Part 8

The Hottentots have many songs and prayers which they repeat to, or about, their sacred beings. Among their stories are some about the rabbit and his adventures. They worship the stars which we call the Pleiades. When these stars rise for the first time in the year, the people greet them. Mothers take their babies in their arms and teach them to stretch out their little hands toward the friendly stars. They then have a dance and sing a song in honor of one of their gods. There is a large insect called the _mantis_, which, when it stands still, raises its long front legs into a curious position; the Hottentots think that it is praying. When a praying mantis appears in a kraal every one is pleased, as they think it brings good luck. No one thinks of killing it, and they make an offering to it.

When a Hottentot man goes hunting, his wife kindles a fire at home and does nothing while he is gone but carefully tend it. They believe if she lets it go out that he will fail in his hunting. Hottentot conjurers are thought to be great snake charmers. It is said that they can hiss in such a way that all the snakes in the district will be attracted to them. So much are these conjurers feared that every one wears some object about him to protect himself against their power.

XXVII. MALAYS.

The Malays live in the Malay Peninsula, on the great islands near it,—Sumatra, Borneo, and Java,—and on a host of lesser islands in that part of the world. They also form part of the population of the great island, Madagascar, lying east of Africa.

They are short, with brown skin, dark eyes, straight and coarse black hair, and broad, round heads. Their forms are slight and graceful. They are active and gay, quick and intelligent; they are easily offended, do not readily forgive injuries, and are often deceitful and treacherous.

The Malays are believed to have come from the continent of Asia not more than three thousand years ago.

They are fairly industrious in working their fields, the most important crop from which is rice. They have other crops, however, and also raise many fruits. They use the buffalo as a help in field work and for drawing carts. Those Malays who live near the coast fish, and use both fresh and salted fish for food. They are good sailors, making journeys by water to China, Australia and other islands. They are shrewd in trading. Formerly, many Malays were bold pirates, as indeed in some parts they still are.

Malay houses are usually built of boards, are rectangular in form, and have a two-pitched roof. They are almost everywhere, set up on posts quite high above ground, and must be reached by means of ladders.

The Malays are great chewers of betel nut. A piece of the nut is mixed with a little lime, placed in a leaf, and chewed. It colors the saliva red and stains the teeth a brownish black. So used are the Malays to these stained teeth that they no longer admire white teeth. Of a man whose teeth are not stained with betel they will say, “he has teeth like a dog,” and seem to consider it a disgrace. They even chip off or file away the enamel on the front of the teeth of children so that they may become sooner blackened.

All Malays like amusement; even the most civilized celebrate many festivals. Animal fights and theatrical performances are favorites. Almost every man among the Malays keeps a fighting cock of which he is proud and fond; while he works in his field, the bird is tied by a cord to a stake near him, and he stops now and again to stroke and pet him. Cock-fights take place frequently, but the birds are not allowed—as in Mexico—to kill each other. The bull-fights in the Malay region are also much less cruel than those of Mexico and Spain. In these countries the bull is made to fight against a trained company of human fighters; among the Malays he fights another animal of his own kind. The Malay buffalo-tiger fight is famous. A buffalo and tiger are placed in a pen together and then excited until they attack each other. The buffalo is quite frequently the victor. Most curious, however, is the battle between crickets. The contest between these insects is watched with great interest and excitement by the Malays. It occurs also in Japan.

Malays delight in dances and the theatre. At the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago there was a complete Javanese village. It contained a dance house where dances were given to the sound of the strange gongs and other musical instruments of the Javan people. The dancing was by girls who were gayly dressed in velvet, silk, and satin with gold and silver tinsel. They wore curious gilt helmets. They did not dance with their feet, but kept time to the music by graceful movements of the arms, hands, head, and eyes. In the same building they gave plays, in which the players wore small and curious masks of wood. In other plays, somewhat like our Punch and Judy, puppets were moved and played the parts. The Javanese also have shadow plays, where jointed human figures, cut from cardboard, are moved by sticks and their shadows are thrown upon a screen.

