The Fijians Part 24

[Pageheader: CHILDREN PURPOSELY INFECTED]

The Fijians do not claim to have any positive remedy for the cure of yaws, nor, indeed, do they desire any. They are satisfied that native medicines suffice to "drive out" the eruption if it has prematurely receded, and that if they do not succeed in such cases the child will die. The great body of the people cannot be made to grasp the idea of inoculation. While some admit that yaws can be caught from one person by another, others a.s.sert that the cause is intrinsic and that every Fijian child must, or ought to, develop it, and that it is solely a Fijian disease about which white men are naturally ignorant. In Mathuata the "wise women" administer medicines to bring on the disease in cases where children do not readily contract it. They believe that the occurrence of yaws in a child of a proper age--from two to six years--is a good augury for the future physical strength and mental vigour of the subject, and they think that persons who escape its contagion will grow up stupid, clumsy, and dull (_dongandonga_), and useless mentally and physically. The fear of contracting disease in adult life, when it affects the patient far more severely than in childhood, disposes the Fijian mother to look favourably on the acquisition of the disease in infancy. They are, indeed, far more anxious that their children should contract yaws than are the uneducated mothers of English factory towns that theirs should contract measles. The desire of getting over inevitable diseases during childhood is the same in both cases, but the Fijians have less excuse, for yaws is not only a far more virulent disease than measles, but it might be far more easily stamped out if the Fijians could be disabused of the idea that it "grows out of the child."

In the days of slavery, from commercial considerations, the West Indian planters insisted on segregation in yaws-houses, and were partly successful in keeping the disease under control. But as soon as the West Indian negro was emanc.i.p.ated and permitted to revert to his own careless life, the disease began to gain ground very rapidly.

It is impossible to estimate the mortality directly due to yaws. In the yaws-hospitals of the West Indies the mortality amounted to less than the annual death-rate of the islands. When it occurs during the first year of childhood in Fiji it is almost invariably fatal. Indirectly, there can be no doubt that it is sapping the vitality of the whole native race. Some authorities--Hutchinson, for example--hold that it is possibly syphilis modified by race and climate. Syphilis is practically unknown among the Fijians, but although there are many points of difference that prove the two diseases to be distinct, it is highly probable that, from its close relations.h.i.+p to syphilis, yaws has an enervating effect on the child-bearing functions of the native women.

Though it would now be extremely difficult to stamp out the disease, much might be done to keep it under if the natives could be convinced of its contagious nature. In the mountain districts of Tholo _Tinea desquamans_, or _Tinea imbricata_ (Tokelau ringworm), which infected nearly 25 per cent. of the native population a few years ago, has now so far yielded to the efforts of the people themselves that it has been almost entirely stamped out in some of the provinces. As soon as they were convinced of its contagion, and understood that the Government would supply remedies to those who chose to pay for them, they buckled to the work in earnest, and needed little driving by European officials.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 99: A Voyage round the World in H.M.S. _Pandora_, by Mr.

George Hamilton, surgeon. Berwick-on-Tweed, 1792.]

CHAPTER XIX

TUBERCULOSIS[100]

The tubercular taint in the Fijians, though less marked than among some of the Polynesian races to the eastward, is sufficient to influence the vitality of the race by impairing its power of resistance to other diseases, both in children and adults. It is seen in the form of phthisis, strumous ulcerations, chronic bone diseases, and most commonly as strumous ulcerations of the face, nose, pharynx, or throat, which is named tubercular lupus. More rarely it appears as _tabes mesenterica_ in infants, tubercular peritonitis, and tubercular disease of the internal organs.

All these forms of tuberculosis are more common in the windward parts of the group, in Kandavu and in Thakaundrove, where the Tongan admixture is strongest; they are less common in Western Vitilevu and in the mountain districts, but even in these, where the Melanesian blood is purer, tubercular disease is far from uncommon. Half-castes are especially tainted with struma in all its forms, and from this it would appear that the Fijian does not bear crossing with the European, for while the negro-Fijian half-caste is usually healthy, the English Fijian cross is peculiarly subject to phthisis, lupus, and chronic disease of the bones.

Pulmonary tuberculosis occurs as haemorrhagic phthisis, as acute, rapidly breaking-down pulmonary tubercle of young adults, or as chronic fibroid phthisis in older men and women. Though the returns of the Colonial Hospital do not show a large number of deaths from this disease, it is probable that many die after returning home after a period of treatment, and in the outlying districts may die without making any attempt to get to the hospital.

Lupus, though it may make its appearance at any age, is developed most commonly at p.u.b.erty, and is most destructive in its results from fifteen to twenty-five or thirty. It attacks the face, nose and neck, and it usually destroys the fauces, palate and pharynx; the soft palate is entirely destroyed, and the only remains of the pillars of the fauces are scars of cicatricial tissue. The mouth then appears as a vast cavern instead of being filled with the usual structures, and the nose may be entirely eaten away. The disease is commoner among women than among men.

