Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 87.djvu/310

306 be a great disfigurement, and the defect was concealed by a wig. To preserve these unwieldy mops of hair, the natives were obliged to sleep upon a wooden pillow which was placed under the neck and held the head four or five inches above the floor.

To the European, all customs are apt to be classed as "bad" in proportion as they differ from those of his own race, but it should be said that in Fiji the missionaries have been more conservative and displayed far more sympathy and sense in their reforms than elsewhere in the Pacific. Nevertheless, all forms of really active exercises or keen enjoyment have a somewhat wicked appearance to a certain type of religious mind, and unhappily the mediocre man is the one who is apt to rule in deciding the fate of such affairs. They too often fail to see that when an old custom is to be abolished something should be devised to take its place. Thus their vandalism of bigotry has resulted in destroying or hindering the open practise of nearly all the old arts and amusements; and almost nothing but hymns and prayers and a cheerless sabbath resembling that of Puritan days in old New England have been given to the natives in exchange for all they have been forced to surrender.

The Fijians once took great delight in their club dances, but these have now been repressed and have lost much of their former animation. In one of these festivities which we witnessed the men leaped frantically in perfect unison, branishingbrandishing [sic] their clubs and throwing them from hand to hand, often shielding their eyes with one hand as if searching for a hidden or distant enemy. At regular intervals they shouted Wa hoo! in a fierce yell that could have been heard at a distance of a quarter of a mile, while all the village crowded in a square around the dancers, beating log drums, clapping hands and chanting something which sounded like "Somo seri rangi tu Somo seri somo," over and over again. Often the meanings of words used in their songs are unknown to the natives of modern times. Wilkes gives an excellent description of a club-dance in which the best dancers were mimicked by a clown covered from head to foot with green and dried leaves, and wearing a mask half orange and half black.

The milder mekes (songs with gestures) are wisely encouraged by the missionaries, and these are still a source of constant amusement to the natives. Fiji has not yet been suppressed into a realm of sullen silence as have too many parts of the Pacific.

There is a fascination in the elemental force of the word-pictures in these songs. We stifle in the heavy air of the dull and ominous calm. Then comes the rising roar of the onrush and our hearts go out to the frail canoes struggling so bravely in a maddened sea, and the pathos of life and death is there when the hot sun glares down once more, and the ripples glint unheedingly around the silent floating thing over which the sea-birds scream.