Man, Past and Present Part 17

There may have been two immigrations of peoples who made monuments of stone: 1. Those who erected the more dolmen-like structures, probably had aquatic totems, and interred their dead in the extended position.

2. A later movement of people whose stone structures tended to take the form of pyramids, who had bird totems, practised a cult of the sun and cremated their dead.

When the kava-using people came into Melanesia they found it already inhabited. The earliest form of social organisation of which we have evidence was on the dual basis, a.s.sociated with matrilineal descent, the dominance of the old men (gerontocracy) and certain peculiar forms of marriage. These people interred their dead in the contracted or sitting position, which also was employed in most parts of Polynesia. Evidently they feared the ghosts and removed their dead as completely as possible from the living. These people--whom we may speak of as the "dual-people"--were communistic in property and probably practised s.e.xual communism; the change towards the inst.i.tution of individual property and individual marriage were a.s.sisted by, if not entirely due to, the influence of the kava-people. They practised circ.u.mcision. Magic was an indigenous inst.i.tution. Characteristic is the cult of _vui_, unnamed local spirits with definite haunts or abiding places whose rites are performed in definite localities. In the Northern New Hebrides the offerings connected with _vui_ are not made to the _vui_ themselves but to the man who owns the place connected with the _vui_. It would seem as if owners.h.i.+p of a locality carried with it owners.h.i.+p of the _vui_ connected with the locality. Thus _vui_ are local spirits belonging to the indigenous owners of the soil, and there seems no reason to believe that they were ever ghosts of dead men. As totemism occurs among the dual-people of the Bismarck Archipelago (who live in parts of New Britain and New Ireland and Duke of York Island) it is possible that the kava-people were not the sole introducers of totemism into Melanesia.

The dual-people were probably acquainted with the bow, which they may have called _busur_, and the dug-out canoe which was used either lashed together in pairs or singly with an outrigger.

The origin of a dual organisation is generally believed to be due to fission, but it is more reasonable to regard it as due to fusion, as hostility is so frequently manifest between the two groups despite the fact that spouses are always obtained from the other moiety. In New Ireland (and elsewhere) each moiety is a.s.sociated with a hero; one acts wisely but unscrupulously, the other is a fool who is always falling an easy victim to the first. Each moiety has a totem bird: one is a fisher, clever and capable, while the second obtains its food by stealing from the other and does not go to sea. One represents the immigrants of superior culture who came by sea, the other the first people, aborigines, of lowly culture who were quite unable to cope with the wiles and stratagems of the people who had settled among them. In the Gazelle Peninsula of New Britain, the dual groups are a.s.sociated with light and dark coconuts; affiliated with the former are male objects and the clever bird, which is universally called _taragau_, or a variant of that term. The bird of the other moiety is named _malaba_ or _manigulai_, and is a.s.sociated with female objects. The dark coconuts, the dark colour and flattened noses of the women who were produced by their transformation, and the projecting eyebrows of the _malaba_ bird and its human adherents seem to be records in the mythology of the Bismarck Archipelago of the negroid (or, Rivers suggests, an Australoid) character of the aboriginal population. The light coconut which was changed into a light-coloured woman seems to have preserved a tradition of the light colour of the immigrants.

The autochthones of Melanesia were a dark-skinned and ulotrichous people, who had neither a fear of the ghosts of their dead nor a manes cult, but had a cult of local spirits. The Baining of the Gazelle Peninsula of New Britain may be representatives of a stage of Melanesian history earlier than the dual system; if so, they probably represent in a modified form, the aboriginal element. They are said to be completely devoid of any fear of the dead.

The immigrants whose arrival caused the inst.i.tution of the dual system were a relatively fair people of superior culture who interred their dead in a sitting position and feared their ghosts. They first introduced the Austronesian language.

All subsequent migrations were of Austronesian-speaking peoples from Indonesia. First came the kava-peoples in various swarms, and more recently the betel-people.

