The New York herald., 1921-06-05
Island history and folklore

posed by a Mangaian chief on the
death Of his well beloved wife:
Whittier has she gone?
Chorus
She has sped to Availd
She has disappeared at the edge of the
horizon,
Where the sun drops through
We weep for thee
Solo.
Yes / will forever weep,
And ever seek for thee
Chorus
Bitter tears / shed for thee
] weep for the lost wife of my bosom.
Alas thou wilt not return.
Solo.
Oh, that thou wouldst return.
Chorus
Stay come back to this world
Return to my embrace.
Thou art as a. bough wrenched off by
the blast
Solo.
Wrenched off. and now in Avaik--
That distant land to which thou are
fled.
The resemblance of this chant
composed by a scion of an ancient
race that might perhaps have wan
dered from the Mediterranean to the
songs of the old time Greeks" says the
a CT limo
less so is the legend of the great Flood
recited by the old priests of the Mar
quesas. too long to be quoted. but as
close to the Bible story of the Flood
as anything this side of sheer pla-
giarism could have made it.
However. the romantic side. the
tracing of the wanderings of the Poly
nesians and Melanesians from India
and beyond. even to the Americas. lost
arts and the unforgettable genealogies
are not the only things to the study.
There are accounts of customs that
are too grewsome for the fireside
reader. The chapter on cannibalism
In the Fiji Islands is altogether too
realistic. but the author softens it
down a bit by showing us how can
nibalism developed. First it was only
a sacred rite performed according to
priestly dictum. compulsory as church
going would be, if the Blue Laws
came into effect But later conditions
changed. The old forms Of tribal
democracy vanished. When each tribe
ruled itself there were not enough
men to waste. But the Bau Fijians
conquered the islanders and then
there were men aplenty who belonged
to other tribes which the Bau people
could spare. Later it was done simply
because the chief did not dare risk
remarks about his not
being able to afford real human flesh
at their feasts &C.. and men would be
served. 1t has of course now ceased
as a practice-but convention was
hard to overcome.
It is we'll TO bear these things in
mind in considering anything pertain
ing to primitive people. Not that the
author in any sense tries to condone
the habits of savages. but that he
seems to feel and quite justly. that
they cannot be understood or helped
Unless our own shortcomings are not
forgotten.
The spirit of the book is best un-
derstood by the two closing para
graphs:
The gradual filtering in of the white
man through the portals of the Pa
cific. slow at first but ever increasing
in strength. does not concern the
present book. The tale of how his in
fiuence has spread to the remotest
wave-lapped atol of that wide ocean
lis a romance in itself-a story so
to me that / have started
to write it as companion volume to
this book. and which some day ! hope
to publish as The History of British
Influence i'm tho Pacific
"Trade follows the flag. the flag
precedes trade but trade is not the
only thing 10 build an empire The
history of British colonization in the
Pacific will. ! think. show that we
cannot and do not take up the ad-
of empire without acknow-
lodging our duties to the native: and
IL Is our duty to see that the native.
who has come TO look upon the British
flag as synonymous with justice. shall
never be disappointed in that belief,
which shall be i'm the years to come
the new heritage OF these Children of
a -.