“Running amuck” is fearfully common among Malays. Suddenly a man, on the street or in some public place, becomes insane with a desire to kill. Seizing a weapon, he starts down a street filled with people and strikes right and left at every one as he runs. The police hurry after the murderer and are usually compelled to kill him before his dreadful work can be stopped. The Malays are really a nervous and excitable people; it is said that frequently a steady look at a person will throw him into a trance or hypnotized state.

Of the various weapons used by the Malays the _kris_ seems to be the favorite. In Java this was often a remarkable object. A kris is a short sword or dagger with a fine steel blade which ends in a point, and the sides of which are wavy instead of straight. Probably they think of this as a stinging serpent; anyway the handle is frequently in the form of a serpent’s head. Sometimes this handle is finely carved and often it is set with gems. Some that belonged to the old Javan princes were a mass of precious stones. The sheath for the kris might be plain, but it might also be decorated with carvings or encrusted with jewels.

Strangest of the Malays are the Dyaks of Borneo and the Battaks of Sumatra. Both are a little larger and have longer heads than the Javanese. The Dyaks are great “head-hunters.” No man is respected until he has brought in a head as a trophy. Usually only the skull is kept; sometimes this will be engraved with patterns or stained with coloring matter; sometimes designs are cut in the bone and foil is set in the patterns. The Battaks are industrious and have made progress in many ways. They have a system of writing. Inscriptions are usually carved upon staves of bamboo; they also have books made of strips of palm or other vegetable substances. The Battaks are among the most dreadful of cannibals.

XXVIII. THE PEOPLES OF THE PHILIPPINES.

The Philippine Islands lie northeast from the great Malay Islands. The group extends for one thousand miles and includes almost two thousand islands of sizes from barren rock masses too small for use up to the great Island of Luzon, which is about the size of Ohio. All together the islands have an area equal to that of New York and the New England States united. It is uncertain how large a population occupy the islands, but it is probably between seven and eight million.

Dr. Blumentritt, an Austrian who has studied the Philippine peoples for many years, says that fifty-one different languages are spoken among them. He thinks that the peoples have come at various times to the islands from various places. He believes that the first people here were the negritos and that they once occupied the whole region. Perhaps three thousand years ago Malay tribes, a good deal like the Dyaks of Borneo, crowded in upon the unfortunate little natives, seizing their land and driving them into the mountains of the interior and to the more remote parts of the coast. Later, from eighteen hundred to fourteen hundred years ago, other Malays crowded in, but this time they were more like those of Java. Much later, only about five hundred years ago, a third lot of Malays, bold and hardy seamen, began a movement into the islands. But just then the Spaniards discovered the Philippines and checked these pirates before they had gained much of a foothold. Blumentritt speaks of these invasions of Malays as the first, second, and third Malay migrations.

The negritos, or old population, are a little people much like the Mincopies of the Andaman Islands. They are short, black skinned, and crinkly haired. They do not live to be old, but a person of thirty or forty looks as if much older. They build no true houses; in bad weather they put up rude shelters. They are wanderers and have no agriculture; they make no pottery; they wear but little clothing; some scar or tattoo; they are fond of ornaments. Their chief weapon is the bow and arrow, though they also have spears. They are skilful in throwing stones. They make fire by friction, sawing one sharp piece of bamboo across another. If a negrito dies, his fellows believe he was bewitched by some Tagal or other Malay, and will not be satisfied until one has been killed in revenge. When two negritos wish to swear friendship, they cut their arms and each sucks blood from the other; they thus become of one blood and are like brothers. They used to send messages by knotting grass which either had a meaning itself or helped the person who carried it to remember what he had been told. There are now perhaps twenty thousand negritos and they live mostly on the larger islands—Luzon, Mindanao, and Negros.