Possibly New Caledonia shows the effects of relative isolation more than other parts of Melanesia, but, except for Polynesian influence (most directly recognisable in Fiji and southern Melanesia), Melanesia may be regarded as possessing a general culture with certain characteristic features which may be thus summarised[335]. The Melanesians are a noisy, excitable, demonstrative, affectionate, cheery, pa.s.sionate people. They could not be hunters everywhere, as in most of the islands there is no game, nor could they be pastors anywhere, as there are no cattle; the only resources are fis.h.i.+ng and agriculture. In the larger islands there is usually a sharp distinction between the coast people, who are mainly fishers, and the inlanders who are agriculturalists; the latter are always by far the more primitive, and in many cases are subservient to the former. Both s.e.xes work in the plantations. In parts of New Guinea and the Western Solomons the sago palm is of great importance; coconut palms grow on the sh.o.r.es of most islands, and bananas, yams, bread-fruit, taro and sweet potatoes supply abundant food. As for dress, the men occasionally wear none, but usually have belts or bands, of bark-cloth, plaits, or strings, and the women almost everywhere have petticoats of finely shredded leaves. The skin is decorated with scars in various patterns, and tattooing is occasionally seen, the former being naturally characteristic of the darker skinned people, and the latter of the lighter. Every portion of the body is decorated in innumerable ways with sh.e.l.ls, teeth, feathers, leaves, flowers, and other objects, and plaited bands encircle the neck, body, and limbs.

Sh.e.l.l necklaces, which const.i.tute a kind of currency, and artificially deformed boars' tusks are especially characteristic, though each group usually has its peculiar ornaments, distinguis.h.i.+ng it from any other group. There is a great variety of houses. The typical Melanesian house has a gable roof, the ridge pole is supported by two main posts, side walls are very low, and the ends are filled in with bamboo screens. Pile dwellings are found in the Bismarck Archipelago, the Solomon Islands and New Guinea, and some New Guinea villages extend out into the sea.

The weapons typical of Melanesia are the club and the spear (though the latter is not found in the Banks Islands), each group and often each island possessing its own distinctive pattern. Stone headed clubs are found in New Guinea, New Britain and the New Hebrides. The spears of the Solomon Islands are finely decorated and have bone barbs; those of New Caledonia are pointed with a sting-ray spine; those of the Admiralty Islands have obsidian heads; and those of New Britain have a human armbone at the b.u.t.t end. The bow, the chief weapon of the Papuans, occurs over the greater part of Melanesia, though it is absent in S.E.

New Guinea, and is only used for hunting in the Admiralty Islands.

The hollowed out tree trunk with or without a plank gunwale is general, usually with a single outrigger, though plank-built canoes occur in the Solomons, characteristically ornamented with sh.e.l.l inlay. Pottery is an important industry in parts of New Guinea and in Fiji; it occurs also in New Caledonia, Espiritu Santo (New Hebrides) and the Admiralty Islands.

Bark-cloth is made in most islands, but a loom for weaving leaf strips is now found only in Santa Cruz.

A division of the community into two exogamous groups is very widely spread, no intermarriage being permitted within the group. Mother-right is prevalent, descent and inheritance being counted on the mother's side, while a man's property descends to his sister's children. At the same time the mother is in no sense the head of the family; the house is the father's, the garden may be his, the rule and government are his, though the maternal uncle sometimes has more authority than the father.

The transition to father-right has definitely occurred in various places, and is taking place elsewhere; thus, in some of the New Hebrides, the father has to buy off the rights of his wife's relations or his sister's children.

