The Pacific Triangle Part 17

One day in August, when the first snow fell over our little winter world in the far South, I had climbed the hills up to the belt of wildwood that girds the city of Dunedin. The very joy of life was in the air.

Keenly I sensed the larger season,--that of human kinship merged in the centuries. I looked across the hills to mountains I had known; but it was then not the Alps I saw, not the Rockies, the Aeta Roa under the Southern Cross, nor yet the Himalayas nor the snow-packed barriers of the Uriankhai, the unrenowned Turgan group. In truth, I was not seeing impa.s.sable peaks at all, but imprisoned ranges which were themselves trying to outreach their alt.i.tudinal limitations. It was a world consciousness which was mine, and I towered far above the highest peaks, above the world itself. I saw no single group, no political sections nor geographical divisions, the conquest of ridges, the commingling of noises, the concord of peoples. And when men come to this world consciousness they will recognize and accept all, include the barrier and the plain. They will see these great, sheer rugged peaks knifing the floating clouds, yielding to the creeping glaciers, yet one and all, when released sweeping down the valleys as impa.s.sioned rivers, filling the lowest depths of earth, depths deeper than the sea, lower than the deserts. In such moments of world consciousness men will have to step downward from the bottom of the sea and upward from the summit of McKinley. Then barriers will become beacons. Mankind lives at sea-level.

We care little about our neighbors over the ranges. That mental att.i.tude makes barriers real and valleys dark. But when we turn them into beacons we shall climb the barriers in order to look into the valleys of our neighbors and they will become the ladders of heaven and the light unto nations. That is the lesson of the sea.

At present we live at a sea-level, but beneath and behind the barriers, are the peaks of earth. Hence walls of houses are as great barriers as mountains. Hence even thoughts are barriers and ideals become terrible, cold, insurmountable prominences.

But in world consciousness, which is the lesson of the sea, we do not reject anything,--the religions, the political parties, the anti-religions, and the negations,--but we bring them to the level of human understanding by absorption, by taking them in. That is the story of the sea.

The ocean breaks incessantly before us, but only the one majestic wave thrills as it rises and overleaps the rocky barrier. A forest is densely grown, yet only the stately, beautiful tree stirs the forest-lover. The street swarms with human beings all of whom are material for the friend-maker, yet only one of the ma.s.s, in pa.s.sing, steeps the day's experience in the essence of love. But loving that one wave, or tree, or being does not shut us against the source of its becoming; rather does it teach us the possibilities latent in the ma.s.s. That is the moral of the sea.

But what is the sea? How can we know the sea? Is it water, s.p.a.ce, depth? Can we measure it in miles, in the days required to traverse it, in steamship lines, by the turning of the screws, or by the system of the fourth dimension? To me who have been round the greatest sea on earth comes the realization that I have seen only a narrow line of it, and that I can only believe that the rest is what it has been said to be. Yet my faith is founded on my knowledge of the faithfulness of the sea.

The sea, we sometimes say, has its moods, but rather should they be called enthusiasms. It is really not the sea at all to which we refer, but to something which in the vague world of infinitude is in itself a sea whipping the surface of an unfathomable wonder. The sea's moods are not in its breakers, any more than is the surface phenomenon which floors the region between our atmosphere and ether, the story of our earth. We cannot reach down beneath the breakers and learn the secret of the heart of the sea. In ourselves, as in the sea, we obtain a record of that tremendous silence which is the harbinger of all sound, as the heavens are of all color.

One day in New Zealand I witnessed a conflict between the earth and the sea. A tremendous wind swept north-westward, and pressed heavily down upon the sh.o.r.e. It sent the sand scurrying back into the sea. Even the breakers, like the sand, fell back in furious spray like the waves of sea-horses,--back into the ocean. The entire length of the beach for three miles was alive with retreating spray, mingled with the bewildered sand-legions scurrying at my ankles.

One night, on the sh.o.r.es of Otago Harbor, the moon, blasted and blunted by heavy clouds, had started on its journey. In a little cave huddled a cloud of black night. We had spread the faithful embers of our camp fire so they could not touch one another, and wanting touch they died in the darkness. We had put the curse of loneliness upon each of them. The little cave had become only a darker spot on a dark landscape,--a landscape so rough, so rare and rugged, reaching the sea and the western sky of night. So rough, so unformed, so uncompleted. The maker of lands was beating against it impatiently, rushing it, forming it.