I remember seeing a family of high rank in Lakemba, whose women were remarkable for beauty. The sons were fine, st.u.r.dy fellows, to outward seeming quite untainted, but of the three daughters the eldest had no face, the second was marred by a depression at the root of the nose, betokening the first ravages of the disease, and the third, a girl of sixteen, was the most beautiful girl in the island. "She will soon be like the others," they told me; "they were more beautiful than she is, and look at them now!" It was comforting to notice that her impending fate did not seem to damp her enjoyment of the hour.

Strumous ulcerations of the limbs are the commonest diseases in Fiji.

Thus, out of 621 cases admitted to the hospital in 1892, including people of many races and every kind of disease, there were 104 cases of "ulcers" in Fijians alone--the total number of Fijians admitted being only 246; that is to say, more than 40 per cent. of the Fijians were admitted for ulcerations of strumous origin. This disease, which the natives call _vindikoso_, takes the usual form of an indolent, excavated ulceration, sometimes extending down to the bone. It generally runs a slow course, and when of large size, the resulting _cachexia_ is serious. It is generally left uncovered, or at most wrapped in a filthy piece of native cloth, and unwashed for days together--a fruitful breeding-ground for flies and parasites.

[Pageheader: FIJIANS ARE TAINTED WITH STRUMA]

To the same taint are due tubercular glandular enlargements, chronic disease of the bones, with deformity and enlargements, necrosis of the long bones, and the tuberculosis of abdominal glands, which is believed to cause many deaths among children, and not improbably also tubercular diarrhoea both in children and adults.

Yaws (_thoko_) occurring in children of tubercular parents is probably intensified, and children whose const.i.tution has been weakened by a prolonged attack of yaws are more p.r.o.ne to die of some form of tuberculosis. It has also been noticed that adults who bear the scars of severe yaws in childhood are more p.r.o.ne to contract some form of tuberculosis in after-life.

The possible ident.i.ty in the origin of all these diseases offers a wide and most interesting field for scientific investigation. It is but a step, for instance, from yaws to syphilis, and from syphilis to strumous diseases of bone and skin (especially those prevalent among the Pacific Islanders), and from struma to pulmonary or general tuberculosis. If such an investigation be too long delayed there is the danger that the races who furnish the material may have ceased to exist.

The undoubted facts are these:--

(1) That the Fijian race is tainted by various forms of tubercle, acquired and inherited;

(2) That the taint is more marked where there is an infusion of Polynesian or European blood;

(3) That females are more affected than males;

(4) That the disease is on the increase;

(5) That the inherent debility of the race is partly due to this taint.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 100: I am indebted to Dr. Lynch, who has made a special study of the subject, for the medical portion of this chapter.]

CHAPTER XX

TRADE

The necessity for bartering commodities, which is one of the earliest needs of primitive society, was met by the Fijians in an original manner. Nomad tribes, who are perpetually at war with their neighbours, and are not self-supporting, satisfy their wants by raiding and plunder; settled agricultural tribes in the same condition invent some artificial condition under which combatants may exchange their goods to their mutual advantage. Thus, in south-eastern New Guinea there are settled markets on the tribal frontier fitted with counters of saplings on which the women of either side may lay their goods and barter them without fear of molestation by the warriors, for the ground is strictly tabu, and neither side would dare to commit the sacrilege of striking a blow within its precincts.

In Fiji the natural productions of the country led to localizing of industries. No tribe, however wide its territory, was entirely self-supporting. Salt came only from the salt-pans in the mangrove swamps; cooking-pots from the clay-pits on outlying islands; the painting of _gnatu_ was an art peculiar to a few; the carving of bowls and the building of canoes were the craft of the carpenter clans and no other. The comfort, if not the existence, of a tribe depended upon barter, and the form of barter devised by the Fijians accorded exactly with their pa.s.sion for formal ceremonial.

The Solevu (_So-levu_, _i.e._ Great Presentation)

[Pageheader: CEREMONIAL FORM OF BARTER]

The _solevu_ is the formal presentation of property by one clan or sept to another. The ceremonial was much the same whenever merchandise had to pa.s.s, whether as tribute, reward, or free exchange between equals.

