Torres, the original discoverer, required two months to get through.
WHERE WOMEN PROPOSE

The larger islands in this strait are of special interest to students
of the phenomena of love and marriage, for on them it is not only
permissible but obligatory for women to propose to the men. Needless
to say that the inhabitants of these islands, though so near
Queensland, are not Australians. They are Melanesians, but their
customs are insular and unique. Curr (I., 279) says of them that they
are "with one exception, of the Papuan type, frizzle-haired people who
cultivate the soil, use the bow and arrow and not the spear, and,
un-Australian-like, treat their women with some consideration."

Luckily the customs of these islanders have been carefully and
intelligently studied by Professor A.C. Haddon, who published an
entertaining account of them in a periodical to which one usually
looks for instruction rather than amusement.[181] Professor Haddon
combines the two. On the island of Tud, he tells us, when boys undergo
the ordeal of initiation into manhood, one of the lessons taught them
is: "You no like girl first; if you do, girl laugh and call you
woman." When a girl likes a man, she tells his sister and gives her a
ring of string. On the first suitable opportunity the sister says to
her brother: "Brother, I have some good news for you. A woman loves
you." He asks who it is, and, if willing to go on with the affair,
tells his sister to ask the girl to keep an appointment with him in
some spot in the bush. On receipt of the message the enamoured girl
informs her parents that she is going into the bush to get some wood,
or food, or some such excuse. At the appointed time the man meets her;
and they sit down and yarn, without any fondling. The ensuing dialogue
is given by Haddon in the actual words which Maino, chief of Tud,
used:

"Opening the conversation, the man says, 'You like me
proper?'

"'Yes,' she replies, 'I like you proper with my heart
inside. Eye along my heart see you--you my man.'

"Unwilling to rashly give himself away, he asks,'How
you like me?'

"'I like your leg--you got fine body--your skin good--I
like you altogether,' replies the girl.

"After matters have proceeded satisfactorily the girl,
anxious to clench the matter, asks when they are to be
married. The man says, 'To-morrow, if you like.'

"Then they go home and inform their relatives. There is
a mock fight and everything is settled."

On the island of Mabniag, after a girl has sent an intermediary to
bring a string to the man she covets, she follows this up by sending
him food, again and again. But he "lies low" a month or two before he
ventures to eat any of this food, because he has been warned by his
mother that if he takes it he will "get an eruption all over his
face." Finally, he concludes she means business, so he consults the
big men of the village and marries her.

If a man danced well, he found favor in the sight of these island
damsels. His being married did not prevent a girl from proposing. Of
course she took good care not to make the advances through one of the
other wives--that might have caused trouble!--but in the usual way. On
this island the men never made the first advances toward matrimony.
Haddon tells a story of a native girl who wanted to marry a Loyalty
Islander, a cook, who was loafing on the mission premises. He did not
encourage her advances, but finally agreed to meet her in the bush,
where, according to his version of the story, he finally refused her.
She, however, accused him of trying to "steal" her. This led to a big
palaver before the chief, at which the verdict was that the cook was
innocent and that the girl had trumped up the charge in order to force
the marriage.

If a man and a girl began to keep company, he was branded on the back
with a charcoal, while her mark was cut into the skin (because "she
asked the man"). It was expected they would marry, but if they did not
nothing could be done. If it was the man who was unwilling, the girl's
father told the other men of the place, and they gave him a sound
thrashing. Refusing a girl was thus a serious matter on these islands!

The missionaries, Haddon was informed,

"discountenance the native custom of the women
proposing to the men, although there is not the least
objection to it from a moral or social point of view;
quite the reverse. So the white man's fashion is being
introduced. As an illustration of the present mixed
condition of affairs, I found that a girl who wants a
certain man writes him a letter, often on a slate, and
he replies in a similar manner."

On the island of Tud it often happened that the girl who was first
enamoured of a youth at his initiation, and who first asked him in
marriage, was one who "like too many men." The lad, being on his
guard, might get rid of her attentions by playing a trick on her,
making a bogus appointment with her in the bush, and then informing
the elder men, who would appear in his place at the trysting-place, to
the girl's mortification.