What uncanny projections, what sandy cliffs! For ages the wind and sea have been whipping them into shape. Yet man could remove them with a blast or two. For thousands of miles, all round the rim of the great Pacific, the same process is going on, day and night. While upon land, man has continued working out his mission in the same persistent, unconscious manner.

O Maker of lands' ends, O Sea, when will man be formed? When will the conflicts among men cease? They have tried to curb one another and to subject one another to slavish uses, even and kempt. But still, after ages of whipping and lashing, they are still unfinished as though never to be formed. Are the various little groups which lie so far apart, scattered by some ancient camper, to die for want of the touch of comrade, like those embers in the darkness of that empty cavelet?

Here round the Pacific we dwell, each in his own little hollow. May not this vast, generous ocean become the great experiment station for human commonalty, for distinction without extinction? The dreams that centered in the other great seas--the Mediterranean, the Atlantic--were only partially fulfilled. But here at the point where East is West, it ought to be possible, because of the very obvious differences, to maintain relations without irritating encroachment. There was a time when pa.s.sionate desire justified a man taking a woman from another with the aid of a club. To-day the decent man knows that however much he may love, only mutual consent makes relationship possible. And from the frenzy of untutored souls let those who feel repugnance withdraw till the force of a higher morality makes the rest of the world follow in its wake.

... now I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, Retreating to the breath Of the night-wind down the vast edges drear And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true To one another! for the world, which seems To lie before us like a land of dreams, So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, nor love nor light, Nor cert.i.tude, nor peace, nor help for pain: And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night.

BOOK TWO

DISCUSSION OF NATIVE PROBLEMS--PERSONAL AND SOCIAL

CHAPTER XIII

EXIT THE n.o.bLE SAVAGE

1

To the primitive or simple races of the world marriage, divorce, and supply of only the elemental wants are the most intense problems.

Nourishment and reproduction make up the rounds of life. While the highly developed nations around the Pacific are concerned with the exploitation of the resources of the islands, and with political problems growing out of their reciprocal interests, the natives are struggling with matters that lie nearer the real foundations of life.

For them the question of survival is an immediate and pressing one.

Extinction is facing many of them, absorption by inflowing races is creating altogether new difficulties and relationships, such as marriage and divorce, while newer conceptions of exchange and trade, the buying and selling of meats and vegetables, are introducing social and moral factors they could not as yet be expected to understand. Nor can we who have thrust ourselves upon them or accepted responsibility for their well-being understand our obligations unless we think of them as human beings, or without visualizing their problems by human examples. Nor can we escape these responsibilities or shirk them. Out of the stuff their lives are made of grow the larger problems, those of the relationship of the great civilizations that touch each other on the Pacific--Asia, Australasia, America.

Threnodies and elegies a-plenty have mourned the pa.s.sing of the Polynesians of the South Seas. The n.o.ble savage whose average height often measured six feet--plus thick callouses--has stalked among us, as a mythical figure, maidens unabashed in their naked loveliness have lured men to the tropics oblivious of home ties. Leisure and unlimited harems in prospect have afforded many a civilized man salacious joys the like of which the white race has not altogether abandoned, but which few have the courage to pursue in the open. The pa.s.sing of these Pacific peoples has in some quarters been hailed as an indication of the viciousness of civilization; their yielding to virtue has been deplored by others. The sentimentalist has clothed them in romance; the cynic has stuck horns in their brows. But whether the romancer is wrong or the missionary devoid of appreciation of nature unadorned, the pa.s.sing of the Polynesian is an admitted danger. Whether it was the vice of the drunken sailor or the clothes of the devout disciple that brought about this downfall shall not here be determined. It will be mine merely to depict in living examples the episodes that indicate their evanescence, and to point to the silent forces of regeneration that are at work,--forces that, having accomplished the virtual decease of some of the finest races in the world, and yet are bringing about their rebirth.

One cannot live in the tropics without romancing. The simplicity, the earnestness of life, devoid of many of the outer signs of avarice so consonant with the individualism of our civilization; the slovenliness unhampered by too many clothes,--these take one by a storm of pleasure.

