Unkown - "Vida de Lazarillo"

John Greenleaf Whittier - "Religious Poems, Part 1., From Poems of Nature,"

John C. Calhoun - "John C. Calhoun's Remarks to the Senate of the United States"

William Shakespeare - "The Tragedy of Othello, Moor of Venice"

The Popular Science Monthly Volume LXXXVI July to September, 1915

U >> Unkown >> The Popular Science Monthly Volume LXXXVI July to September, 1915




Each lovely island was made a sort of fairyland and the spells
of enchantment were thrown over its varied scenes. The
sentiment of the poet that

"Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth,
Unseen, both when we wake, and when we sleep"

was one familiar to their minds, and it is impossible not to
feel interested in a people who were accustomed to consider
themselves surrounded by invisible intelligences, anti who
recognized in the rising sun, the mild and silver moon, the
shooting star, the meteor's transient flame, the ocean's roar,
the tempest's blast, or the evening breeze the movements of
mighty spirits.

The gods and ghosts of Fiji often entered into the bodies of
animals or men, especially idiots.

Thus when the Carnegie Institution Expedition arrived at the
Murray Islands in Torres Straits, the scientific staff were
much pleased at the decided evidences of respect shown by the
natives until it came out that the Islanders considered their
white guests to be semi-idiots, and hence powerful sorcerers to
be placated. Fijian religion had developed into the oracular
stage, and the priest after receiving prayers and offerings
would on occasions be entered into by the god. Tremors would
overspread his body, the flesh of which would creep horribly.
His veins would swell, his eyeballs protrude with excitement
and his voice, becoming quavering and unnatural, would whine
out strange words, words spoken by the god himself and unknown
to the priest who as his unconscious agent was overcome by
violent convulsions. Slowly the contortions grew less and with
a start the priest would awaken, dash his club upon the ground
and the god would leave him. It may well be imagined that the
priests were the most powerful agents of the chiefs in
forwarding the interests of their masters, for, as in ancient
Greece or Rome, nothing of importance was undertaken without
first consulting the oracle.

Surrounded by multitudes of demons, ghosts, and genii who were
personified in everything about him, religion was the most
powerful factor in controlling Fijian life and politics. In
fact, it entered deeply into every act the native performed.
The gods were more monstrous in every way than man, but in all
attributes only the exaggerated counterparts of Fijian chiefs.

War was constantly occurring among these gods and spirits, and
even high gods could die by accident or be killed by those of
equal rank so that at least one god, Samu, was thus dropped out
of the mythology in 1847.

Ndengei was the oldest and greatest, but not the most
universally reverenced god. He lived in a cavern in the
northeastern end of Viti Levu, and usually appeared as a snake,
or as a snake's head with a body of stone symbolizing eternal
life. Among the sons and grandsons of Ndengei were Roko
Mbati-ndua, the one-toothed lord; a fiend with a huge tooth
projecting from his lower jaw and curving over the top of his
head. He had bat's wings armed with claws and was usually
regarded as a harbinger of pestilence. The mechanic's god was
eight-handed, gluttony had eighty stomachs, wisdom possessed
eight eyes. Other gods were the adulterer, the abductor of
women of rank and beauty, the rioter, the brain-eater, the
killer of men, the slaughter god, the god of leprosy, the
giant, the spitter of miracles, the gods of fishermen and of
carpenters, etc. One god hated mosquitoes and drove them away
from the place where he lived. The names and stations of the
gods are described by Thomas Williams, who has given the most
detailed account of the old religion.

As with all peoples whose religion is barbarous, there were
ways of obtaining sanctuary and many a man has saved his life
by taking advantage of the tabus which secured their operation.
No matter how desirous your host might be of murdering you, as
long as you remained a guest under his roof you were safe,
although were you only a few yards away from his door he would
eagerly attack you.

But not only did the Fijians live in a world peopled by
witches, wizards, prophets, seers and fortune-tellers, but
there was a perfect army of fairies which overran the whole
land, and the myths concerning which would have filled volumes
could they ever have been gathered. The gnome-like spirits of
the mountains had peaked heads, and were of a vicious, impish
disposition, but were powerless to injure any one who carried a
fern leaf in his hand.

Sacred relics such as famous clubs, stones possessing
miraculous powers, etc., were sometimes kept in Fijian temples,
but there were no idols such as were prayed to by the
Polynesians.

