The Pacific Triangle Part 21

In the journeys to and fro across the vast s.p.a.ces of the South Pacific one rarely meets a white man who takes his native wife with him. One such I did meet when slipping down from Hawaii to the Fiji Islands.

There were two couples on board who always kept more or less to themselves, two rough-looking white men, a white woman, and one who for all I could tell was a middle-cla.s.s Southern European woman. She wore simple clothes,--a blouse hanging over her skirt and comfortable shoes.

She was in no sense shy, laughed heartily, moved about with a self-conscious air of importance, but with ease, and made no effort to hide the curving blue lines of tattooing that decorated her chin. She was a Maori princess, and all the vigor of her race disported itself in the supple lines of her figure.

Her husband, Mr. Webb, however, was not a British prince. Blunt in his manners, he was ultra-radical in his opinions,--a proud member of New Zealand's working cla.s.s. Domineering in his temperament he was, but she was a match for him. It was obvious that she had missed in her native training any lessons in subservience to a mere husband. She spoke a clear, broad, fluent English without the slightest accent, and when her extremely argumentative husband made a strong point, she gave her a.s.sent in no mistaken terms.

At table she was more mannerly than her spouse, though laboring under no difficulties whatever in the acquisition of food. I have never seen a person more self-possessed. Her royal lineage was writ large in her every expression. Though out on deck they both seemed somewhat out of place among the white folk and preferred a corner apart, in the dining-room they were kin to all men.

I found them both extremely interesting, and when the usual invitations were pa.s.sed round for a continuance of the acquaintanceship after landing, I accepted theirs more readily than any other. Blunt and without finesse as they were, there was an obvious cordiality and virility in their manner, and no man alert to adventure turns so promising an offer aside.

Months afterward I was in Auckland, New Zealand, and made myself known to them. Most cordial was the reception they gave me when I stepped upon the well-built pier that jutted out into the inlet from the little launch that brought me there. Back upon the knoll stood Madame, her heavy head of curly hair loose about her shoulders. Her very being greeted me with welcome, firmness of foot and arm and calmness of poise proclaiming her nativity. When I approached, her strong hand grasped mine, her face beamed, and she led the way over the gra.s.s-grown path to the porch with even more self-confidence than when she had gone to her seat in the saloon, on shipboard.

Yet it was no saloon they led me into, but a simple hollow-tile structure with slate roofing and plain plastered walls. Just an ordinary four-roomed house, the haven of the rising pioneer. There were no decorations on the walls, no modern equipment of any kind, not even a stove. The table was machine-turned, the chairs ordinary, and on the mantelpiece stood some bleached photographs. My hosts went about in their bare feet, and otherwise as loosely clad as the early November spring permitted. They prepared their meals on the open fire, and the menu was as simple as anything ever offered me; and for the first time in my life I ate boiled eels, the great Maori staple and delicacy. Had it not been for the emanation of her genial personality and his vigorous, breezy, almost hard pleasure in my presence, I should have felt chilled in that habitation. But in place of things was sincere welcome. I had proof of that that night, for I was placed in the guest-room, upon a soft, comfortable bed, while my hosts themselves spread a mattress on the floor in the living-room. Lest I misunderstand, they explained that it was their custom, Maori fashion, to sleep on the floor, as they preferred the hard support to that of the yielding spring.

I woke next morning just as the sun peeped over the hill directly into my window. It was a sober dawn,--just a healthy flush of life, with crisp, invigorating air. One branch of a young kauri pine-tree stretched across the rising orb like nature rousing itself from sleep. And in the other room I could hear my hosts moving quietly about, preparing breakfast.

Without word of warning or any apparent welcome, the wife's brother and his young bride arrived. It was obvious that the visit was no unusual occurrence. They made themselves as much a part of the place as possible, and were ignored by the white man and his Maori wife as though they were servants. Yet they were both, to me at least, delightful. He was broad-shouldered, erect, rounded of limb but muscular,--as handsome a boy of twenty as I have ever seen, and it gave one joy to see him mated to so fine a girl. Their beings vibrated to each other with the joy of their union.