Various details given in the chapter on Australia indicated that if
the women on that big island did not propose, as a rule, it was not
from coyness but because the selfishness of the men and their
arrangements made it impossible in most cases. On these neighboring
islands the women could propose; yet the cause of love, of course, did
not gain anything from such an arrangement, which could serve only to
stimulate licentiousness. Haddon gathered the impression that
"chastity before marriage was unknown, free intercourse not being
considered wrong; it was merely 'fashion along we folk.'" Their excuse
was the same as Adam's: "Woman, he steal; man, how can he help
it?"[182]

Nocturnal courtship was in vogue:

"Decorum was observed. Thus I was told in Tud a girl, before
going to sleep, would tie a string round her foot and pass
it under the thatched wall of the house. In the middle of
the night her lover would come, pull the string, and so
awaken the girl, who would then join him. As the chief of
Mabuiag said, 'What can the father do; if she wants the man
how can he stop her?'"

On Muralug Island the custom is somewhat different. There,
after the girl has sent her grass-ring to the man she wants,

"if he is willing to proceed in the matter, he goes to
the rendezvous in the bush and, not unnaturally, takes
every advantage of the situation. Every night
afterwards he goes to the girl's house and steals away
before daybreak. At length someone informs the girl's
father that a man is sleeping with his daughter. The
father communicates with the girl, and she tells her
lover that her father wants to see him--'To see what
sort of man he is?' The father then says, 'You like my
daughter, she like you, you may have her.' The details
are then arranged."

Sometimes, if a girl was too free with her favors to the men, the
other women cut a mark down her back, to make her feel ashamed. Yet
she had no difficulty on this account in subsequently finding a
husband.

Besides the existence of "free love," there are other customs arguing
the absence of sentiment in these insular affairs of the heart.
Infanticide was frequently resorted to, the babes being buried alive
in the sand, for no other reason than to save the trouble of taking
care of them. After marriage, in spite of the fact that the girl did
the proposing, she becomes the man's property; so much so that if she
should offend him, he may kill her and no harm will come to him. If
her sister comes to remonstrate, he can kill her too, and if he has
two wives and they quarrel, he can kill both. In that love-scene
reported by Maino, the chief of Tud, the girl gives us her
"sentimental" reasons why she loves him: because he has a fine leg and
body, and a good skin. The "romance" of the situation is further
aggravated when we read that, as in Australia, swapping sisters is the
usual way of getting a wife, and that if a man has no sister to
exchange he must pay for his wife with a canoe, a knife, or a glass
bottle. Chief Maino himself told Haddon that he gave for his wife
seven pieces of calico, one dozen shirts, one dozen singlets, one
dozen trousers, one dozen handkerchiefs, two dozen tomahawks, besides
tobacco, fish-lines and hooks and pearl shells. He finished his
enumeration by exclaiming "By golly, he too dear!"

How did these islanders ever come to indulge in the custom, so
inconsistent with their general attitude toward women, of allowing
them to propose? The only hint at an explanation I have been able to
find is contained in the following citation from Haddon:

"If an unmarried woman desired a man she accosted him,
but the man did not ask the woman (at least, so I was
informed), for if she refused him he would feel
ashamed, and maybe brain her with a stone club, and so
'he would kill her for nothing.'"


BORNEAN CAGED GIRLS

The islands of the Pacific Ocean and adjacent waters are almost
innumerable. To give an account of the love-affairs customary on all
of them would require a large volume by itself. In the present work it
is not possible to do more than select a few of the islands, as
samples, preference being given to those that show at least some
traces of feelings rising above mere sensualism. One of the largest
and best known of these islands is Borneo, and of its inhabitants the
Dyaks are of special interest from our point of view. Their customs
have been observed and described by St. John, Low, Bock, H. Ling Roth
and others.[183]

In some parts of Dutch Borneo the cruel custom prevails of locking up
a girl when she is eight to ten years old in a small, dark apartment
of the house, which she is not allowed to leave for about seven years.
She spends her time making mats and doing other handiwork, but is not
allowed to see anyone--not even of her own family--except a female
slave. When she is free from her prison she appears bleached a light
yellow, as though made out of wax, and totters along on small, thin
feet--which the natives consider especially attractive.