The fearful alternatives of heaven and hell were unknown to the
Fijians. They believed in an eternal existence for men,
animals, and even canoes and other inanimate things, but the
future life held forth no prospect either of reward for virtues
or punishment for evil acts committed while alive. So certain
were they of a future life that they always referred to the
dead as "the absent ones," and their land of shades (Mbulu) was
not essentially different from the world they lived in. Indeed,
their chief idea of death was that of rest, for as William's
states, they have an adage: "Death is easy: Of what use is
life? To die is rest."

There were, however, certain precautions the Fijian felt it
advisable to take before entering the world to come. If he had
been so unfortunate as not to have killed a man, woman or
child, his duty would be the dismal one of pounding filth
throughout eternity, and disgraceful careers awaited those
whose ears were not bored or women who were not tatooed upon
parts covered by the liku. Moreover, should a wife not
accompany him (be strangled at the time of his death) his
condition would be the dismal one of a spirit without a cook.
Thirdly, as one was at the time of death so would the spirit be
in the next world. It was therefore an advantage to die young,
and people often preferred to be buried alive, or strangled,
than to survive into old age. Lastly and most important, one
must not die a bachelor, for such are invariably dashed to
pieces by Nangganangga, even if they should succeed in elud-
ing the grasp of the Great Woman, Lewa-levu, who flaunts the
path of the departed spirits and searches for the ghosts of
good-looking men. Let us imagine, however, that our shade
departs this life in the best of form, young, married, with the
lobes of his ears pierced, not dangerously handsome and a
slayer of at least one human being. He starts upon the long
journey to the Valhalla of Fiji. Soon he comes to a spiritual
Pandanus at which he must throw the ghost of the whale's tooth
which was placed in his hand at time of burial. If he succeeds
in hitting the Pandanus, he may then wait until the spirit of
his strangled wife comes to join him, after which he boards the
canoe of the Fijian Charon and proceeds to Nambanggatai, where
until 1847 there dwelt the god Samu, and after his death
Samuyalo "the killer of souls."

This god remains in ambush in some spiritual mangrove bushes
and thrusts a reed within the ground upon the path of the ghost
as a warning not to pass the spot. Should the ghost be brave he
raises his club in defiance, whereupon Samuyalo appears, club
in hand, and gives battle. If killed in this combat, the ghost
is cooked and eaten by the soul killer, and if wounded he must
wander forever among the mountains, but if the ghost be
victorious over the god he may pass on to be questioned by
Ndengei, who may consign him either to Mburotu, the highest
heaven, or drop him over a precipice into a somewhat inferior
but still tolerable abode, Murimuria. This Ndengei does in
accordance with the caprice of the moment and without reference
either to the virtues or the faults of the deceased. Thus of
those who die only a few can enter the higher heaven for the
Great Woman and the Soul destroyer overcome the greater number
of those who dare to face them. As for the victims of cannibal
feasts, their souls are devoured by the gods when their bodies
are eaten by man.

In temperament and ambitions the spirits of the dead remained
as they were upon earth, but of more monstrous growth in all
respects, resembling giants greater and more vicious than man.
War and cannibalism still prevailed in heaven, and the
character of the inhabitants seems to have been fiendish or
contemptible as on earth; for the spirits of women who were not
tattooed were unceasingly pursued by their more fortunate
sisters, who tore their bodies with sharp shells, often making
mince-meat of them for the gods to eat. Also the shade of any
one whose ears had not been pierced was condemned to carry a
masi log over his shoulder and submit to the eternal ridicule
of his fellow spirits.

Altogether, this religion seems to have been as sordid, brutal
and vicious as was the ancestral negroid stock of the Fijians.
Connected with it there was, however, a rude mythology, clumsy
but romantic, too much of which has been lost; for the natives
of to-day have largely forgotten its stories or are ashamed to
repeat it to the whites. In recent times the natives have
tended to make their folk-lore conform to Biblical stories, or
to adapt them to conditions of the present day. The interesting
subject of the lingering influence of old beliefs upon the life
of the natives of to-day has engaged the attention of Basil
Thomson in "The Fijians, a Study of the Decay of Custom."