And she was as fine a mate for him. Though she accentuated every feature of her s.e.x, it was with the joy of fitness for him, not with any effort to be alluring. She wore a very close fitting middy-blouse, which made more firm the rounded b.r.e.a.s.t.s of her young maidenhood. She was supple and plump and moved with litheness and grace, full of animal spirits.

With an affected air she swung about to the step of an American rag, and every once in a while she would throw herself into her lover's arms, and take a turn about out of sheer happiness. It had never occurred to me how extremely civilized and not primitive our rag-time music is until I saw these young "savages" affect it. But however ill-fitting the tune to their emotions, there was something absolutely natural in their adoration and their rushing into each other's arms which no amount of civilization could tarnish.

In the afternoon they went digging for eels in the mud of the inlet.

While they were gone, my host and his wife cleared the yard of overgrown weeds and rubbish.

"That's the way they are," said he. "All day long they dance and fool away their time. They think they've done a lot if they dig for eels all afternoon. When we went away to Hawaii we left them to look after our house without charging them any rent. This is what we found when we returned. The whole place was overgrown with weeds, the fences were broken down, the gates were off, and the place was strewn with rubbish.

They don't know what it is to be careful." And he struck a match to the heap of weeds he and his wife had gathered.

Presently the two lovers returned with a basket full of eels. The young "housewife" hung her catch by the tails on the clothes-line to dry, and in a pail of clear water washed the mud-suckers they had gathered as by-product. Then they felt they were ent.i.tled to rest.

All afternoon until late evening they lay upon the spring of an unused matressless bedstead, which stood upon the veranda. Their heads were at the opposite ends of the bed. He kicked his feet in the air, but every time a move of hers showed more of her legs than he thought proper, he pulled down her tight skirt. He held an accordion over him upon which he played a medley of airs, while she whirled a soft hat with her fingers. From their throats issued a fountain of song, harmonious only in the spirit of joy which inspired it.

So far they might just as well have been guests at a hotel for all the attention their elders paid to them. We had had our meals by ourselves.

They were simply tolerated. But after nightfall, they joined their relatives in a game of cards. Every move provoked a burst of laughter, whether successful or unsuccessful to the hilarious one, and never a suggestion of strife or thought of gain was manifest.

The Maories are more sober than their kinsmen of the upper South Seas.

Life was never to them less than a serious struggle. I daresay they are happier to-day than they were in their own time, with peace and prosperity guaranteed them. But that is problematical. Laughter and play are to-day urgent necessities. The dances and games that were native to them--when not stimulated by some social event--do not come to them with the same old spontaneity. It took considerable begging on my part and nudging from Mr. Webb to persuade the women to show me a native dance.

Donning her skirt of rushes, Mrs. Webb stepped into the center of the room, giggling all the while, and insisting that her sister-in-law dance with her. The latter took a stick in her hand and they began. But after two or three movements they doubled over with laughter, and faltered. I kept urging them on. At last they caught the spirit of it, and for a few minutes they were as though possessed. Their movements, mainly of the hands and hips, were not unlike those of the geisha dances of j.a.pan.

They kept them up for fifteen minutes. Suddenly they stopped, as though struck self-conscious, almost as a modest girl who had wakened from a somnambulant journey in her nightgown. They slipped into chairs, and were silent. Then for about half an hour they sat "yarning" soberly before the hearth fire. And something sad seemed to creep away up the chimney.

The two young lovers decided they would take a bath, and went into another chamber to heat the water. My bed was spread for me; the hosts unrolled the mattress which had been lying in the corner on the floor all day. We retired. Then from the other room came sounds of hilarious laughter, the splashing of water in the tub, and the slapping of naked wet flesh. It kept up for hours, long after midnight. When silence finally reigned over the household, an adorably cool moon peeped in at our windows, and I knew that the two lovers in the room next mine were at last overcome by the conspiracy of moonlight and fatigue.

"Did you hear those mad Maories?" said Mr. Webb to me the first thing in the morning. "Such mad things! To keep the whole house awake till long after midnight!" Then he, too, seemed to become self-conscious. Wasn't he pa.s.sing reflections on the tribe of his wife? We strolled out into the fields. He seemed to feel the necessity of an explanation. Among his people, the white folk, though he was not ostracized for having taken a native wife (for it is common enough), still it did lower one in the social scale. I steered the conversation round till he himself spoke of it. He referred to his wife, somewhat soberly. "I like her and am satisfied with her. She's a good woman." And during the whole of my visit I saw nothing to indicate that their marriage was not a success.