CHARMS OF DYAK WOMEN

Dyak girls are not subjected to any such restraints, and in some
respects they enjoy more liberty than is good for them. As usual among
the lower races, they have to do most of the hard work. "It is a sad
sight," says Low (75), "to see the Dyak girls, some but nine or ten
years of age, carrying water up the mount in bamboos, their bodies
bent nearly double, and groaning under the weight of their burden."
Lieutenant Marryat found that the mountain Dyak girls, if not
beautiful, had some beautiful points--good eyes, teeth, and hair,
besides good manners, and they "knew how to make use of their eyes."
Denison (cited by Roth, I., 46) remarks that

"Some of the girls showed signs of good looks, but hard
work, poor feeding, and intermarriage and early marriage
soon told their tale, and rapidly converted them into ugly,
dirty, diseased old hags, and this at an age when they are
barely more than young women."

They marry sometimes as early as the age of thirteen, and in general
they are inferior in looks to the men. Marryat thought he saw
"something wicked in their dark furtive glances," while Earl found the
faces of Dyak women generally extremely interesting, largely on
account of "the soft expression given by their long eyelashes, and by
the habit of keeping the eyes half closed." "Their general
conversation is not wanting in wit," says Brooke (I., 70),

"and considerable acuteness of perception is evinced, but
often accompanied by improper and indecent language, of
which they are unaware when giving utterance to it. Their
acts, however, fortunately evince more regard for modesty
than their words."

Grant, in describing his tour among the Land Dyaks, remarks (97):

"It has been mentioned once or twice that we found the
women bathing at the village well. Although, generally
speaking, no lack of proper modesty is shown, certainly
rather an Adam and Eve like idea of the same is
displayed on such occasions by these simple people."


DYAK MORALS

Concerning the sexual morality of the Dyaks, opinions of observers
differ somewhat. St. John (I., 52) observes that "the Sea Dyak women
are modest and yet unchaste, love warmly and yet divorce easily, but
are generally faithful to their husbands when married." It is agreed
that the morality of the Land Dyaks is superior to that of the Sea
Dyaks; yet with them,

"as among the Sea Dyaks, the young people have almost
unrestrained intercourse; but, if a girl prove with child a
marriage immediately takes place, the bridegroom making the
richest presents he can to her relatives" (I., 113). "There
is no strict law,"

says Mundy (II., 2),

"to bind the conduct of young married people of either
sex, and parents are more or less indifferent on those
points, according to their individual ideas of right
and wrong. It is supposed that every young Dyak woman
will eventually suit herself with a husband, and it is
considered no disgrace to be on terms of intimacy with
the youth of her fancy till she has the opportunity of
selecting a suitable helpmate; and as the unmarried
ladies attach much importance to bravery, they are
always desirous of securing the affections of a
renowned warrior. Lax, however, as this code may appear
before marriage, it would seem to be sufficiently
stringent after the matrimonial. One wife only is
allowed, and infidelity is punished by fine on both
sides--inconstancy on the part of the husband being
esteemed equally as bad as in the female. The breach of
the marriage vows, however, appears to be infrequent,
though they allow that, during the time of war, more
license is given."


NOCTURNAL COURTSHIP

Brooke Low relates that the Sea Dyak girls receive their male visitors
at night.

"They sleep apart from their parents, sometimes in the
same room, but more often in the loft. The young men
are not invited to sleep with them unless they are old
friends, but they may sit with them and chat, and if
they get to be fond of each other after a short
acquaintance, and wish to make a match of it, they are
united in marriage, if the parents on either side have
no objections to offer. It is in fact the only way open
to the man and woman to become acquainted with each
other, as privacy during the daytime is out of the
question in a Dyak village."

