The Pacific Triangle Part 20

No people have suffered more, directly, from contact with the "civilized" white races than the Polynesians. Morally undermined, politically deprived of powers, physically subjected to scourge after scourge of epidemic introduced by white men, their own standards of living brushed aside as vulgar and infantile,--these heliolithic people with their neolithic culture approached the very verge of extinction.

Then the white race began to sentimentalize over them, and sincere scientific people to deplore their evanescence. Some of these latter have earned the eternal grat.i.tude not only of the natives but of the whole world. Some of them I have mentioned in other connections. Two others decidedly deserve recognition. Mr. Elsdon Best, the curator of the Wellington Museum, is a tall, thin individual who has roamed all over the Pacific. He has worked his way for years in the interests of the Amerindians, Hawaiians, and Maories. Now he has one of the finest museums in the South Seas--excepting that, of course, in Honolulu--in which he treasures anything and everything that will help throw light on the history of these interesting people. The other is Mrs. Bernice Bishop, a part-Hawaiian woman, who established the museum in Honolulu which bears her name. These are the centers round which we white folk shall be able to gather for the preservation of this other type of the human species. In the summer of 1921 a Scientific Congress under the auspices of the Pan-Pacific Union and the immediate directors.h.i.+p of Professor Gregory of Yale was held to devise ways and means of furthering the study of these races, and its work is proceeding apace.

Museums and "models" of native architecture are the modern white man's diaries, recalling the acts of ravishment and destruction which his development and expansion entailed. Let us hope that out of the efforts of scientists will spring a new consciousness of worth, which early missionaries and scheming traders did everything to destroy. Yet it must not be forgotten that much of our knowledge of these races comes from those missionaries who were broad-minded enough to recognize the value of recording customs and beliefs, even if their purpose was the more effectively to counteract them.

CHAPTER XV

HIS TATTOOED WIFE

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Something there is in the very bearing of the people in the Pacific which, despite the obvious differences between us, strikes a note of kins.h.i.+p in the mind of the white man least conscious of his true relations.h.i.+p to these brown folk. A certain chemical affinity, as it were, makes the problem of intermarriage with the Polynesians an altogether different matter from that among Eurasians. For in the marriage of an Occidental and a true Oriental there is the clas.h.i.+ng of two antagonistic cultures each equally complex and tenacious, while "here there is evidence in the physique of the people that three great divisions of mankind have intermixed."

But in the Pacific islands the white man feels himself among his kind.

The reason is hard to explain. Certainly it is not the loose and ungainly Mother-Hubbard gowns which are still the style of the native maiden. Yet the stoutish, portly individual who is introduced to you as a chief and who parades the street along the waterfront in a suit of silk pajamas might easily be a continental sleep-walker who has no remembrance of the thousands of years that lie between him and the men among whom he is waking. And the white man just arrived drops off under the anaesthetic influence of the tropics, forgetful of the thousands of years in which he has been busy laying up his treasures on earth.

Under this narcotic influence I wandered along the sh.o.r.es of Apia, Samoa, toward sundown, the day before my departure. Within me was a melancholy satisfaction, an unwillingness to admit even to myself the truth that I was glad to go, like one conscious of being cured of a delightful vice. I had had my fill of a.s.sociation with men whose main theme of conversation when together was the virtues of whisky and soda as an antidote for dengue fever, and when apart, the faults of one another. I had watched the process of acclimatization as it attacks the souls of men, and pitied some of them. Many would have scorned my pity.

Some did not deserve it. Others did not need it. The story of one is worth while, though it has no solution.

He had been stationed in Samoa as a member of the military staff with police duties. Behind him he had left a wife and kiddies. He longed for them as only a man struggling against tropic odds to remain faithful to his promise needs must long. He was faithful, but she was fearful. She was writing to him daily not to forget. No woman forgets easily the ill-repute of her fellow-women, and all Northern women distrust their sisters of the warmer worlds. Women hear and believe that there is none of their kind of virtue in the tropics, and they do not trust the best of their men. They do not seem to be at all aware of the fact that faithfulness and devotion are as strong impulses in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the dark maidens as among themselves, and that semi-savage girls have hearts, too, which can be broken. So this man whose friends.h.i.+p I had won urged that I write to his wife and, in my own way, a.s.sure her of his loyalty. I have never heard the end. But if ever she reads this account, I hope she will believe in him.

For there are women in the tropics, just like her, who pray that their men will be faithful. I was walking along, thinking of him and of her.

The evening glow, full to overflowing of tropic loveliness, was all about. The white foam of the breakers das.h.i.+ng themselves against the reefs out there, a quarter of a mile away, came softly in, over the smooth water, to land. The laughter of little children on the beach seemed to tease, the hiss of the sea, a combination of elemental things utterly without tragedy.

Just then I came upon a group of people gathered at the little pier.

Strewn about their feet were trunks and bags and kits, indicating departure in haste, while the presence of a handful of soldiers, standing at attention, was an unspoken explanation of what was toward.

