The New York herald., 1922-02-26

xz$3z %%@2 q s@ssz ~
whisper goes about: "He's gone native"
When a white man goes native his case
is hopeless He is Lotos Eater, indeed.
He is done for. He is beyond the pale.
The white man who has gone native is
actually below the natives level, and the
native realizes it, too.
Women, Physically Perfect,
Real Lure of the Isles
"Cherchee la temme,' said the French
detective. Find the woman" and you have
found the motive. Perhaps that applies to
this. Perhaps that is why the white man
goes and loses himself in the Marquesas
Islands, in Tahiti, in the Friendly Islands
or the Society Islands
Perhaps it is the thought of women which
moves the dreamers of South Sea dreams
to pack scanty belongings and set out
for the magic islands Perhaps they dream
and do not dare to live their dreams
until one day some traveller comes into
their circle and tells them of beautiful,
primitive, brown women whose dark and
gistening skins feed on the sunlight from
a gentle, kindly heaven and reflect the acme
of pulchritude.
The women are, indeed, a lovely lot.
Straight, stern, raven black hair; gentle,
luminous, penetrating and almost un-
~, f,IJ
contour Of body which needs no measure
ment standard-which strikes the eye as
so inevitably perfect that there is no justif-
cation for comparison; dispositions so
loving and so yielding that conquest is in
spired in the most stodgy heart.
At the age of 10 or IL girls are given in
wedlock. Then they are at the peak of
physical development. AS a rule they are
very fond of children, and as a consequence
there is no such thing as an orphan in the
South Sea Islands. Adoption is the rule
When there is work to do it is per-
formed by women, with the exception of
curing of copra and the spearing of fish.
Woman is not held in very great reverence
in most of the isles, but among the Paumo-
tus woman is accorded degree of homage
which truly makes her a queen. Girls
there make their own choice of husbands.
The Paumotuan native philosophers quite
naively that while virtue in woman should
be highly priced, she who cannot boast it
is not to be treated as social pariah.
There is a difference between the Poly
nesian and the Melanesian women. The
girls Of Tahiti Paumotus and Marquesas
are attractive and charming in their primi-
tive manners while the Melanesian women
are savage
To return to Papeete, where the Princess
Takau lives In this little town there are
no rules as to hours for bed, and regula-
tions for conduct are existent but utterly
ignored. Wine, women and song-night,
day and always.
The dancing girls Of Papeete have at
tanned the sobriquet of "Cocoanut
Maidens.' Their terpsichorean efforts do
a great deal to rouse and revivify the jaded
spirits of the Tired Business Men, OF whom
there are a great many in Papeete right
now. As a stimulant for the blase, the
Cocoanut Maidens outrival the sprightly
figures on Broadway music show stages.
Samoa, an American possession, is we'll
patronized by visitors, for the native
women of this region are as attractive and
even more gentle-if that could be-than
the overrun Tahitians. But Samoans are
a moral people. They are attractive, inter
esting and have only one vice-indolencN-
Perhaps that is a virtue.
1t is in Samoa that the United States
maintains a naval base at Pago Pago. The
conduct and behavior Of the UnNed States
naval forces at Pago Pago conforms with
such RIGHTEOUSNESS to all the proprieties
that the expression, Like the American
Navy" is the simile of the utmost in favor
able Characterization.