The Pacific Triangle Part 22

The interpreter took up the question in Chinese as though the language were part of his inheritance, and after the Chinese spoke, back came the reply through the lips of the Hawaiian, but in the first person.

"I was in the garden. When I looked up into our bedroom I saw this man kiss my wife."

The evidence was vague. To John Chinaman it meant more than a few facts, for his wife had borne him no offspring. What a timid-daring attempt to reach out for new life! At home he would just have dismissed her, but here it was different. Yet from their appearance it was doubtful that either of them would ever have the courage to try to live life over.

This was only one of the many entangled lives that came to be straightened out in Hawaii. There are more than forty-seven different combinations of races there, such as American and American, German and German, Korean and Korean, Russian and Russian, Spanish-Marshall and English, Half-Hawaiian and Chinese-Hawaiian, Hawaiian and Chinese-Hawaiian, Hawaiian and Hawaiian-Portuguese, Chinese and Chinese, Hawaiian and Hawaiian, Portuguese and Portuguese, Spanish and Spanish, Spanish-Hawaiian and Spanish-Hawaiian, Portuguese and Creole-Spanish-Portuguese, Chinese and Irish, American and Half-Hawaiian, Portuguese and Pole, Half-Hawaiian and Half-Hawaiian, American and Hawaiian-Chinese, English and Half-Hawaiian, j.a.panese and American, American-j.a.panese and j.a.panese, Half-Hawaiian and German, Portuguese and Hawaiian, German and Irish, Hawaiian-Chinese and Spanish-Italian, Portuguese and Hawaiian-Chinese, Half-Hawaiian and Spanish, Porto-Rican and Porto-Rican, Oginawa and Oginawa, French-Porto-Rican and Porto-Rican, Swede and Portuguese, English and English, Hawaiian and Chinese, American and French-Spanish, Portuguese and j.a.panese, American-Portuguese and German-Irish, Portuguese-Hawaiian and Portuguese, Portuguese and German-Irish, Portuguese-Hawaiian and Portuguese, Portuguese-Irish and Hawaiian, Hawaiian and American-Negro, Portuguese-Hawaiian-Chinese and Chinese. And I am certain that I can add another, that of my New Zealand acquaintance and his Maori wife.

They are but one phase of the whole problem of the mixture of races and the melting of their silvers and bronzes down to the human essence within them. For there were in Judge Whitney's time on an average of two hundred and thirty couples divorced under that ceiling every year.

Figures make human facts seem so remote that I hate to use them. As soon as figures are quoted the individuals lose their ident.i.ty. That which is living and real becomes, as it were, an astronomical calculation and one might as well talk of stars. But the figures of the divorces in Hawaii are in themselves a living thing, as they interpret the life there more than words could do; so I'll risk giving a few of the figures Judge Whitney published while I was in Honolulu.

The j.a.panese contributed 49% of the divorces in Hawaii, though they comprise only 34% of the population; the Americans, 7%, though they were 8% of the population. The rest were distributed among the other nationalities. This is how those statistics compared with divorce statistics in other countries. There were in England out of every hundred thousand inhabitants, two divorces per year; in Austria, one; in Norway, six; in Sweden, eight; in Italy, three; in Denmark, seventeen; in Germany, twenty-three; and in France, the same; in the United States, seventy-three; and in the island of Oahu (Honolulu), four hundred.

Hundreds of little folk, a host of children, have pa.s.sed out of that room either fatherless or motherless. Back in the lands which they might have called home it would not have happened in just this way, or having happened so, it would not have had the same tragic meaning. For in Oriental countries fathers frequently put the mothers of their children aside. Yet, somehow the tragedies do not fret and strut in such distorted ways in lands where distortion is much more common, as in the East. In most Oriental countries it is enough for a man to say his wife talks too much and declare her divorced, but when he comes to the half-way house, Hawaii, he must be cruel, extremely cruel to his wife before the law will grant him a divorce. So he is "cruel" in a way he may be sure will secure his freedom.

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What the results of all these mixtures will be, no one can as yet tell, but the consensus of opinion gives the Chinese-Hawaiian the prize for superiority. However promiscuous other races may be, the j.a.panese seldom stoops to conquer in that way. The maiden of j.a.pan shares with the white woman an aversion for these strangers in Hawaii, though the number of j.a.panese women who marry white men is far greater than that of white women marrying into any of the races in the Pacific.

