Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-03-17
THE SAVAGE'S SALVATION
BY Frederic J. Haskin
wy ASHINGTON, March 12.-Thousands
w of wealthy persons are now book

many TO IanlCl ana OJner SOuCn sea lSldnuS
These places, of which you seldom heard
few years ago, are now in all the prints. Nu-
merous books are written about them Pic
lures of them are painted. They are the
fad.
And the romantic element in each Of these
places-the real center of interests ma
tive population which still wears picturesque
clothes and follows picturesque native GUS
toms. The civilized man seems suddenly to
have discovered that the primitive man is an
interesting chap, worth knowing for his own
sake.
When you come to think about it, this
attitude toward the Tahitians and the Ha-
waiians is probably the beginning of a great
change in the attitude Of civilization toward
savagery. Only consider what the attitude
toward the savage has been in the past
First he must be conquered. Every savage
or primitive people on the face of the globe
has been more or less shot up by some civil
lied nation. Then the savage must be civil
lied He must be given clothes and reli-
gion. He must be taught to farm and make
change. Incidentally he has nearly always
been introduced to whisky, morphine cocaine,
tuberculosis and various other perquisites of
civilization.
The civilizing process has been almost as
hard on the savage as being conquered. The
classic case of the Hawaiians, who were in
duced by the missionaries to wear clothes,
with the result that they all caught cold and
many of them died, is typical. 1t may be
.SaLd LndL dlInOSL no part OIL CIVILIZATION mas
| really benefited the savage. He simply isn't
ready for it. His only hope of survival is to
! be allowed to go on being savage in peace.
And that is what, at last, the civilized man
seems inclined to let him do.
The Case of Gauguin
It really seems to be the artist who has
| come to the rescue of the savage. Take the
case Of Tahiti. Some years ago a French
painter named Gauguin went to that remote
island. He stayed there the rest of his life,
living with the natives and painting them.
| He became famous. He suddenly called the
attention of the civilized world to the fact
| that the Tahitians most picturesque
and beautiful people, who should be pre-
served as they are, like any other wonder
full nature, not converted into commonplace
| civilized persons. Then Somerset Vaughan,
an English novelist wrote novel based on
the life of Gauguin, and in this he told most
effectively how the great artist, battered by
| the ugliness of commercialism, had found
beauty and peace in the tropical island. Third
came another artist in words, Frederick
| O'Brien, and wrote a book about Tahiti and
neighboring islands which was one of the
most popular travel books ever written. In
effect all three of these artists were apollo
gists for the savage as he is. They said, in
the first place, that he is picturesque and
interesting fellow, who is not bothering any
one, and who ought to be allowed to live his
life as he pleases, both for his own sake and
for that Of the rest of humanity. In the
second place, these artists intimated that per-
| haps civilization is not such blessed thing
as it is cracked up to be-that possibly the
civilized man could even learn something
about the art of living from the savage. Such
a thought would have been considered insane
a generation ago. Today it is merely regard
ed as mildly heretical.
The new and thriving science of anthro-
pology also comes to the support of the artist
in this contention. The anthropologists have
been studying primitive men with unusual
zeal. They find that in SINE respects at least
he may be considered the superior Of the
civilized man. For instance, the primitive
man has better sense of beauty. His pot
terry, his weavings, his dwellings, his Dances
his ceremonies, are all picturesque and often
of high artistic merit In civilization the real
appreciation of beauty seems to be limited
to very few. The majority of us have lost
all taste The things we and wear, the
houses we live in, our dances and ceremonies
are for the most part ugly and often even
grotesque.
Nose Rings and HobbIe Skirts
One woman scientist, Elsie Clews Parsons
has gone still further and shown that most
| or the queer beliefs, customs, taboos and SUI
perstitions Of primitive life, which we ridi-
| Guile, survive in some firm in civilization She
has shown that the hobble skirt is a very
near relation to the nose ring. Some of our
| lively "parties' are savage orgies with little
! changed except the costumes. Many, if not
most or our politicians are medicine men, and
| the heap-big-m edicine they offer us is no
better than the dope the tribal shamans hand
out.
| In word, there is reason to suspect that
we are not far ahead of the savages as
we thought we were. The savages seem to
have suspected this all along. They have
| chung to then own way of life and rejected
| our civilization with the utmost determina-
| ton.
An excellent example Of the whole process
| Is afforded by the Pueblo Indians of orr own
| southwest. The Spaniards began trying to
civilize them nearly 500 years ago. They
toiled unremittingly for several centuries and
| then the Yankees took up the good work. The
! Pueblos staged one big revolt and drove all
the white men out of the country, but they
were not good fighters and ultimately they
settled down to passive resistance. 1t has been
aston1shingly successful. After four or five
centuries of hard work by Two great civilized
| nations, the Pueblo is in all essentials I'M
changed. Although a church stands in every
pueblo, the Pueblo Indian still worships his
primitive gods. Although a school stands
| there, too, he remains gloriously ignorant OF
| books. He still weaves and wears his own
| blankets, builds his own house, makes his
wild things as his fathers did. Taos Pueblo
in New Mexico today is just as Coronado de-
scribed it in the seventeenth century.
Now artists have begun to flock to that
vicinity, and there is growing movement to
let the Pueblo be as he is, for his own sake
and for the sake of art. The artists and the
Indians get along admirably together Both
Of them have a fine appreciation Of color
and Of natural beauty and Of the mystery of
nature. Both of them dislike the restraints
and the ugliness of civilization 1t may be