The same method of courtship prevails among the Land Dyaks. Some queer
details are given by St. John, Crossland and Leggatt (Roth, 110).
About nine or ten o'clock at night the lover goes on tiptoe to the
mosquito curtains of his beloved, gently awakens her and offers her
some prepared betel-nut. If she accepts it, he is happy, for it means
that his suit is prospering, but if she refuses it and says "Be good
enough to blow up the fire," it means that he is dismissed. Sometimes
their discourse is carried on through the medium of a sort of
Jew's-harp, one handing it to the other, asking questions and
returning answers. The lover remains until daybreak. After the consent
of the girl and her parents has been obtained, one more ordeal
remains; the bridal couple have to run the gauntlet of the mischievous
village boys, who stand ready with sooted hands to begrime their faces
and bodies; and generally they succeed so well that bride and groom
present the appearance of negroes.

Elopements also occur in cases where parental consent is withheld.
Brooke Low thus describes an old custom which permits a man to carry
off a girl:

"She will meet him by arrangement at the water-side and
step into his boat with a paddle in her hand, and both
will pull away as fast as they can. If pursued he will
stop every now and then to deposit some article of
value on the bank, such as a gun, a jar, or a favor for
the acceptance of her family, and when he has exhausted
his resources he will leave his own sword. When the
pursuers observe this they will cease to follow,
knowing he is cleared out. As soon as he reaches his
own village he tidies up the house and spreads the
mats, and when his pursuers arrive he gives them food
to eat and toddy to drink, and sends them home
satisfied. In the meanwhile he is left in possession of
his wife."


HEAD HUNTERS A-WOOING

In one of the introductory chapters of this volume a brief account was
given of the Dyak head-hunters. Reference was made to the fact that
the more heads a man has cut off, the more he is respected. He cannot
marry until he has killed a man, woman, or child, and brought home the
head as a trophy, and cases are known of men having to wait two years
before they could procure the skull necessary to soften the heart of
the gentle beloved. "From all accounts," says Roth (II., 163),

"there can be little doubt that one of the chief
incentives to getting heads is the desire to please the
women ... Mrs. McDougall relates an old Sakaran legend
which says that the daughter of their great ancestor,
who resides in heaven near the great Evening Star,
refused to marry until her betrothed brought her a
present worth her acceptance. The man went into the
jungle and killed a deer, which he presented to her;
but the fair lady turned away in disdain. He went again
and returned with a _mias_, the great monkey [_sic_]
who haunts the forest; but this present was not more to
her taste. Then, in a fit of despair, the lover went
abroad, and killed the first man that he met, and
throwing his victim's head at the maiden's feet, he
exclaimed at the cruelty she had made him guilty of;
but to his surprise, she smiled, and said that now he
had discovered the only gift worthy of herself."

Roth cites a correspondent who says:

"At this moment there are two Dyaks in the Kuching jail
who acknowledge that they took the heads of two
innocent Chinese with no other object in view when
doing so than to secure the pseudo affections of women,
who refused to marry them until they had thus proved
themselves to be men."

Here is what a sweet Dyak maiden said to a young man who asked for her
hand and heart:

"Why don't you go to the Saribus Fort and there take
the head of Bakir (the Dyak chief), or even that of
Tuan Hassan (Mr. Watson), and then I will deign to
think of your desires with some degree of interest."

Says Captain Mundy (II., 222):

"No aristocratic youth dare venture to pay his
addresses to a Dyak demoiselle unless he throws at the
blushing maiden's feet a netful of skulls! In some
districts it is customary for the young lady to desire
her lover to cut a thick bamboo from the neighboring
jungle, and when in possession of this instrument, she
carefully arranges the _cadeau d'amour_ on the floor,
and by repeated blows beats the heads into fragments,
which, when thus pounded, are scraped up and cast into
the river; at the same time she throws herself into the
arms of the enraptured youth, and so commences the
honeymoon."