As in every British colony, the people are taught to respect
the law. Sentences of imprisonment are meted out to natives for
personal offences which if committed by white men would be
punished by small fines, but the reason for this is that in the
old native days such acts were avenged by murder, and it is to
prevent crime that a prison term has been ordained. The natives
take their imprisonment precisely as boys in boarding school
regard a flogging, the victim commonly becoming quite a hero
and losing no caste among his fellows. Indeed it is a common
sight to see bands of from four to eight stalwart "convicts" a
mile or more from the prison marching unguarded through the
woods as they sing merrily on their way "home" to the jail.
Once I recall seeing two hundred prisoners, all armed with long
knives, engaged in cutting weeds along the roadside, chanting
happily as they slashed, while a solitary native dressed only
in a waist-cloth and armed only with a club stood guard at one
end of the line, and this not near the prison, but in a lonely
wood fully a mile from the nearest house.

In 1874, the British undertook the unique task of civilizing
without exploiting a barbarous and degraded race which was
drifting hopelessly into ruin. They began the solution of this
complex problem by arresting the entire race and immuring them
within the protecting walls of a system which recognized as its
cardinal principle that the natives were unfit to think or act
for themselves. For a generation the Fijians have been in a
prison wherein they have become the happiest and best behaved
captives upon earth. During this time they have become
reconciled to a life of peace, and have forgotten the taste of
human flesh; and while they cherish no love for the white man,
they feel the might of his law and know that his decrees are as
finalities of fate. All are serving life sentences to the white
man's will, and the fire of their old ambition has cooled into
the dull embers of resignation and then died into the apathy of
contentment with things that are. Worse still, they have grown
fond of their prison world, and the most pessimistic feature in
the Fijian situation of to-day is the evident fact that there
is almost no discontent among the natives. Old things have
withered and decayed, but new ambition has not been born.

It is in no spirit of criticism of British policy that I have
written the above paragraph for it was absolutely necessary
that the race should "calm down" for a generation at least
before it could be trusted to arise. Now, however, there are no
more old chiefs whose memories hark back to days of savagery,
and now for the first and only time has come the critical
period in the unique governmental experiment the British have
undertaken to perform, for now is the time when the child must
learn to walk alone and the support of guardian arms must in
kindness be withdrawn, else there must be nurtured but a
cripple, not a man.

Among the generation of to-day the light of a new ambition must
appear in Fiji or the race shall dwindle to its death. No real
progress has been made by the Fijians; they have received much
from their teachers, but have given nothing in return. They are
in the position of a youth whose schooling has just been
finished, life and action lie before him; will he awaken to his
responsibility, develop his latent talent, character and power,
and recompense his teachers by achievement, or will he sink
into the apathy of a vile content?

The situation in Fiji is one of peculiar delicacy for the
desire for better things must arise among the Fijians
themselves, and should it once appear, the paternalism of the
present government must be wisely withdrawn to permit of more
and more freedom in proportion as the natives may become
competent to think and act rightly for themselves. A cardinal
difficulty is the unfortunate fact that the natives DESIRE no
change, and even if individually discontented and ambitious,
they know of no profession, arts or trades to which they might
turn with hope of fortune. The establishment of manual training
schools wherein money-making trades should be taught, if
possible BY NATIVE teachers, is sorely needed in Fiji.

At present there is too little freedom of thought in Fiji; fear
of the chief and of Samuyalo's club has been replaced by fear
of the European and his hell. Free, fearless thought is the
father of high action, and while their minds remain steeped in
an apathy of dread there can be no soil in which the seed of
independence can germinate.

Yet it is still possible that the Fijians may attain
civilization. Of all the archipelagoes of Polynesia, Fiji alone
may still be called the "Isles of Hope." As one who has known
and grown to love these honest, hospitable, simple people, I
can only hope that the day is not far distant when a leader may
arise among them who will turn their faces toward the light of
a brighter sky, and their hands to a worthier task than has
ever yet been performed in Polynesia.

Yet why civilize them? Often does one ask oneself this
question, but the answer comes as the voice of fate, "they must
attain civilization or they must die." Should the population
continue to decline at its present rate, the time is imminent
when the dark-skinned men of Fiji will be not the natives, but
the swarming progeny of the coolies of Calcutta.