One of the most prolific causes of divorce in Hawaii has been the so-called "picture bride." Because of the exclusion of Asiatic laborers, few j.a.panese and Chinese women have been born in the island. But because of their preference for their own women, j.a.panese sent home for wives.

To get round the exclusion laws, they stretched the home process a bit, selected by photograph the girls they wished, had themselves married by proxy (a method recognized in j.a.pan as legal), and then simply sent for their "wives." Aside from the subsequent divorces which very frequently ensued, there have been cases not without their humorous sides.

One story was told that must be accepted with caution.

Mr. Goto, who just a short while ago was Goto San, wants a wife. He sees a go-between who secures for him the pictures of some girls of his own district. He makes his selection and the process of marriage is accomplished. With something little short of glee, he waits the maid's arrival.

She comes. But alas, not alone! Mr. Goto waits with others at the pier.

Everybody is blessed but him. Chagrin and impatience battle in his heart. Nearly everybody has been supplied with a wife. There are only two women left. Neither seems to be the one he married. Goto thinks,--thinks rapidly. Who will ever know the difference? He claims the prettier; she accepts him, and off they dash on their honeymoon, a la Occident, a two-day trip round the island of Oahu in a motor-car. And never were nuptials more satisfactory.

In the meantime Fujimoto San comes rushing up pell-mell. His garage business has kept him. He finds a lone girl, but she does not tally with the reproduction he married. "Not so nice," is the first thought that flashes across his brain. "Little too broad in the nose, lips thicker than those on the photograph. Can I mistake?" But she is the only one left. He bows at least a half-dozen times, bows clean over, half-way to the ground, but alas! every time his head bobs up he sees the same disheartening face, a face he never ordered, a face he cannot accept. He must clear up the mystery. He calls the agent. Investigations reveal that Goto was there ahead of him; so Fujimoto sets out on a chase after the honeymoon pair. It ends in Honolulu two days later, and another divorce case comes up in court.

The "picture bride" is now a thing of the past, as the j.a.panese Government has agreed to deny her a pa.s.sport in accordance with the spirit of our treaty with j.a.pan. From the point of view of immigration, this may be a solution; but there is a phase of the problem of the mixture of races in Hawaii I have never yet seen discussed,--that is, the woman. In the case of the j.a.panese woman, much more than in that of the man, entrance to Hawaii or America is freedom such as has never been known before. At home she has been taught obedience and deference to her husband. There are many others ready to accept that burden if she is unwilling. But in Hawaii, where there are so many j.a.panese seeking wives and where she moves among peoples whose standards are an inversion of everything she has been taught to regard as virtuous and feminine, she finds herself in an altogether different position. On the streets she sees many white women treated with courtesy; in the courts women receive even more sympathy than men,--to her an unheard-of thing. And so we find that when all the divorces in the Hawaiian Islands have been tabulated, these little timid creatures of j.a.pan have been emboldened to the extent of deserting their husbands in veritable shoals, making up 90% of the entire number of j.a.panese divorces. It is a scramble for readjustment of conjugal relations based on something nearer emotional equality.

But where do the Hawaiians come in? will be asked in all reason. They are virtually no more. Of the entire race which at the time of their discovery by Captain Cook numbered some 130,000 to 300,000, only a few thousand are left. At the time of the annexation of Hawaii by America (1898) there were some 31,000 Hawaiians of pure blood, or about 28% of the population. Of Orientals there was about 42% of the population, with 24,400 j.a.panese and 21,600 Chinese. Then there were 15,191 Portuguese, 2,250 Britons, 1,437 Germans, 8,400 Americans, 1,479 Norwegians, French and others combined. Already there were 8,400 part-Hawaiian. From the rulers down there was a free mixture, even the queen had a white spouse.

Some of the best types of Hawaiian women had been married by men of fine caliber, unlike almost any other place in the Pacific. The relationships were of a permanent nature, for, as the governmental report in connection with annexation stated:

The Hawaiians are not Africans, but Polynesians. They are brown, not black. There has never been and there is not any color line in Hawaii as against native Hawaiian, and they partic.i.p.ate fully and on an equality with the white people in affairs, political, social, religious, and charitable. The two races freely intermarry one with the other, the results being shown in a population of some 7,000 of mixed blood. They are a race which will in the future, as they have in the past, easily and rapidly a.s.similate with and adopt American ways and methods.

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In defiance of prejudice, intermarriage between the races in the Pacific is taking place. What the result is to be, no one as yet knows definitely. The number of white men legalizing their relations with native women is large. The tropics are veritable whispering-galleries sounding the stories of men who have returned to keep their promises even after they have been despatched from the islands under the influence of the cup so as to prevent their marrying. In the mid-Pacific, in the South Seas, in the Far East, white men are marrying native women, even in cases where these have been their mistresses for years.