Another account of Dyak courtship (Roth, II., 166) represents a young
warrior returning from a head-hunting expedition and, on meeting his
beloved, holding in each hand one of the captured heads by the hair.
She takes one of the heads, whereupon they dance round each other with
the most extravagant gestures, amidst the applause of the Rajah and
his people. The next step is a feast, at which the young couple eat
together. When this is over, they have to take off whatever clothes
they have on and sit naked on the ground while some of the old women
throw over them handfuls of paddy and repeat a prayer that they may
prove as fruitful as that grain.

"The warrior can take away any inferior man's wife at
pleasure, and is thanked for so doing. A chief who has
twenty heads in his possession will do the same with
another who may have only ten, and upwards to the
Rajah's family, who can take any woman at pleasure."


FICKLE AND SHALLOW PASSION

Though the Dyaks may be somewhat less coarse than those Australians
who make a captured woman marry the man who killed her husband, an
almost equal callousness of feeling is revealed by J. Dalton's
statement that the women taken on the head-hunting expedition "soon
became attached to the conquerors"--resembling, in this respect, the
Australian woman who, of her own accord, deserts to an enemy who has
vanquished her husband. Cases of frantic amorous infatuation occur, as
a matter of course. Brooke (II., 106) relates the story of a girl of
seventeen who, for the sake of an ugly, deformed, and degraded
workman, left her home, dressed as a man, and in a small broken canoe
made a trip of eighty miles to join her lover. In olden times death
would have been the penalty for such an act; but she, being a "New
Woman" in her tribe, exclaimed, "If I fell in love with a wild beast,
no one should prevent me marrying it." In this Eastern clime, Brooke
declares, "love is like the sun's rays in warmth." He might have added
that it is as fickle and transient as the sun's warmth; every passing
cloud chills it. The shallow nature of Dyak attachment is indicated by
their ephemeral unions and universal addiction to divorce. "Among the
Upper Sarawak Dyaks divorce is very frequent, owing to the great
extent of adultery," says Haughton (Roth, I., 126); and St. John
remarks:

"One can scarcely meet with a middle-aged Dayak who has
not had two, and often three or more wives. I have
heard of a girl of seventeen or eighteen years who had
already had three husbands. Repudiation, which is
generally done by the man or woman running away to the
house of a near relation, takes place for the slightest
cause--personal dislike or disappointments, a sudden
quarrel, bad dreams, discontent with their partners'
powers of labor or their industry, or, in fact, any
excuse which will help to give force to the expression,
'I do not want to live with him, or her, any longer.'"

"Many men and women have married seven or eight times
before they find the partner with whom they desire to
spend the rest of their lives."

"When a couple are newly-married, if a deer or a
gazelle, or a moose-deer utters a cry at night near the
house in which the pair are living, it is an omen of
ill--they must separate, or the death of one would
ensue. This might be a great trial to an European
lover; the Dayaks, however, take the matter very
philosophically."

"Mr. Chalmers mentions to me the case of a young
Penin-jau man who was divorced from his wife on the
third day after marriage. The previous night a deer had
uttered its warning cry, and separate they must. The
morning of the divorce he chanced to go into the 'Head
House' and there sat the bridegroom contentedly at
work."

"'Why are you here?' he was asked, as the 'Head House'
is frequented by bachelors and boys only; 'What news of
your new wife?'"

"'I have no wife, we were separated this morning
because the deer cried last night.'"

"'Are you sorry?'"

"'Very sorry.'"

"'What are you doing with that brass wire?'"

"'Making _perik_'--the brass chain work which the women
wear round their waists--'for a young woman whom I want
to get for my new wife,'" (I., 165-67; 55.)

Such is the love of Dyaks. Marriage among them, says the same keen
observer, "is a business of partnership for the purpose of having
children, dividing labor, and, by means of their offspring, providing
for their old age;" and Brooke Low remarks that "intercourse before
marriage is strictly to ascertain that the marriage will be fruitful,
as the Dyaks want children," In other words, apart from sensual
purposes, the women are not desired and cherished for their own sakes,
but only for utilitarian reasons, as a means to an end. Whence we
conclude that, high as the Dyaks stand above Australians and many
Africans, they are still far from the goal of genuine affection. Their
feelings are only skin deep.