The civilians cl.u.s.tered in a little group, quiet, communicating with one another in whispers. They comprised seventeen Germans, erstwhile the wealthiest plantation-owners, now prisoners of war, and their wives and children, from whom they were to be parted. The cause of their departure is not pertinent here. The human equation is.

As the officer issued his order for embarkation, there was a momentary commotion. Soldiers, by no means unfriendly to their prisoners, a.s.sisted them in the placing of luggage on the boat. The men, turning to their women and children with warm embraces, called in forced cheerfulness that they would soon be back. All the men stepped into the rowboats and with full, powerful strokes of Samoan oarsmen they were borne out across the reefs toward the steamer anch.o.r.ed beyond. Upon the beach remained bewildered native women and their half-caste children, some of them in an agony of grief now run wild. One family lingered, weeping silently. A group of two middle-aged women, a girl of about twenty, two small girls, and two boys stood gazing out toward the s.h.i.+p. They brushed away tears absent-mindedly. A little girl and boy cried quietly. And like that white wife in the temperate world, these dark-skinned women of the tropics were left to wonder whether their husbands would remain faithful to them in a world of which they had vague if not altogether wrong notions.

A full, mellow afterglow threw the s.h.i.+p for a moment into relief, and twilight lowered. Upon the end pile of the pier sat a young Samoan in a halo of dim light. From this modern scene which may some day be the theme for a South Sea "Evangeline" I moved away wondering what this cleavage of people would mean to the Polynesians. An unconscious curiosity led me into the village. It was night. From the various huts rang the voices of happy natives. Fires flamed under their evening meals. Dim lamps revealed shadow-figures of men and women. A slight drizzle brushed over the valley and disappeared. Then the firm tread of feet sounded in the dusty road. About twenty girls, two abreast, stamping their naked feet, pa.s.sed by and on into the darkness to drop, matrice-like, each into her own home. Earlier that evening they had escorted to the s.h.i.+p the white woman who was their missionary teacher.

One long skiff had held them all. Each had a single oar in hand, short and spear-headed, with which she struck the gunwale of the boat after every stroke, thus beating time to a native song. Here was another case of contact and cleavage. Their teacher was returning to her land, leaving them with the glimmer of her ideals, her notions of life and loyalty. How much of it would hold them? Coming and going, the fusion of races, once of a common stock, is taking place.

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I cannot recall having received any definite invitation from any of the princ.i.p.als responsible for the party I attended one evening in Apia, but in the islands the respectable stranger does not find himself lonely. It was sufficient that I was a friend of one of the guests. Four young men who were leaving were given a send-off; and the celebrations were to take place in the little Sunday-school shack.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THREE VIEWS OF A MAORI WOMAN In European clothes With her New Zealand husband at home In her native costume]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A GROUP OF WHITES AND HALF-CASTES IN SAMOA The father of the two girls was a lawyer and the son of a Sydney (Australia) clergyman]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A s.h.i.+P-LOAD OF "PICTURE-BRIDES" ARRIVING AT SEATTLE j.a.panese seldom marry other than j.a.panese women]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A MAORI WOMAN WITH HER CHILDREN The father is a white man--a New Zealand shepherd]

That evening the little structure was metamorphosed from crude solemnity by a generous tr.i.m.m.i.n.g in palm branches and flowers, as though it had been turned outside in. Oil-lamps hung from the rafters by stiff wires, unyielding even to the weight of the light-giving vessels. The awkwardness of some of the natives in their relations with the whites could not be overcome even by their obvious inclination. But the music stirred us all into a whirl of equality. It was furnished by an old crone of a native woman. She was dressed in a shabby Mother-Hubbard gown and her feet were bare. Her stiff fingers worked upon the keys of an accordion in a sluggish fas.h.i.+on, as she confused old-fas.h.i.+oned barn-dances with sentimental melodies. She was stirred on to greater sentiment by the teasing approaches of one white man fully three-quarters drunk. As for the dancers,--what to them were half-expressed notes? Their own fresh blood more than overcame any lack.

Pretty young flappers, eager for the arms of the white chaps, moved about among stolid dames whose purity of race revealed itself in russet skins and slightly flattened noses. They had finer features than the matrons. The white "impurities" shone out of them. But they were not quite free, not quite absolved from the weight of their primitive forebears. They were shy and had little to say for themselves, and it seemed they wished they could just cast off the high-heeled shoes and tight garments and be that which at least half of themselves wished to be. Yet they were erect and proud,--and gay.

Behind the curtain which hung across the little rostrum stood tables fairly littered with bananas, mangos, and watermelons, mingled with the fruits of the Northern kitchen stove,--cakes, pies, and meats enough to satisfy a harvesting-gang. And when the call to supper came, the invasion of this hidden treasure island and its despoliation proved that however much mankind may be differentiated socially and intellectually, gastronomically there is universal equality.