Chiefs exist everywhere, being endowed with religious sanct.i.ty in Fiji, where they are regarded as the direct descendants of the tribal ancestors. More often, a chief holds his position solely owing to the fact that he has inherited the cult of some powerful spirit, and his influence is not very extensive. Probably everywhere public affairs are regulated by discussion among the old or important men, and the more primitive the society, the more power they possess. But the most powerful inst.i.tutions of all are the secret societies, occurring with certain exceptions throughout Melanesia. These are accessible to men only, and the candidates on initiation have to submit to treatment which is often rough in the extreme. The members of the societies are believed to be in close a.s.sociation with ghosts and spirits, and exhibit themselves in masks and elaborate dresses in which disguise they are believed by the uninitiated to be supernatural beings. These societies do not practise any secret cult, in fact all that the initiate appears to learn is that the "ghosts" are merely his fellows in disguise, and that the mysterious noises which herald their approach are produced by the bull-roarer and other artificial means. These organisations are most powerful agents for the maintenance of social order and inflict punishment for breaches of customary law, but they are often terrorising and blackmailing inst.i.tutions. Women are rigorously excluded.

Other social factors of importance are the clubs, especially in the New Hebrides and Banks Islands. These are a means of attaining social rank.

They are divided into different grades, the members of which eat together at their particular fire-place in the club-house. Each rank has its insignia, sometimes human effigies, usually, but wrongly, called "idols." Promotion from one grade to another is chiefly a matter of payment, and few reach the highest. Those who do so become personages of very great influence, since no candidate can obtain promotion without their permission.

Totemism occurs in parts of New Guinea and elsewhere and has marked socialising effects, as totemic solidarity takes precedence of all other considerations, but it is becoming obsolete. The most important religious factor throughout Melanesia is the belief in a supernatural power or influence, generally called _mana_. This is what works to effect everything which is beyond the ordinary power of man or outside the common processes of nature; but this power, though in itself impersonal, is always connected with some person who directs it; all spirits have it, ghosts generally, and some men. A more or less developed ancestor cult is also universally distributed. Human beings may become beneficent or malevolent ghosts, but not every ghost becomes an object of regard. The ghost who is wors.h.i.+pped is the spirit of a man who in his lifetime had _mana_. Good and evil spirits independent of ancestors are also abundant everywhere. There is no established priesthood, except in Fiji, but as a rule, any man who knows the particular ritual suitable to a definite spirit, acts as intermediary, and a man in communication with a powerful spirit becomes a person of great importance. Life after death is universally believed in, and the soul is commonly pictured as undertaking a journey, beset with various perils, to the abode of departed spirits, which is usually represented as lying towards the west. As a rule only the souls of brave men, or initiates, or men who have died in fight, win through to the most desirable abode. Magical practices occur everywhere for the gaining of benefits, plenteous crops, good fis.h.i.+ng, fine weather, rain, children or success in love. Harmful magic for producing sickness or death is equally universal[336].

Returning to the Papuan lands proper, in the insular groups west of New Guinea we enter one of the most entangled ethnical regions in the world.

Here are, no doubt, a few islands such as the Aru group, mainly inhabited by full-blood Papuans, men who furnished Wallace with the models on which he built up his true Papuan type, which has since been vainly a.s.sailed by so many later observers. But in others--Ceram, Buru, Timor, and so on to Flores--diverse ethnical and linguistic elements are intermingled in almost hopeless confusion. Discarding the term "Alfuro"

as of no ethnical value[337], we find the whole area west to about 120 E. longitude[338] occupied in varying proportions by pure and mixed representatives of three distinct stocks: Negro (Papuans), Mongoloid (Malayans), and Caucasic (Indonesians). From the data supplied by Crawfurd, Wallace, Forbes, Ten Kate and other trustworthy observers, I have constructed the subjoined table, in which the east Malaysian islands are disposed according to the const.i.tuent elements of their inhabitants[339]:

_Aru Group_--True Papuans dominant; Indonesians (Korongoei) in the interior.

_Kei Group_--Malayans; Indonesians; Papuan strain everywhere.

_Timor; Wetta; Timor Laut_--Mixed Papuans, Malayans and Indonesians; no pure type anywhere.

_Serwatti Group_--Malayans with slight trace of black blood (Papuan or Negrito).

_Roti and Sumba_--Malayans.

_Savu_--Indonesians.