DYAK LOVE-SONGS

Dyaks are not without their love-songs.

"I am the tender shoot of the drooping libau with its fragrant
scent." "I am the comb of the champion fighting-cock that never
runs away," "I am the hawk flying down the Kanyau Kiver, coming
after the fine feathered fowl." "I am the crocodile from the
mouth of the Lingga, coming repeatedly for the striped flower of
the rose-apple."

Roth (I., 119-21) cites forty-five of these verses, mostly expressive
of such selfish boasting and vanity. Not one of them expresses a
feeling of tenderness or admiration of a beloved person, not to speak
of altruistic feelings.


THE GIRL WITH THE CLEAN FACE

Is a Dyak capable of admiring personal beauty? Some of the girls have
fine figures and pretty faces; but there is no evidence that any but
the voluptuous (non-esthetic) qualities of the figure are appreciated,
and as for the faces, if the men really appreciated beauty as we do,
they would first of all things insist that the girls must keep their
faces clean. An amusing experiment made by St. John with some Ida'an
girls (I., 339) is suggestive from this point of view:

"We selected one who had the dirtiest face--and it was
difficult to select where all were dirty--and asked her
to glance at herself in a looking-glass. She did so,
and passed it round to the others; we then asked which
they thought looked best, cleanliness or dirt: this was
received with a universal giggle.

"We had brought with us several dozen cheap
looking-glasses, so we told Iseiom, the daughter of Li
Moung, our host, that if she would go and wash her face
we would give her one. She treated the offer with
scorn, tossed her head, and went into her father's
room. But about half an hour afterwards, we saw her
come into the house and try to mix quietly with the
crowd; but it was of no use, her companions soon
noticed she had a clean face, and pushed her to the
front to be inspected. She blushingly received her
looking-glass and ran away, amid the laughter of the
crowd."

The example had a great effect, however, and before evening nine of
the girls had received looking-glasses.[184]


FIJIAN REFINEMENTS

In the chapter on Personal Beauty I endeavored to show that if savages
who live near the sea or river are clean, it is not owing to their
love of cleanliness, but to an accident, bathing being resorted to by
them as an antidote to heat, or as a sport. This applies particularly
to the Melanesian and Polynesian inhabitants of the South Sea Islands,
whose chief pastimes are swimming and surf riding. Thomas Williams, in
his authoritative work on Fiji and the Fijians, makes some remarks
which entirely bear out my views:

"Too much has been said about the cleanliness of the
natives. The lower classes are often very dirty.... They ...
seldom hesitate to sink both cleanliness and dignity in what
they call comfort" (117).

We are therefore not surprised to read on another page (97) that

"of admiring emotion, produced by the contemplation of
beauty, these people seem incapable; while they remain
unmoved by the wondrous loveliness with which they are
everywhere surrounded.... The mind of the Fijian has
hitherto seemed utterly unconscious of any inspiration of
beauty, and his imagination has grovelled in the most vulgar
earthliness."

Sentimentalists have therefore erred in ascribing to the Fijian
cannibals cleanliness as a virtue. They have erred also in regard to
several other alleged refinements they discovered among these tribes.
One of these is the custom prohibiting a father from cohabiting with
his wife until the child is weaned. This has been supposed to indicate
a kind regard for the welfare and health of mother and child. But when
we examine the facts we find that far from being a proof of superior
morality, this custom reveals the immorality of the husband, and makes
an assassin of the wife. Read what Williams has to say (154):

"Nandi, one of whose wives was pregnant, left her to
dwell with a second. The forsaken one awaited his
return some months, and at last the child disappeared.
This practice seemed to be universal on Vanua
Levu--quite a matter of course--so that few women could
be found who had not in some way been murderers. The
extent of infanticide in some parts of this island
reaches nearer to two-thirds than half."