In j.a.pan, many leading white men have married j.a.panese women, among whom the most celebrated has been Lafcadio Hearn. The list is long. In the ports, many foreigners have married j.a.panese women, and though there is a strong feeling against it socially, discrimination is not universal.

The French and the British are not nearly so fastidious in these matters as are the Americans and the j.a.panese. Wherever there is outward opposition, it comes from the j.a.panese side as well as from the white.

j.a.panese complain against discrimination here, but we are received with no more open arms by them in j.a.pan.

The girl from j.a.pan coming to the West is by virtue of her immigration alone to some extent emanc.i.p.ated; but to the white woman turning her steps east there is only the emanc.i.p.ation, in part, from drudgery by means of ample servants. To the white woman who goes a step farther and links herself in marriage with a j.a.panese or Chinese there is in the majority of cases only sorrow, soreness of heart, isolation, and regret.

It is not that she might not be happy with the individual Oriental, but in the East she becomes part of a vicious family system that strangles her individuality. Though the maid of j.a.pan is not over-welcome in the West, as the wife of a white man she comes into a higher plane of life.

By no means is that true in the case of the white woman in the East.

There are too many cases, still warm with regret, to be named in proof of the statement. I have come across several cases of American girls who had married j.a.panese and returned with them to j.a.pan. They were content enough with their husbands, but their position in the j.a.panese home was intolerable. I remember the loneliness of a New York girl who had gone to live in Kyoto. The contemptuous way in which some notable j.a.panese looked at their countryman's white wife was only comparable to the treatment she would have received here. The children, born in the same labor, are not respected as are either "pure" j.a.panese or white. The Eurasian is frequently disqualified. The white father regrets that his children are not Aryan as did Lafcadio Hearn.

This is no attempt to make out a case for the mixture of natives and white in the Pacific. There are not enough facts at hand. Unfortunately, for the next few hundred years the differences between the peoples living on the borders of the Pacific will continue to irritate, and experiments in blood-mixture will probably be tried externally. I have only mobilized such incidents as have come within my own personal observation that will take the problem out of the cold, statistical plane. It is with human flesh and blood, human hearts and affections, human gropings and aspirations that we are dealing,--not with the conflicts of imaginary hordes and with terrifying invasions.

To me, the human elements in Honolulu and throughout the Pacific remain a memory of one perpetual stirring of sounds, colors, and desires. The whole is not confusing, for it is outside one's consciousness. In a sense it is an inverted world consciousness. Instead of nationals thinking outward, they have come together and are thinking inward, recognizing themselves as part of some whole. Eventually, after all the races in the Pacific have been mixed more or less, or have proved mixture impossible, they will find some way in which they can dwell at one another's elbows without nudging. The mixture may even a.s.sume an appearance of unity. The color scheme, like a thorough blending of all the colors of the spectrum, may yet become white.

CHAPTER XVII

"THIS LITTLE PIG WENT TO MARKET"

1

The basket was growing heavier and heavier, and his stomach weaker and weaker. How to convert his burden into a meal was a problem, written as large upon his face as the delight in the bargains he was making shone in the face of the marketer beside him. He was a young chap just emerging from boyhood. He had been employed by this restaurant-keeper because he said he needed a meal. It was not to be a real job. He was to get his meal all right, but not till he earned it by going with the boss to market and carrying his basket for him.

The basket was soon full to overflowing, and the young man bearing it was nigh exhaustion. They were now going home. At the corner of the open square that had been a.s.signed to garden-truck venders the old man stopped to buy a rose. He disputed the price with the flower-girl, got it at a reduction, and went on. "I always bring my wife a rose from market," he remarked in semi-soliloquy, and they disappeared, the young fellow with his burden, the old man with his rose.

Thus does the European little pig go to market, and he's the most civilized little pig in the world. For hundreds of years he has been learning to market, and that most essential of social functions is the progenitor of communal life. The way in which it is performed is a test of the civilization of a people.

The first democrats and artists of Europe, the Greeks, knew this, and made the agora a market-place, a focus of public art, and the scene of their political gatherings. Wretched, indeed, was the little pig that stayed home when the agora was convoked, for he it was whom the Greeks had determined to ostracize. Despite their efforts as democrats, there were only too many who had to stay home when the affairs of that world were being decided; but as a market, with all the architectural genius concentrated on making it attractive and beautiful, and Socrates leading his cla.s.ses through it, it was a certain success.