One forgets the natives once were cannibals; or rather, one delights in saying to oneself "they were," and forgets to thank the missionary and the trader for having altered these tastes before one arrived; one exalts every sprawling female into a symbol of naturalness, though Heaven knows the soft white skins and hidden bosoms of the North come as welcome reminders in face of native temptations. And with Professor Brown of New Zealand, one deplores that the selfsame missionaries and traders "in spite of their antipodal purposes and methods, alike force the race to decay." Their contract with the white race is demoralizing even where it aims to be most just and helpful. Their lands, made secure to them by legislation (as in New Zealand), often become the means of gratifying wild tastes for motor-cars and fineries which leave them bankrupt physically and morally.

2

It was a steaming day. I had been up from before dawn in order to make my pilgrimage to Vailima. Half the morning was not yet gone when I returned to the little hotel in Apia, situated beside the reefs, to hide myself away from the burning sun. Even within the shade of the upper veranda my flesh squirmed beneath my shirt and the shoes upon my feet became unbearable. So off went my shoes. Nothing merely romantic could have induced me to crawl from under the shadows. There I was content to listen to the lapping of the broken waves as they washed sh.o.r.eward over the reefs. There I inhaled the scent of tropical vegetation as it reached me, tempered and sifted to the satisfaction of one who dreads the sun and its overweening brilliance.

Suddenly a wail lanced the silence. It sounded for all the world like the melancholy "extra" which New York newsboys cry through the side streets when they wish to make a fire the concern of the world. I sprang up and, leaning over the veranda rail, strained my neck in the direction of the crier, who was still behind the bend in the road which is Apia's Main Street. It seemed to take him an unconscionable time to come into view, his voice approaching and receding, and being battologized as though by a hundred megaphones. Prancing, crouching, and shading his eyes in the manner of an Amerindian scout, he finally made his appearance,--a grotesque fiend, one to strike terror to the heart of a G.o.d. His oiled body glistened in the sun; his charcoal-blackened jaw resembled that of a gorilla; while a scarlet turban of cheese-cloth wound after the fashion of the Hindu gave flaming finish to this frightful impersonation of the devil. Nothing but the presence of the army of occupation and the _Encounter_ out in the harbor could have allayed my apprehension, not even the vanity of racial superiority or the oft-repeated prophecies about this vanishing race. For he seemed savagery come to life.

Presently four others, similar personifications of deviltry, came on behind him. In addition to make-up, each brandished a long knife used for cutting sugar-cane, or a clumsy ax. They squatted, they jumped, whirling their weapons in heavy blows at imagined enemies. Never was make-believe played with greater conviction, never was the wish father to the act with more pathetic earnestness. The pitcher of a chosen nine never hurled his ball across an empty field with greater determination to win the coming game than did these warless warriors wield their weapons.

Slowly from the rear came the army, four abreast, in stately procession.

There were seventy-five Samoans, each over six feet tall, men of girth and bone and pride. Their glistening bodies reflected the sun like a heaving sea. Their loins were draped in leaves in place of the every-day sulu, with girdles of pink tissue paper round them. Their faces, too, were blackened with charcoal, and turbans of red cheese-cloth capped them. Those of them who could not secure knives or axes, wielded sticks with threatening realism.

In an instant I was in my shoes again and out upon the road, a bit of flotsam in the wake of a great pageant.

I fell in with a Samoan policeman, dressed like an English Bobby, trailing along in the rear. "What's the trouble?" I asked. "Is this a preliminary uprising?" There was much talk of the Germans stirring the natives to rebellion against British occupation, but evidently the natives had had enough of alien squabbles, and it seemed to matter little to them by which of the white invaders they were ruled. A strange expression came into the policeman's face, a mixture of awe and contempt. He could speak only a very scant amount of English, but enough to unlock this awe-inspiring secret. "Tamasese, the king he dead," he said. I fumbled about in my memory for coincidences. The policeman was old enough to have been an understanding boy at the time Stevenson took up the cause of Mataafa as opposed to the German interests and antagonistic even to the British and American att.i.tude. It must have been strange to him, therefore, to find himself a British policeman in a uniform of blue, with a heavy helmet, timidly following a funeral procession in honor of the son of a king disfavored of Stevenson,--while all about were the soldiers of New Zealand. I got nothing from him of any political significance, but much in the way of the spirit of his race. For though an officer of "the" law, perhaps the only one of his kind in Samoa, he dared not go too close to the ranks of these stalwarts. They had come from every islet of the Samoan group, the pick of the race, representatives declaring before the whole world: Our race is not dead; long live our race!

