The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1901-07-19
HOW CLOTHES
KILL NATIVES
Some Interesting Discoveries
of the Army and Navy
Journal.

The disposition of the highly civilized
man to make light of the customs in
dress of the savage or semi-savage
races is one thing that often impedes
successful government of new colonies
and that makes the introduction of So
called Christian government simply the
forerunner of the grave digger. AS soon
as the white man obtains power over
the savage and begins his work of re-
form, he makes a dead set at his clothes.
To the average Anglo-Saxon and Euro
pean, clothes are the synonym of viz
tue. Without clothes they hold there
is no virtue, SO they Immediately set
to work to replace the fig leaf with
skirts and trousers. In recent works
on the evolution of modesty historians
have shown that the idea of modesty
can exist apart from the clothing; that
the covering the body was originally
adopted. not from a sense Of modesty,
but from a desire not to excite aver
sion.
However, in our alleged highly civil
lied communities, even, we have stan
dards of attire adapted to cir
iCuIHSLdHCSS dllu COIQIlloiS. LII lliS
winter, at swell functions. ladies can
unclothe themselves almost ad libitum
above the waist, while In the ballet
similar freedom is permitted below the
waist line. In summer our bathing re-
sorts see a display of bare feminine
flesh that a few years ago would have
occupied all the energies of the w. Z.
T. u, and perhaps left the canteen
we modify to suit taste and climate, but
we deny this privilege to the islanders
living in a climate with a fierceness of
heat of which we know but little. In
stead of permitting them a wide lati-
tude in matters of dress, we think that
in enveloping them in stiff shirts or
starched petticoats we are putting them
at once in the armor of virtue, obliv-
ious of the fact, attested by all explor-
ers and travellers that virtue is more
conspicuous among people with whom
dress is the exception than among
those with whom dress has become an
art.
We have always been suspicious of
attempts. however well meaning, to i'm
prove the morals and conditions of
tropical islanders along the lines Of
have not been i'll founded is shown by
what Captain B. F. Tilley, U.S.N., Gov
ernor of Samoa, told Secretary Long,
the other day, about the inroads of
consumption In Samoa. Captain Tilley
said that the adoption of clothing by
the Samoans had introduced lung trou-
hles into that mild climate. In the old
days before the white men obtained
control the natives went nearly naked.
protecting themselves from rain and
darapness by liberal applications of CO.
coanut oil, which was quite as effective
as the oily secretion of a ducks back
in shedding water. Nowadays, the ma
tive man wears clothes and no cocoa
nut oil, and when the clothes become
wet a cold follows and in many cases
tuberculosis results.
1t was only in last weeks Army and
Navy Journal that mention was made
of the use to which British officers put
cocoanut oil as body varnish to abate
the evils of excessive heat in India
While much progress has been made
in sanitation and in medicine, there are
not a few who believe that the greatest
agency for the physical regeneration
of the human race lies in a reform in
our apparel that will rid mankind and
womankind of the evils that spring from
our daily dress. Looking at an Amer
lean man walking about on a hot day
with his load of clothes, a savage might
we'll exclaim: There Is the white
mans burden"
One of the causes to which the par
tial destruction of the Hawaiian ISL
anders has been ascribed is their adop-
ton of clothing, under the influence of
missionary instruction. When they
waded about naked in the kalo fields
they took no harm, but when they
came out of them with wet clothing
they contracted fatal disorders.-Army
apd NAVY Journal