She was tidy, thrifty, and companionable. He always treated her with respect and affection, though once or twice with undue firmness. But she always stood her ground with dignity and good-nature. When he poked kindly fun at some photographs of her, she smiled and winked at me. Then she said of a picture taken of him on the beach: "I wouldn't lose it for all the world, just for his sake."

By way of apology for the absence of more furnishings, they explained that they had sold out; they were tired of labor conditions in New Zealand, of the too great closeness to the "tribe" and in consequence had paid a visit to Hawaii, where they bought a plantation. Thither they went shortly afterward, the Briton and his Maori wife, he to mix with his European cousins, she with her Polynesian kinsfolk, and a more general reunion, after centuries of separation, consummated.

Not the least lovable among the fifty-seven blends of humanity that make up the inhabitants of the South Seas and the Pacific are these Maories and their half-brothers and sisters.

5

From a Member of Parliament I had received several letters of introduction, one of which was to the famous Dr. Pomare, the native M.

P. who represented native interests in the Dominion's parliament. When I arrived at Wellington, the capital, I presented myself at his office and was received by a most genial, well-spoken, widely read individual whose tongue would have entertained the most sophisticated of European gatherings. There was hardly a subject we touched in which he was not well versed, and his native qualities rang out in intermittent bursts of laughter such as only a healthy-minded and healthy-bodied individual could indulge in. When we began to discuss the question of the virtues and vices of his native race, the Maories, he a.s.sured me:

"Oh, we're just like any people. There are good and bad amongst us. Some of our people will sell their lands, if they can, and buy an automobile which they run madly about and then leave in an open plot in ruin. On the other hand, one of our women has been very clever with her property, has sold it off, and invested her money in stocks so that to-day she owns the greatest number of shares in the Wellington tram lines. So you see we are just like other people."

And so it is. But there is a slight exception, for I have heard from every one that the tendency to revert to type is very great, and that one of the wealthiest native woman in the Dominion will frequently leave her mansion, her jewels, her limousine, her fine clothes, and spend a time in a Maori _pah_, eating eels in the good old native way.

But such reversions cannot last long. Despite that drift, there are indications of a racial recrudescence through the half-castes, a tendency noticed by students of the primitive peoples throughout the Pacific. Hope for the Maories is in the younger elements who have that happy mixture in them, called Pakeha-Maori. Visiting a cla.s.s of young women in a commercial school in Dunedin I noticed among them one whose dark face and black eyes were full of a certain wicked fascination. She was as bright and alert as any member of the cla.s.s. And when I spoke of her to the head of the school, he said, "Oh, that little half-caste girl." I should not have known it.

One does not like to be too enthusiastic, but if these savage Polynesians can in the course of three generations, and with the aid of a slight mixture, change from fierce cannibalism to something as sweet and lovable as this, there is indeed great hope for them. What though the prejudiced a.s.sure you that, however far the mixture may have gone, it reveals itself in a tendency to squat when least expected? There is in the most civilized of us still enough of the savage strain to make us wary of carrying our aversions too far.

Doubtless the Britons of New Zealand would enter any debate with the Americans of Hawaii as to which is the superior people, the Maories or the Hawaiians. For our own peace of mind let us accept their Polynesian kinship at the outset. Both are worth saving as separate races or in mixture with others.

The Maori M.P., the rebellious priest, Rua, later released from prison, the Hawaiian clerk in the throne-room, the Fijian chief turned governor, the Samoan chief in pajamas who, with the customs officials, boarded the steamer anch.o.r.ed beyond the reefs, and Mrs. Webb, the princess,--all these are natives playing the new part allotted to them in this strange new world.

Thus slowly, into the life and fabric of the South Seas, is coming this consciousness of rebirth. It is a new cla.s.s, a new race. Not the Eurasians, scorned by the white and the superior Asiatics,--but the reverse. Half-caste, but the proud possessors of the virtues of the natives, with the strength and superiority of the white; half-caste in blood but not always so in spirit.