So, all along the way for over a mile into the country behind Apia, continued the procession. Not for a moment did the antics cease; not for a moment did the wail of the warriors subside. Every time the advance scouts called out, "O-o-o-o-s-o-o-o" [The king is dead], the four behind him thundered their denial, "E sa" [Long live the king], and the entire regiment droned the confession "O so." For the king was truly no more.

Not only the king but his kingdom. For not only was there now no struggle of aliens over its precincts, but the second conqueror, Britain, who once did not think Samoa worthy as spoils, had stepped in and taken possession.

The procession filled the native population with awe. No one ventured near. A dog ran across the road and was immediately cut down by the sugar-cane knife in a warrior's hand. A Chinese, with the contempt of the fanatic for the fanaticism of others, drove his cart indifferently into their line. Knives, axes, and other borrowed, stolen, or improvised weapons found their way into the chariot of the Celestial.

Half-way along, a limping old man whose leg was swollen with elephantiasis advanced against them. He challenged their approach. They cut the air with furious blows aimed in his direction. He pretended to fall, in the manner of a Russian dancer, picked himself up and started on a wild retreat. The army had routed an enemy.

Here the roadside spread in open land dotted everywhere with native huts. Presently the army arrived at the king's grounds, where a simple hut sat back about two hundred feet from the road, with a bit of green before it. The army broke "rank," and squatted in a double row just at the side of the road. For a few minutes there was silence.

Then out of the group rose Maii, the leader. Silently he strode the full width of the s.p.a.ce in front of the thirty seated men, leaning lightly upon the long rough stick in his hand. His giant-like figure was the personification of dignity; his roughened face the acme of sobriety; he seemed lost in thought. Facing about, he started to retrace his steps in front of the seated men, then, as though suddenly recollecting himself, turned his head in the direction of the king's hut and in a subdued tone no higher than that in ordinary conversation, addressed the house of Tamasese, which stood fully half a block away. Quietly, but not without emotion, he spoke and paused; and every time he paused the leading four men would shout "O-o-o-s-o-o," and the entire group would answer "O sa."

Convincing and convinced, the leader proceeded with his oration. An hour later, to the minute, he finished.

At the king's house appeared an old man in a snow-white sulu, leaning heavily on a stick. I could see his lips moving, but could not hear a word. He was speaking to the leader, who could not hear any more than I.

They kept up the pretense at conversation for a few minutes and all was agreed upon. A servant, who had followed the old man with a soft mat in his hand which to me looked like silk, advanced cautiously toward the warriors.

Two of them jumped instantly to their feet, brandishing their knife and ax furiously as though to protect the leader or to drive away evil spirits, I knew not which. But certain it was the cautious servant became still more cautious, timidly arriving with his offering and presenting it to the chief. The manner in which the gift was accepted, though solemn enough, was full of admonition, much as to say: "Now, don't you do that again." The mat-bearer's heart seemed relieved of a great terror, and he started back to the house of the king. On his way he pa.s.sed a mango-tree, stopped, looked up as though he had spied an evil spirit, picked up a mango, stepped back, and dramatically hurled it at the tree as a boy would who was playing make-believe. At that the whole army of stalwarts rose and departed to the right.

As soon as they left the grounds, eleven girls, in single file, each with a mat of the loveliest texture imaginable flung to the breeze, came out upon the road from the other side of the grounds and followed round the front to the right after the way of the warriors. And the ceremony was over.

I had squatted on the ground, close to the warriors. They treated me as though I were an innocent child who did not know the dangers of evil things, nor enough to respect my superiors. Not so the natives. Even the policeman with whom I had arrived had retreated to the protection of a hut some three hundred feet away from the road. All the people in the neighborhood--men, women and children--kept within their own huts, their solemn faces full of awe and respect. Nor did the tension slacken until the last of the maidens had made her way out of sight.

Thus was the son of the last Samoan king escorted in safety along the other way,--a way which to the native mind seemed as vivid and real as heaven and h.e.l.l were to Dante and Swedenborg.

3

Exit the n.o.ble Savage. "Think," says Bancroft, spokesman of the arrogant "Blond Beast," "what it would mean to civilization if all these worthless primitives were to pa.s.s away before us." The beginning of this end was witnessed and told by Stevenson in 1892, but the natives'

version of it has yet to be related. Against those who mourn his loss as the h.e.l.lenist the Greeks, are some of our most practical men.