_Flores; Solor; Adonera; Lomblen; Pantar; Allor_--Papuans pure or mixed dominant; Malayans in the coast towns.

_Buru_--Malayans on coast; reputed Papuans, but more probably Indonesians in interior.

_Ceram_--Malayans on coast; mixed Malayo-Papuans inland.

_Amboina; Banda_--Malayans; Dutch-Malay half-breeds ("Perkeniers").

_Goram_--Malayans with slight Papuan strain.

_Matabello; Tior; Nuso Telo; Tionfoloka_--Papuans with Malayan admixture.

_Misol_--Malayo-Papuans on coast; Papuans inland.

_Tidor; Ternate; Sulla; Makian_--Malayans.

_Batjan_--Malayans; Indonesians.

_Gilolo_--Mixed Papuans; Indonesians in the north.

_Waigiu; Salwatti; Batanta_--Malayans on the coast; Papuans inland.

From this apparently chaotic picture, which in some places, such as Timor, presents every gradation from the full-blood Papuan to the typical Malay, Crawfurd concluded that the eastern section of Malaysia const.i.tuted a region of transition between the yellowish-brown lank-haired and the dark-brown or black mop-headed stocks. In a sense this is true, but not in the sense intended by Crawfurd, who by "transition" meant the actual pa.s.sage by some process of development from type to type independently of interminglings. But such extreme transitions have nowhere taken place spontaneously, so to say, and in any case could never have been brought about in a small zoological area presenting everywhere the same climatic conditions. Biological types may be, and have been, modified in different environments, arctic, temperate, or tropical zones, but not in the same zone, and if two such marked types as the Mongol and the Negro are now found juxtaposed in the Malaysian tropical zone, the fact must be explained by migrations and displacements, while the intermediate forms are to be attributed to secular intermingling of the extremes. Why should a man, pa.s.sing from one side to another of an island 10 or 20 miles long, be transformed from a sleek-haired brown to a frizzly-haired black, or from a mercurial laughter-loving Papuan to a Malayan "slow in movement and thoroughly phlegmatic in disposition, rarely seen to laugh or become animated in conversation, with expression generally of vague wonder or weary sadness"[340]?

Wallace's cla.s.sical description of these western Papuans, who are here in the very cradleland of the race, can never lose its charm, and its accuracy has been fully confirmed by all later observers. "The typical Papuan race," he writes, "is in many respects the very opposite of the Malay. The colour of the body is a deep sooty-brown or black, sometimes approaching, but never quite equalling, the jet-black of some negro races. The hair is very peculiar, being harsh, dry, and frizzly, growing in little tufts or curls, which in youth are very short and compact, but afterwards grow out to a considerable length, forming the compact, frizzled mop which is the Papuan's pride and glory.... The moral characteristics of the Papuan appear to me to separate him as distinctly from the Malay as do his form and features. He is impulsive and demonstrative in speech and action. His emotions and pa.s.sions express themselves in shouts and laughter, in yells and frantic leapings.... The Papuan has a greater feeling for art than the Malay. He decorates his canoe, his house, and almost every domestic utensil with elaborate carving, a habit which is rarely found among tribes of the Malay race.

In the affections and moral sentiments, on the other hand, the Papuans seem very deficient. In the treatment of their children they are often violent and cruel, whereas the Malays are almost invariably kind and gentle."

The ethnological parting-line between the Malayan and Papuasian races, as first laid down by Wallace, nearly coincides with his division between the Indo-Malayan and Austro-Malayan floras and faunas, the chief differences being the positions of Sumbawa and Celebes. Both of these islands are excluded from the Papuasian realm, but included in the Austro-Malayan zoological and botanical regions.

THE OCEANIC NEGRITOES.

