Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 87.djvu/300

296 of heathenism, for licentiousness formerly kept down by the chief's club is now merely forbidden.

Seeman states that the natives were shocked when he told them that English women frequently bore children at intervals of a year apart, and upon reflection they decided this accounted for there being so many "shrimps" (small men) among Europeans.

In common with some other primitive races, the Fijians looked frankly upon those problems of sexual relations which we attempt to ignore or to cloak under a mantle of secrecy, too often pernicious to the welfare of our race. The average European is too apt to be horrified when he hears a spade called by its simplest name, and to his mind morality implies an unnatural hypocrisy respecting the physiological facts of life. He forgets that acts and words are in themselves innocent unless their intention be otherwise, and in many matters of this sort the missionary has unfortunately made cowards and liars of his converts, and it is undoubtedly true that the influence of civilization in the Pacific has tended to increase rather than diminish all forms of clandestine sexual depravity.

I have heard competent and unprejudiced observers state that the Fijians were fully as affectionate in heathen times as at present. Family affection fortunately springs from nature itself and is not a product of our system of life, however cultured or barbarous. One sees the naked women of Australia, whose bodies are covered with self-inflicted scars, gaze rapturously upon their children and exhibit maternal love as truly as could any European mother, and even Wilkes, who refers to the Fijians as "the most barbarous and savage race now existing upon the globe," states that he saw "engaged couples walking affectionately arm-in-arm as with us."

One of the saddest, because the most apparent change that has affected the lives of the Pacific islanders is the needless decay of their arts. War, and the ceremonies and obligations of religion once provided the major motive for the maintenance and development of varied crafts. In fact, the intent of practically every piece of decorative work was either to propitiate the gods and tribal spirits, or to frighten a real or imaginary enemy. Nor is this peculiar to savage tribes, for all the complex ornaments which adorn the yokes of horses in Naples are "evil eye" charms which have come down almost unaltered from Roman times.

The missionary soon saw that most of his so-called converts had only added the white man's god to those of their ancestors. In order, therefore, to obliterate old beliefs, he discouraged the making of all "symbols of heathenism," and, as these were displayed in almost every implement, art fell at once under the awe-inspiring ban of his displeasure.

Yet the decline of native art was to some degree inevitable even if