CHAPTER XVI

GIVING HEARTS A NEW CHANCE

1

Casual, impermanent, or broken as these unions. .h.i.therto have been, their cyclonic process of attraction and repulsion has created a suction drawing in both good and evil. The white sailor and vagabond who ravished the brown maiden never intended to father the consequences. But gradually, as communication increased and mutual interests developed, greater stability entered into the relations of the races. Marital contracts became necessary and, from the point of view of property and other acquisitions, even desirable. Readjustment of conceptions of s.e.x grew urgent. This entailed the complement, divorce.

From all corners of the world came people whose notions of man's relations with woman were as divergent as the seas. The j.a.panese and Chinese brought their Oriental att.i.tude toward women; the American his Occidental. Besides, with the pa.s.sing of native control, European nations superimposed European regulations upon the islands. We have, then, the introduction of legalism into the casual affairs of the tropics, and the vanishing of primitive license. We have the j.a.panese woman, subject to the control of her husband, finding herself protected by the laws of another race. These raise her status and her self-respect. She rebels against unpleasant s.e.x-unions. Divorce in these conglomerate regions, therefore, means the idealization of s.e.x, raising it above the stage of animal possession and material interest; based upon the sense of justice to woman, it recreates marriage, makes decent unions possible.

Hence, in the wake of queer marriages we see even more queer divorces, as though hearts, having become self-conscious, seek a new chance. As age mellows racial a.s.sociations, we find that men's hearts the world over beat as one, and relationships which are at all compatible seek permanency, if not "normalcy."

It was easy enough for a wanderer or a few hundred traders and romancers to leave their imprint on the native races. It is another matter when the native races are overwhelmed by a hundred thousand aliens of twenty-odd races, and the work of amalgamation falls to the lot of the white man. An altogether new problem manifests itself,--not only that of bringing them together in a legal and permanent manner, but of separating such types and individuals as cannot work for the betterment of the new race.

Throughout the Pacific already reviewed, the mixture is as yet essentially accidental and occasional. But in no spot in the Pacific has the problem a.s.sumed such serious proportions as in Hawaii, where, added to the great diversity of conglomerations, comes the factor of white and Asiatic superiority in number. As we have seen, the infusion of this flood of foreign blood into the thin native element has fairly swamped it. This jungle of humanity seems at first sight utterly beyond cultural purification. The streets throb with such multiplicity of little ways that one feels bewildered. One has to s.n.a.t.c.h a sample of the life and place it beneath the magnifying-gla.s.s of tradition and code to be able to separate it from the whole. And that I did one day in Honolulu.

The sun was pouring down in veritable splutters of softness and mellowness. It was warm in an all-embracing tenderness of warmth. To be in the shade with another human being was here as unifying in spirit as sitting before an open fire is on a blizzardy day in the North. And on such a day I entered the court-room of Honolulu. The dusty tread of people from every land has sounded across this court-house floor and all the simple tragedies of life with their hoa.r.s.e warnings have been enacted within its walls. Hundreds of disappointed men and women have come into that room hoping to have their lives straightened out, their affections given a new chance.

When I entered, the court-room was empty. A ma.s.sive Hawaiian looked in, and walked away. Then a thin white man approached and, when he learned what brought me, he sat down on one of the wooden benches to talk to me.

It was Judge William L. Whitney, who died in New York just recently.

Presently, an emaciated-looking Chinese entered and sat down to wait. A small, wrinkled, sallow little woman from the Celestial Republic, accompanied by a compatriot, came in after him, and seated herself a little distance away. Then came the fat Hawaiian again who had peered in earlier, and with that everything seemed in order. Judge Whitney left me, approached the bench, and, though he wore only his ordinary street clothes, he was forthwith crowned with the halo of his office.

The proceedings began. Proceedings in this case meant great round eyes rolling in tremendous sockets, a tongue free with the dialects and linguistics of every mixture, and a temperament free from ambition or guile. The judge could speak no Chinese, the respondents could speak no English, the witnesses (of whom two strayed in later) could speak neither English nor Chinese,--and so among them the Hawaiian interpreter had all the fun to himself. He was in reality the dispenser of justice.

The case was rehea.r.s.ed. The Chinese was suing his wife for divorce.

"Where were you when you saw this man kiss your wife?" asked the judge.