Recent discoveries and investigations of the pygmy populations on the eastern border of the Indian Ocean tend to show that the problem is by no means simple. Already two main stocks are recognised, differentiated by wavy and curly hair and dolichocephaly in the Sakai, and so-called woolly hair in the Andamanese Islanders, Semang (Malay Peninsula) and Aeta (Philippines), combined with mesaticephaly or low brachycephaly. In East Sumatra and Celebes a short, curly-haired dark-skinned people occur, racially akin to the Sakai, and Moszkowski suggests that the same element occupied Geelvink Bay (Netherlands New Guinea). These with the Vedda of Ceylon, and some jungle tribes of the Deccan, represent remnants of a once widely distributed pre-Dravidian race, which is also supposed to form the chief element in the Australians[341].

The "Mincopies," as the Andamanese used to be called, n.o.body seems to know why, were visited in 1893 by Louis Lapicque, who examined a large kitchen-midden near Port Blair, but some distance from the present coast, hence of great age[342]. Nevertheless he failed to find any worked stone implements, although flint occurs in the island. Indeed, chipped or flaked flints, now replaced by broken gla.s.s, were formerly used for shaving and scarification. But, as the present natives use only fishbones, sh.e.l.ls, and wood, Lapicque somewhat hastily concluded that these islanders, like some other primitive groups, have never pa.s.sed through a Stone Age at all. The sh.e.l.l-mounds have certainly yielded an arrow-head and polished adze "indistinguishable from any of the European or Indian celts of the so-called Neolithic period[343]." But there is no reason to think that the archipelago was ever occupied by a people different from its present inhabitants. Hence we may suppose that their ancestors arrived in their Stone Age, but afterwards ceased to make stone implements, as less handy for their purposes and more difficult to make than the sh.e.l.l or bone-tipped weapons and the nets with which they capture game and fish more readily "than the most skilful fisherman with hook and line[344]." Similarly they would seem to have long lost the art of making fire, having once obtained it from a still active volcano in the neighbouring Barren Island[345].

The inhabitants of the Andaman Islands range in colour from bronze to sooty black. Their hair is extremely frizzly, seeming to grow in spiral tufts and is seldom more than 5 inches long when untwisted. The women usually shave their heads. Their height is about 1.48 m. (4 ft. 10-1/2 in.), with well-proportioned body and small hands. The cephalic index averages 82. The face is broad at the cheek-bones, the eyes are prominent, the nose is much sunken at the root but straight and small; the lips are full but not thick, the chin is small but not retreating, nor do the jaws project. The natives are characterised by honesty, frankness, politeness, modesty, conjugal fidelity, respect for elders and real affection between relatives and friends. The women are on an equal footing with the men and do their full share of work. The food is mainly fish (obtained by netting, spearing or shooting with bow and arrow), wild yams, turtle, pig and honey. They do not till the soil or keep domestic animals. Instead of clothing both s.e.xes wear belts, necklaces, leg-bands, arm-bands etc. made of bones, wood and sh.e.l.l, the women wearing in addition a rudimentary leaf ap.r.o.n. When fully dressed the men wear bunches of shredded Panda.n.u.s leaf at wrists and knees, and a circlet of the same leaf folded on the head. They make canoes, some of which have an outrigger, but never venture far from the sh.o.r.e. They usually live in small encampments round an oval dancing ground, their simple huts are open in front and at the sides, or in a large communal hut in which each family has its own particular s.p.a.ce, the bachelors and spinsters having theirs. A family consists of a man and his wife and such of their children, own and adopted, as have not pa.s.sed the period of the ceremonies of adolescence. Between that period and marriage the boys and girls reside in the bachelors' and spinsters' quarters respectively. A man is not regarded as an independent member of the community till he is married and has a child. There is no organised polity. Generally one man excels the rest in hunting, warfare, wisdom and kindliness, and he is deferred to, and becomes, in a sense, chief. A regular feature of Andamanese social life is the meeting at intervals between two or more communities. A visit of a few days is paid and presents are exchanged between hosts and guests, the time being spent in hunting, feasting and dancing.