There were formerly many reasons for _solevu_. Help given by allies in war time ent.i.tled them to a _solevu_ from the succoured; quarter given by a conquering army in the moment of victory placed the vanquished under a like obligation; the death of a high chief gave his relatives a claim upon the subject tribes; a marriage ent.i.tled the relations of the bride to a _solevu_ from the bridegroom's people. _Solevu_ celebrated under these circ.u.mstances, being in the nature of payment for services rendered, did not call for any return, though they brought about the circulation of property. But between tribes of equal rank that had no such excuse for demanding presentations from each other there was a form of _solevu_ that was trading pure and simple. A tribe that owned salt-pans such as those at Nandi Bay wanted mats. It would send a formal messenger to one of the islands of Yasawa, asking permission to bring them a _solevu_ of salt. Yasawa accepted. The _solevu_ took place, both donors and recipients preserving a very accurate remembrance of the value of the present. After some months, or even years, Yasawa, having plaited a store of mats equivalent to their estimate of the value of the salt, would propose to return the _solevu_, and the score would be wiped off. If they seemed to hang fire, deft hints would be conveyed to them by the gossip-mongers, that they were fast becoming a by-word on the Nandi coast. If their offering fell short of the value due from them the formal grat.i.tude of their entertainers would lose nothing of its correctness at the time. The speeches would be as complimentary as usual, the hand-clapping as hearty, but none the less would they be made to hang their heads with shame when they had returned to their own island, and heard from the gossip-mongers some of the caustic epigrams current in Nandi at their expense.

Technically, the merchandise of a _solevu_ was presented to the chief, but the greater part of it reached the people whose labour had provided its purchase-equivalent. A good chief divided it out upon the spot among the septs composing the clan, who in turn a.s.signed it to the individual heads of houses; a selfish chief stored it away, and doled it out to such of his dependants or subject chiefs as chose to ask for it by _kere-kere_, but he applied it to his own use at the cost of his popularity, and, therefore, of his power. So long as a chief felt that his position depended on the suffrages of his subjects he did not dare to indulge his greed, and the trade balance was preserved. He might, however, apply it to the common advantage of the tribe, to pay off allies, or to purchase a new alliance, in which case the consent of his advisers carried with it the consent of the whole tribe. A European, staying with a great chief such as the Vunivalu of Mbau, is astonished at the number of minor presentations. Several times, perhaps, during the course of the day the _tama_ is shouted from without the house. The chief's _mata_ looks out, and announces the arrival of some subject clan with an offering--a roll of sinnet, a bale of cloth, a turtle, and the inevitable root of kava. A few of the household step out to listen to the speech of presentation and clap their hands in the prescribed form, but the chief himself scarcely deigns to check his conversation to listen. The merchandise is carried to a storehouse, where in due course it will be doled out to some chief desiring it, for the use of his numerous dependants, or used in the tangled political negotiations on which the safety of the federation depends. These minor presentations are in reality public revenue, and their equivalent in England would be found if every landowner brought his income-or land-tax in kind to Windsor and laid it with due ceremony at the gate of the castle.

[Pageheader: THE RITUAL]

The ceremonial varied slightly according to the local custom and the cause for which the _solevu_ was presented. The details of a marriage-gift differed from those of the obsequies of a dead chief; the ordinary trade _solevu_ between equals followed a simpler ritual than that of an offering of a vanquished tribe to its victors. But the general form was the same. Upon the appointed day the donors carried their wares to the village of the recipients, and halted upon the outskirts while their herald approached the chief's house and _tama_-ed, asking permission for his people to enter. The notables of the village being a.s.sembled in the square, the donors approached in procession, and were dismissed to the empty houses prepared for them, or, if the party was a large one, to the temporary shelters erected for their accommodation. To these they carried their merchandise, and they were scarcely settled when their entertainers filed in procession to the door, bearing the feast (_mangiti_) of cooked and raw yams, fish, hogs half-roasted and the ceremonial root of _yankona_. This having been presented and accepted according to the usual formula, the visitors were left to their own devices. In the evening individuals might visit their acquaintances in the village; the young men or women of the village, perhaps, entertained their guests with a night dance by the light of bonfires, but there was no general intercourse between the entertainers and the entertained. On the morrow, after the morning meal, the visitors removed their merchandise to the cover of the forest or the outskirts, and made ready their ceremonial entrance. There, the leaders wound many fathoms of native cloth about their bodies. The leading chief wore so c.u.mbersome a cincture of it that his arms stuck out horizontally, and a man had to walk beside him on either side supporting its weight. The grown men blackened their faces and festooned the cloth about them until their bodies were entirely hidden, and they resembled turkey c.o.c.ks with tails outspread. Armed with spears and clubs, bearing enormous turbans on their heads, they were ready for the great ballet that was to follow.