Nowhere over all the wide Pacific have the natives been more
wisely or unselfishly ruled than in Fiji, yet even here native
life seems to be growing less and less purposeful year by year.
In time it is hoped a reaction may set in and that with the
decline of communism new ambitions may replace the old, but
then will come the problem of the rich and the poor--a thing
unknown in Fijian life to-day.

Hardly the first lessons in civilization have been taught in
Polynesia, yet who can predict the noon day, should even the
faintest glow appear in native hope. In former ages the
Japanese were a barbarous insular people, and as in our own
civilization the traditions and habits of rude Aryan ancestors
still color our fundamental thoughts so in Japan we find
evidences of a culture essentially similar to that of the
Pacific Islands of to-day. The ancient ancestor worship of
Japan is strangely like that of the tropical Pacific with its
gods, the ghosts of long departed chiefs, and its high chief a
living god to-day. Moreover in the Pacific Islands the house
consists of but a single room, and such to-day is essentially
the case in Japan, save only that delicate paper screens divide
its originally unitary floor-space into temporary compartments.
As in the South Seas, matting still covers the floor of the
Japanese house, its roof is thatched, and is constructed before
the sides are made, there is no chimney, the fire-place is an
earthen space upon the floor or is sustained within an
artistically molded bronze brazier, the refined descendant of
the cruder hearth. In Polynesia as in Japan one seats oneself
anywhere in tailor-fashion upon the floor, and upon this floor
the meals are served, and here one sleeps at night, nor will
the women partake of food in the presence of the men. In
essential fundamental things of life the Japanese show their
kinship in custom and tradition to the insular peoples of
Asiatic origin now occupying the Pacific, and if Japan has
attained to so great a height in culture and civilization, why
may we not hope for better days for the South Sea Islanders?



WAR SELECTION IN THE ANCIENT WORLD

BY CHANCELLOR DAVID STARR JORDAN

LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY

"The human harvest was bad!" Thus the historian sums up the
conditions in Rome in the days of the good emperor, Marcus
Aurelius. By this he meant that while population and wealth
were increasing, manhood had failed. There were men enough in
the streets, men enough in the camps, menial laborers enough
and idlers enough, but of good soldiers there were too few. For
the business of the state, which in those days was mainly war,
its men were inadequate.

In recognition of this condition we touch again the
overshadowing fact in the history of Europe, the effect of
"military selection" on the human breed.

In rapid survey of the evidence brought from history one must
paint the picture, such as it is, with a broad brush, not
attempting to treat exceptions and qualifications, for which
this article has no space and concerning which records yield no
data. Such exceptions, if fully understood, would only prove
the rule. The evil effects of military selection and its
associated influences have long been recognized in theory by
certain students of social evolution. But the ideas derived
from the sane application of our knowledge of Darwinism to
history are even now just beginning to penetrate the current
literature of war and peace. In public affairs most nations
have followed the principle of opportunism, "striking while the
iron is hot," without regard to future results, whether of
financial exhaustion or of race impoverishment.

The recorded history of Rome begins with small and vigorous
tribes inhabiting the flanks of the Apennines and the valleys
down to the sea, and blending together to form the Roman
republic. They were men of courage and men of action, virile,
austere, severe and dominant.[1] They were men who "looked on
none as their superior and none as their inferior." For this
reason, Rome was long a republic. Free-born men control their
own destinies. "The fault," says Cassius, "is not in our stars,
but in ourselves that we are underlings." Thus in freedom, when
Rome was small without glory, without riches, without colonies
and without slaves, she laid the foundations of greatness.

[1] Virilis, austerus, severus, dominous, good old words
applied by Romans to themselves.



But little by little the spirit of freedom gave way to that of
domination. Conscious of power, men sought to exercise it, not
on themselves but on one another. Little by little this meant
aggression, suppression, plunder, struggle, glory and all that
goes with the pomp and circumstance of war. So the
individuality in the mass was lost in the aggrandizement of the
few. Independence was swallowed up in ambition and patriotism
came to have a new meaning, being transferred from hearth and
home to the camp and the army.

In the subsequent history of Rome, we have now to consider only
a single factor, the reversal of selection." In Rome's
conquests, Vir, the real man, went forth to battle and foreign
invasion; Homo, the human being, remained on the farm and in
the workshop and begat the new generations. "Vir gave place to
Homo," says the Latin author. Men of good stock were replaced
by the sons of slaves and camp-followers, the riff-raff of
those the army sucked in but could not use.