There is another basis upon which the wide world is one, and that is in its affections. Long after midnight the party would have still been in progress but for the threat of the ferry-men. They wished to retire and announced that the last boat was soon to start across the moon-splattered reefs. There was a hurried meeting of lips in farewell.

The silver light revealed more than one sweet face crumpled before separation. Then with the first dip of their oars into the sea the swarthy oarsmen began the song which, exotic and sentimental as it was, left every heart as aching for the sh.o.r.e as it did those of the simple half-caste maidens for their casual lovers of the colder Antipodes.

"Oh, I neva wi' fo-ge-et chu," drawled the oarsmen, and they on sh.o.r.e joined in with the softer voices of that gentler world.

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I had been an unknown and unknowing guest, paying my rates for keep at the hotel. For most of an hour I had been in a small upper room with three or four white men whose sole object seemed to be to get as drunk as they could and to induce me to join them. In those clear moments that flash across leary hours, they gave voice to their disapproval of intermarriage with the natives. Then I learned of the wedding taking place below. My curiosity led me downstairs, and though an utter stranger, I made my way into the company. Not for a moment did I feel myself out of place. Such is the nature of life in the tropics. Among those present were pretty half-caste maidens, slovenly full-blooded native matrons, men and women of all ages and conditions of attire.

There were German-Samoans, English, English-Samoans, American and American-Samoans, with a salting of no (or forgotten) nationality. Some were in Mother-Hubbard gowns, some in pongee silks, some in canvas and white duck, cut either for street or evening wear. One young chap, the clerk at the customs, came dressed in the latest tuxedo. And a half-caste chief appeared in a suit of silk pajamas.

The marriage-feast was as sumptuous as any that ever tempted the palate of man. It was spread not on acres, as in the olden days, but on a long table which stretched the length of the thirty-foot room. Photographs are everywhere sold displaying so-called cannibal feasts, with huge turtles and hundreds of tropical vegetables. However it may have been in those days, at this feast the guests were cannibal in manners only. They stood round the table and helped themselves with that disregard of to-morrow's headache and the hunger of the day after which is said to be primitive lack of economy.

As the guests were led out into the dance-hall, one young stalwart took the remnant of the watermelon rind he had been gnawing and slung it straight at the pretty back of a Euro-Polynesian girl in evening frock.

She t.i.ttered at him. The jollity was running too high for any one to be disturbed by anything like that.

Soon the dance was in full swing. Not the tango, which we regard as primitive and wild, but sober editions of dances with us long out of date. The need is more pressing in the tropics among folk of part-white parentage than an appearance of real civilization. And though it is not so long in the history of the Pacific since the coming of the first white man, there is already an intermediate race growing up which, beginning with Samoa, spreads northward and southward and all around as far as the reaches of the sea. Nor is the mixture always to be deprecated.

The night wore on. The dancing ceased. Flushed faces and perspiring forms slipped out into the moonlight. The white collar which had adorned the tuxedo of the clerk was now brother to the pajamas. The white men who had tried to drown their objections to intermarriage had yielded to the lure of the pretty half-caste maidens. One of them now disappeared with his "tart."

A traveling-salesman from Suva, thin and wiry, had been in dispute with a new civil officer. They contradicted each other just to be contrary.

The officer had a wife at home to whom he was bound to be faithful in matters of s.e.x; in the matter of spirits he could not be unfaithful, since in that all the world is one. When the two of them and I left the party, they were still disputing the question of intermarriage, in which neither believed but on which both had p.r.o.nounced complexes.

To change the subject, which was bordering on a fight, I asked: "Why do the palms bend out toward the sea?"

"Now, what difference does it make to you?" said the salesman. "You're always asking why this, why that?"

"Why shouldn't he?" grumbled the officer, more sober and more intelligent.

We rambled along. The salesman soon slipped into his hotel. The officer and I wandered toward the native village.

"Strange," he said, somewhat sobered by the sea air. "If I met him in Auckland I wouldn't speak to him. He's beneath me."

Free and easy as the relations.h.i.+p of marriage seems to be here, one not infrequently runs across descendants of very happy and desirable unions.

I had gone on a little motor jaunt with some of the men of the British Club. Our way was along the road the natives had built in grat.i.tude to R. L. S., and our destination the home of a friend of his, who had married a native woman. The house was of European construction, solid and comfortable, with a veranda affording a view of the open sea. The interior was in every way as typical of British colonial life as any I later saw in New Zealand. There were photographs on the wall, hanging shelves, bric-a-brac, a piano,--all importations of crude Western manufactories.

The hosts were Euro-Polynesians; the father a lawyer and son of a clergyman of Sydney, Australia, who had settled in the islands years ago. I do not recall whether, like his closest friend, Stevenson, he was buried on the island, but certainly he left by no means unworthy offspring, whatever prejudice may say.

Thus, in the mixture of emotions often sterile, and in the bones of white devotees is the reunion of the races of these regions being slowly effected. And at the two extremities of the Pacific--New Zealand and Hawaii--we find the process nearer completion.

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