Williams further informs us (117) that "husbands are as frequently
away from their wives as they are with them, since it is thought not
well for a man to sleep regularly at home." He does not comment on
this, but Seeman (191) and Westermarck (151) interpret the custom as
indicating Fijian "ideas of delicacy in married life," which, after
what has just been said, is decidedly amusing. If Fijians really were
capable of considering it indelicate to spend the night under the same
roof with their wives, it would indicate their indelicacy, not their
delicacy. The utterly unprincipled men doubtless had their reasons for
preferring to stay away from home, and probably their great contempt
for women also had something to do with the custom.


HOW CANNIBALS TREAT WOMEN

In Fiji, says Crawley (225), women are kept away from participation in
worship. "Dogs are excluded from some temples, women from all." In
many parts of the group woman is treated, according to Williams,

"as a beast of burden, not exempt from any kind of labor,
and forbidden to enter any temple; certain kinds of food she
may eat only by sufferance, and that after her husband has
finished. In youth she is the victim of lust, and in old
age, of brutality."

Girls are betrothed and married as children without consulting their
choice. "I have seen an old man of sixty living with two wives both
under fifteen years of age." Such of the young women as are acquainted
with foreign ways envy the favored women who wed "the man to whom
their spirit flies." Women are regarded as the property of the men,
and as an incentive to bravery they are "promised to such as shall, by
their prowess, render themselves deserving." They are used for paying
war-debts and other accounts; for instance, "the people submitted to
their chiefs and capitulated, offering two women, a basket of earth,
whales' teeth, and mats, to buy the reconciliation of the Rewans."

"A chief of Nandy, in Viti Levu, was very desirous to
have a musket which an American captain had shown him.
The price of the coveted piece was two hogs. The chief
had only one; but he sent on board with it a young
woman as an equivalent."

At weddings the prayer is that the bride may "bring forth male
children"; and when the son is born, one of the first lessons taught
him is "to strike his mother, lest he should grow up to be a coward."
When a husband died, it was the national custom to murder his wife,
often his mother too, to be his companions. To kill a defenceless
woman was an honorable deed.

"I once asked a man why he was called Koroi. 'Because,' he
replied, 'I, with several other men, found some women and
children in a cave, drew them out and clubbed them and was
then consecrated.'"

So far have sympathy and gallantry progressed in Fiji.

"Many examples might be given of most dastardly cruelty,
where women and even unoffending children were abominably
slain." "I have labored to make the murderers of females
ashamed of themselves; and have heard their cowardly
cruelty defended by the assertion that such victims
were doubly good--because they ate well, and because of
the distress it caused their husbands and friends."
"Cannibalism does not confine itself to one sex." "The
heart, the thigh, and the arm above the elbow, are
considered the greatest dainties."

One of these monsters, whom Williams knew, sent his wife to
fetch wood and collect leaves to line the oven. When she had
cheerfully and unsuspectingly obeyed his orders, he killed her, put
her in the oven, and ate her. There had been no quarrel; he was simply
hungering for a dainty morsel. Even after death the women are
subjected to barbarous treatment.

"One of the corpses was that of an old man of seventy,
another of a fine young woman of eighteen.... All were
dragged about and subjected to abuse too horrible and
disgusting to be described."[185]


FIJIAN MODESTY AND CHASTITY

With these facts in mind the reader is able to appreciate the humor of
the suggestion that it is "ideas of delicacy" that prevent Fijian
husbands from spending their nights at home. Equally amusing is the
blunder of Wilkes, who tells us (III., 356) that

"though almost naked, these natives have a great idea of
modesty, and consider it extremely indelicate to expose the
whole person. If either a man or woman should be discovered
without the 'maro' or 'liku,' they would probably be
killed."

Williams, the great authority on Fijians, says that
"Commodore Wilkes's account of Fijian marriages seems to be compounded
of Oriental notions and Ovalan yarns" (147). Having been a mere
globe-trotter, it is natural that he should have erred in his
interpretation of Fijian customs, but it is unpardonable in
anthropologists to accept such conclusions without examination. As a