home in the water as on dry land."

In his book on the Melanesians Codrington says (243) that

"a wife jealous of her husband, or in any way incensed at him, would in former times throw herself from a cliff or tree, swim out to sea, hang or strangle herself, stab herself with an arrow, or thrust one down her throat; and a man jealous or quarrelling with his wife would do the like; but now it is easy to go off with another's wife or husband in a labor vessel to Queensland or Fiji."

There is one cla.s.s of men in Fiji who are not likely to commit suicide. They are the bachelors, who, though they are scorned and frowned on in this life, must look forward to a worse fate after death. There is a special G.o.d, named Nangganangga--"the bitter hater of bachelors"--who watches for their souls, and so untiring is his watch, as Williams was informed (206), that no unwedded spirit has ever reached the Elysium of Fiji. Sly bachelors sometimes try to dodge him by stealing around the edge of a certain reef at low tide; but he is up to their tricks, seizes them and dashes them to pieces on the large black stone, just as one shatters rotten fire-wood.

SAMOAN TRAITS

Cruel and degraded as the Fijians are, they mark a considerable advance over the Australian savages. A further advance is to be noted as we come to the Samoans. Cannibalism was indulged in occasionally in more remote times, but not, as in Fiji, owing to a relish for human flesh, but merely as a climax of hatred and revenge. To speak of roasting a Samoan chief is a deadly insult and a cause for war (Turner, 108). Sympathy was a feeling known to Samoans; their treatment of the sick was invariably humane (141). And whereas in Australia, Borneo, and Fiji, it is just as honorable to slay a female as a male, Samoans consider it cowardly to kill a woman (196). Nor do they practise infanticide; but this abstinence is counterbalanced by the fact that the custom of destroying infants before birth prevailed to a melancholy extent (79).

Yet here as everywhere we discover that the s.e.xual refinement on which the capacity for supersensual love depends comes last of the virtues.