The Fall of Rome was due not to luxury, effeminacy or
corruption, not to Nero's or Caligula's wickedness, nor to the
futility of Constantine's descendants. It began at Philippi,
where the spirit of domination overcame the spirit of freedom.
It was forecast still earlier in the rise of consuls and
triumvirs incident to the thinning out of the sturdy and
self-sufficient strains who brooked no arbitrary rule. While
the best men were falling in war, civil or foreign, or remained
behind in faraway colonies, the stock at home went on repeating
its weakling parentage. A condition significant in Roman
history is marked by the gradual swelling of the mob, with the
rise in authority of the Emperor who was the mob's exponent.
Increase of arbitrary power went with the growing weakness of
the Romans themselves. Always the "Emperor" serves as a sort of
historical barometer by which to measure the abasement of the
people. The concentrated power of Julius Caesar, resting on his
own tremendous personality, showed that the days of Cincinnatus
and of Junius Brutus were past. The strength of Augustus rested
likewise in personality. The rising authority of later emperors
had its roots in the ineffectiveness of the mob, until it came
to pass that "the little finger of Constantine was thicker than
the loins of Augustus." This was due not to Constantine's
force, but to the continued reversal of selection among the
people over whom he ruled. The emperor, no longer the strong
man holding in check all lesser men and organizations, became
the creature of the mob; and "the mob, intoxicated with its own
work, worshipped him as divine." Doubtless the last emperor,
Augustulus Romulus, before the Goths threw him into the
scrap-heap of history, was regarded by the mob and himself as
the most god-like of the whole succession.

The Romans of the Republic might perhaps have made a history
very different. Had they held aloof from world-conquering
schemes Rome might have remained a republic, enduring even down
to our day. The seeds of Rome's fall lay not in race nor in
form of government, nor in wealth nor in senility, but in the
influences by which the best men were cut off from parenthood,
leaving its own weaker strains and strains of lower races to be
fathers of coming generations.

"The Roman Empire," says Professor Seely, "perished for want of
men." Even Julius Caesar notes the dire scarcity of men, while
at the same time there were people enough. The population
steadily grew; Rome was filling up like an overflowing marsh.
Men of a certain type were plenty, but self-reliant farmers,
"the hardy dwellers on the flanks of the Apennines," men of the
early Roman days, these were fast going, and with the change in
type of population came the turn in Roman history.

The mainspring of the Roman army for centuries has been the
patient strength and courage, capacity for enduring hardships,
instinctive submission to military discipline of the population
that lined the Apennines.

"The effect of the wars was that the ranks of the small farmers
were decimated, while the number of slaves who did not serve in
the army multiplied," says Professor Bury. Thus "Vir gave place
to Homo," thus the mob filled Rome and the mob-hero rose to the
imperial throne. No wonder that Constantine seemed greater than
Augustus. No wonder that "if Tiberius chastised his subjects
with whips, Valentinian chastised them with scorpions."[2]

[2] The point of this is that the cruel Tiberius was less
severe on the Romans of his day than was the relatively
benevolent Valentinian on his decadent people.



With Marcus Aurelius and the Antonines came a "period of
sterility and barrenness in human beings." Bounties were
offered for marriage. Penalties were devised against
race-suicide. "Marriage," says Metellus, "is a duty which,
however painful, every citizen ought manfully to discharge."
Wars were conducted in the face of a declining birth-rate, and
the decline in quality and quantity in the human breed engaged
very early the attention of Roman statesmen. Deficiencies of
numbers were made up by immigration, willing or enforced.
Failure in quality was beyond remedy.

Says Professor Zumpt:

'Government having assumed godhead, took at the same time the
appurtenances of it. Officials multiplied. Subjects lost their
rights. Abject fear paralyzed the people and those that ruled
were intoxicated with insolence and cruelty.... The worst
government is that which is most worshipped as divine. . . .
The emperor possessed in the army an overwhelming force over
which citizens had no influence, which was totally deaf to
reason or eloquence, which had no patriotism because it had no
country, which had no humanity because it had no domestic ties.
. . . There runs through Roman literature a brigand's and
barbarian's contempt for honest industry. . . . Roman
civilization was not a creative kind, it was military, that is,
destructive.'

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