In the ruder parts of Europe, owing to the absence of means of communication and the dangers of carrying one's possessions abroad, definite market-places became an imperative necessity, and charters for their existence were granted by decree. They became an important means of securing revenue.

Even the Church recognized the value of festivals as means of enriching itself in a combination of barter with merrymaking and adoration.

Festivals and fairs alike enhanced the material and the artistic life of medieval Europe, and marked, as it were, the embryonic element out of which grew all the later laws and ethics of trade. The legitimacy of piracy at sea and robbery on land had to be counteracted in some way, and the dignity and decency of exchange established.

The evolutionary process by which civilization has achieved some sort of business morality may yet be traced in various countries, especially among the primitive peoples of the South Seas, the more advanced Filipinos, the recently awakened j.a.panese, the Mexicans, and the accomplished New Zealanders. Beneath the surface of the market-place, the wide world over, one finds the source of civilization, and at its level, the level of human commonalty. For as men hunt to cover up their love of wild life and nature, so women market as an excuse for mingling with people. There is in the behavior of the marketer all the cunning of the animal in search of prey, and the degree to which these instincts are developed gives in a sense the measure of a man's civilization.

Even outside the bonds of law and order the mere process of exchange tends to establish social ethics. This is nowhere better exemplified than at the thieves' market in Mexico or in the hidden reaches of the Orient. Thither all robbers bring their stolen wares for sale. Thither all the robbed hasten, to recover their lost property. The instinct within each and all of them is the gambling spirit. The despoiler is eager to sell as quickly and as successfully as possible lest the rightful owner arrive and claim the booty. The general public is anxious to buy, for the prices naturally are low, and many a bargain may be secured. The despoiled, chagrined though they may be at their loss, are in part compensated by the hope of a purchase made at somebody else's expense.

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I had not known that buying and selling was ever part of the scheme of things among people whose needs were as few as those of the South-Sea islanders. Saints and philosophers are always teaching us that the most desirable state is that in which wants are few, and their indulgence is still more limited. But it seems to me that where that condition holds, the few necessaries of life become so much more desirable and so much more difficult to obtain that, instead of a release from slavery, slavery is even more rigorous. Our pictured impressions of the tropics are full of breadfruit-trees and fruits growing in abundance without labor. But quite the contrary is the case. The fear of famine and the insecurity of life have dampened the joys of many a wild man, and the pressure of population has only too frequently resulted in infanticide and cannibalism.

When, therefore, I heard that there was to be a native bazaar across the Rewa River, in Vita Levu, the largest island of the Fiji group, I defied the yellow sun that hung overhead, secured a complement of guides in two Fijian boys who were more afraid of me than they were of their chief, and set out for real primitive excitement. We were pulled across the river on a punt secured to each sh.o.r.e by a cable, and made our way up the banks in the direction of the sugar-mill.

It was noon when we arrived at the fair-grounds. Aside from long wooden tables that stood beneath arbors of palms, there was nothing completed by way of preparation. A few straggling natives wended their ways from hut to hut of slab-board and thatch, their quiet manners reminding me of the monks in monasteries, absorbed in their duties. Gradually, venders arrived; the tables began to sprout with banana-leaves and flowers.

Strings of berry beads were displayed, like fish out of water,--appealing eyes of the plant world asking why, with nature so near at hand, they needed to be torn from life. Bottles of liquid fats, like capsules of the castor-plant, stood ensconced in green-leaved packages containing sweet messes that left the eager natives, old and young, literally web-handed.

The goods displayed, the crowds from the surrounding huts arrived, drawn by an irresistible charm. A Fijian never came with his mate; maiden never approached on her lover's arm. Though they all appeared indiscriminately, there was no obvious grouping of friends with friends.

They moved like shoals of fish that had got the scent or the sight of food. It was a crowd with every evidence of cohesiveness except that of companionship.

To me there was something pathetic in that crowd. An outsider by all the laws of centuries of contrary development, I had no means of entering their emotional lives, of guessing the promptings which made them leave privacy for herding. I had only the most outward signs to go by, and I thought what spiritless, barren lives they must lead who could be brought together on such an occasion in so casual a mood. For aside from the bottles of oil, the strings of beads, and the wrappings of stuff in banana-leaves, there was nothing from my view to make a hundred or two hundred thousand pounds of sluggish flesh rise from its mats and dare the piercing sun.