The rest shouldered the salt or mats or pots, and the procession was formed. A warrior with blackened face led the way. With his spear poised he crept forward step by step as if about to launch it at his hosts, pausing every few yards with a sharp jerk of the elbow that set the point quivering. The chief and his elders followed, bending under the weight of their huge girdles. Then came others with a litter of boughs supporting a great bale of white bark-cloth, and many more followed with the rest of the merchandise, their hosts greeting them with shouts of "_Vinaka! Vinaka!_" (Well done! Well done!). In the centre of the square they halted, and laid down their burdens on a fast-increasing pile, each retiring when his task was done. The chiefs unwound their girdles, a process that occupied many minutes, and stepped out at last, naked to their waist-cloths, leaving the cloth as a stiff rampart about the spot where they had halted. Meanwhile some twenty of the bearers had seated themselves apart. They set up a chant, marking the time with a small wooden drum, and the boom of hollow bamboos struck endwise upon the earth. Then from behind the houses came the ballet, five or six deep, with a few paces' interval between each. With their black faces, their enormous turbans, their strange dress and their arms they were a terrifying spectacle. No ballet is so well drilled as this. Every gesture of the hands, the heads and the eyes is timed with a precision that months of practice would not achieve were there not an inborn dexterity to build upon. Little boys of four or five may be seen on the outskirts of the practice-ground swaying their limbs and bodies in elaborate contortions which Europeans after a prolonged gymnastic training would execute very clumsily. The words chanted by the band may either be traditional poems whose meaning is obscure, or the composition of the leader of the dance, for nearly every district has its poet, who retires to the forest for free access of the muse, and surpa.s.ses the mediaeval troubadours in that he sets his words, not only to music, but to action, and is poet, composer and ballet-master in one.

[Pageheader: A GREAT WAR DANCE]

A description of one of these dances given by the mountaineers of Bemana at the Great Council of Chiefs held in Nandronga in 1887 will serve for all. The dancers marched into the great square in twenty ranks of ten, and squatted down with spears poised. In their crouching posture the festoons of their draperies took on the symmetry of hayc.o.c.ks, each surmounted with a heavy k.n.o.b for ornament, for their enormous turbans almost hid the blackened faces. Their sloping spears swayed like a thicket of bamboos swept by a breeze. And now the chant quickened to a sinister rhythm, and there was a menace in the stillness of the dancers.

One huge fellow, detached from the rest, began to mark the exciting drum-beat by fluttering the enormous war-fan he carried in his left hand; the rest seemed motionless unless you looked into the shadow of the turbans, where their restless eyes gleamed unnaturally white from the soot that besmeared their faces. As the chant grew in shrillness and the drums beat a devil's tattoo that set the muscles of the vast concourse of spectators twitching with excitement, the dancers became unnaturally still, not a spear wavered in its slope.

The spell was broken by a shout, deep-toned and mighty, from a hundred warriors' throats. A third of the band leaps up, and, with spears poised aloft, marches straight and compact to the further end, turns about and retreats to its place. But ere the foremost are within touch of their companions another third springs up and joins them, and together they repeat the manoeuvre. Another shout and the whole body is in motion.

The earth trembles with its tramp; the rattle of its stiff trappings drowns the whine of the singers. This time they do not return. The first rank is within a pace of the line of spectators when the leader--he of the war-fan--gives the signal. They are down now, with bodies bent low, and spears poised for stabbing or hurling. Their legs are like bent springs, so lightly they leap as they take open order. The leader flirts his huge fan, and runs swiftly up and down, shouting orders that need never have been shouted. For every movement, of body, head, arm or foot, is executed as if one wire moved the whole two hundred. They pursue, they flee, they stab a fallen enemy, they dodge his blows by a sideways jerk of the head, they run at topmost speed, and the earth shakes at the tramp of their running, though they do not advance an inch, and their running feet strike always in the same spot. Their eyes blaze and their teeth grin with fury, the sooty sweat courses down their skin, the loops of stiff drapery clash about them. In other dances some luckless dancer commits a fault not to be detected by European eyes, and excites the loud derision of the spectators, but here all the dancers are perfect in their parts and the crowd is awed by the verisimilitude of the piece. At the outset a few ribald spirits of the coast tribes applauded the terrific appearance and gestures of the warriors in obvious irony, but presently, when the play seemed to settle to sober earnest, a fearful silence fell upon them all. The evolutions of the dancers gave occasion.

Retiring step by step before an imaginary foe to the further end of the square, they would dash forward in compact phalanx upon the bank of spectators, checking their onset with a suddenness that seemed to defy the laws of momentum. If this was but the image of war, surely the reality must be less terrible. To sit still unarmed while two hundred untamed devils charge over one with their stabbing-spears is not courage, but foolhardiness--so, at least, thought the men of Mbua who faced the dance. And so, when the gra.s.s was strewn with the fragments of the trappings, and the dancers were struck to stone in the midst of their most furious onslaught, the solid bank of spectators broke and fled. Only when the warriors had walked tamely off to add their finery to the heap of presents did they begin to slink back one by one, looking the more foolish for their heroic efforts to join in the laugh against themselves.

The Solevu in Decay

[Ill.u.s.tration: A War Dance.]

[Pageheader: ABUSE OF THE _SOLEVU_]