No forms of wors.h.i.+p have been noticed, but there is a belief in various kinds of spirits, the most important of whom is Biliku, usually regarded as female, who is identified with the north-east monsoon and is paired with Tarai the south-west monsoon. Biliku and Tarai are the producers of rain, storms, thunder and lightning. Fire was stolen from Biliku. There is always great fluidity in native beliefs, so some tribes regard Puluga (Biliku) as a male. Three things make Biliku angry and cause her to send storms; melting or burning of bees-wax, interfering in any way with a certain number of plants, and killing a cicada or making a noise during the time the cicadae are singing. A. R. Brown[346] gives an interesting explanation of this curious belief. Biliku is supposed to have a human form but n.o.body ever sees her. Her origin is unknown. The idea of her being a creator is local and is probably secondary, she does not concern herself with human actions other than those noted above.

E. H. Man has carefully studied and reduced to writing the Andamanese language, of which there are at least nine distinct varieties, corresponding to as many tribal groups. It has no clear affinities to any other tongue[347], the supposed resemblances to Dravidian and Australian being extremely slight, if not visionary. Its phonetic system is astonis.h.i.+ngly rich (no less than 24 vowels and 17 consonants, but no sibilants), while the arithmetic stops at _two_. n.o.body ever attempts to count in any way beyond _ten_, which is reached by a singular process.

First the nose is tapped with the finger-tips of either hand, beginning with the little finger, and saying _ubatul_ (one), then _ikpor_ (two) with the next, after which each successive tap makes _anka_, "and this."

When the thumb of the second hand is reached, making _ten_, both hands are brought together to indicate 5 + 5, and the sum is clenched with the word _arduru_ = "all." But this feat is exceptional, and usually after _two_ you get only words answering to several, many, numerous, countless, which flight of imagination is reached at about 6 or 7.

Yet with their infantile arithmetic these paradoxical islanders have contrived to develop an astonis.h.i.+ngly intricate form of speech characterised by an absolutely bewildering superfluity of p.r.o.nominal and other elements. Thus the possessive p.r.o.nouns have as many as sixteen possible variants according to the cla.s.s of noun (human objects, parts of the body, degrees of kins.h.i.+p, etc.) with which they are in agreement.

For instance, _my_ is _dia_, _dot_, _dong_, _dig_, _dab_, _dar_, _daka_, _doto_, _dai_, _dar_, _ad_, _ad-en_, _deb_, with _man_, _head_, _wrist_, _mouth_, _father_, _son_, _step-son_, _wife_, etc. etc.; and so with _thy_, _his_, _our_, _your_, _their_! This grouping of nouns in cla.s.ses is a.n.a.logous to the Bantu system, and it is curious to note that the number of cla.s.ses is about the same. On the other hand there is a wealth of postfixes attached as in normal agglutinating forms of speech, so that "in adding their affixes they follow the principles of the ordinary agglutinative tongues; in adding their prefixes they follow the well-defined principles of the South African tongues. Hitherto, as far as I know, the two principles in full play have never been found together in any other language.... In Andamanese both are fully developed, so much so as to interfere with each other's grammatical functions[348]." The result often is certain _sesquipedalia verba_ comparable in length to those of the American polysynthetic languages. A savage people, who can hardly count beyond two, possessed of about the most intricate language spoken by man, is a psychological puzzle which I cannot profess to fathom.

In the Malay Peninsula the indigenous element is certainly the Negrito, who, known by many names--Semang, Udai, Pangan, Hami, Menik or Mandi--forms a single ethnical group presenting some striking a.n.a.logies with the Andamanese. But, surrounded from time out of mind by Malay peoples, some semi-civilised, some nearly as wild as themselves, but all alike slowly crowding them out of the land, these aborigines have developed defensive qualities unneeded by the more favoured insular Negritoes, while their natural development has been arrested at perhaps a somewhat lower plane of culture. In fact, doomed to extinction before their time came, they never have had a chance in the race, as Hugh Clifford sings in _The Song of the Last Semangs_:

The paths are rough, the trails are blind The Jungle People tread; The yams are scarce and hard to find With which our folk are fed.