Many tribes in the Philippines represent the first Malay invasion. They are much alike in life and character; all are bold and cruel; most of them are head-hunters. They depend, in part, on agriculture, and have settled villages which are usually in the mountains or forests. The Igorrotes are a good example of them. They live in North Luzon. Both men and women tattoo; they gild their teeth and are fond of ornaments. The men go armed with spears, bows and arrows, and knives. Their peculiar weapon, however, is a hatchet-knife called _ligua_; the thin broad blade, set like that of a hatchet, has a concave cutting edge which runs into a long point above. The houses of the Igorrotes are large, rectangular, and raised on piles. These people are good agriculturists, tending their fields—which they irrigate—with care. The girls of the village are in charge of an old woman, and they all live and sleep together in one special house; this is unlike the other houses of the village and is not set up on posts. The Igorrotes have much respect for the souls of their ancestors. In each village there is a sacred tree in which they believe these souls abide. Though industrious and settled the Igorrotes are dreadful head-hunters. They organize war-parties to attack neighboring tribes for victims. The party shown in the picture were on such an errand. Only a few days after the photograph was taken they fell upon a Tingian village, killed thirty-nine persons, and carried away twenty-five heads as trophies.

The Tagals, one of the tribes of the second invasion, are the most important of the Philippine peoples. They industriously work their fields and raise rice, yams, maize, and several fleshy-root plants. Of fruits they cultivate mangoes, bananas, pineapples, cocoanuts, and others. Of industrial plants they produce manila hemp, cotton, indigo, and tobacco. Many of these plants they have only had since the coming of the Spaniards. They have long had domestic animals, among them the buffalo, pig, dog, hens, and ducks. The Tagals have towns of considerable size, with well-built houses perched on posts. They are well dressed in good cloth woven by the women. They are fond of gain and good traders. They are active in body and mind. They delight in poetry, and it is said “boys on the street will improvise by the yard.” The Tagals write their language with an alphabet which was probably brought from India _long_ ago. They formerly wrote on bamboo or on the bark of certain trees. The Tagals are passionately fond of cock-fighting. Every one chews betel nut.

As to the third migration, it failed to reach the great island of Luzon. The immigrants were Mohammedan Malays from Borneo. They were sea-rovers and pirates. They gained possession of the Sulu Islands, the farthest to the southwest of the Philippines, and had landed on Mindanao when the arrival of the Spaniards put an end to their movements. They are usually called _Moros_ or Moors, from their religion. They are polygamous and keep slaves. Their ruler is called the Sultan of Sulu.

Such are the people of the Philippines: at least fifty-one tribes, speaking as many different languages. But there are also many foreigners there: thousands of Japanese and Chinese; descendants of American Indians, brought by the old Spaniards from Mexico and Peru; Spaniards and other whites. And lastly there are all sorts of _mestizos_, or mixed persons, produced by the intermarriage of all these so many different stocks—native and foreign.

XXIX. MELANESIANS.

Several great groups of people occupy the vast island world of the Pacific. We have already spoken of the Malays. In Australia live many tribes differing in language and customs. They are mostly dark brown with bushy or curly hair. They are savages in culture. South of Australia, in Van Diemen’s Land, or Tasmania, there formerly lived a dark brown people, not tall in stature, with peculiar features and long curly hair; they are now all gone. North of Australia, in Papua or New Guinea, are many tribes with curious and interesting arts and customs. The real Papuans are dark brown in color and have woolly hair, which, like that of the Bushmen, _seems_ to grow in tufts with bare spaces between. They are of medium stature. The islands to the east and south of Australia and New Guinea are occupied by black, woolly-haired tribes, who are called Melanesians, and who are related to the Papuans. Among them are the natives of Fiji, New Britain, New Ireland, and the Solomon Islands.

The Fijians of fifty years ago will well represent the Melanesians. Thomas Williams, _Fiji and the Fijians_, will give us our facts.

The Fijian hair-dressing was striking. Each chief had a special hair-dresser, who frequently spent several hours a day in arranging his master’s hair. The hairs were trained to stand out from the head so as to form a great mass that might be trimmed into curious shapes. This smooth, soft, solid, cushion-like mass of hair was stained with colors—jet black naturally, it might be blue-black, ashy white, or shades of red. The whole mass of hair, except a band in front, might be black, while _that_ was white; sometimes the hair behind was twisted into cords ending with tassels; one man had a knot of fiery red hair on the crown while the rest of his head was shaved; sometimes the hair mass measured four feet or more in circumference. Such grand hair-dressing would be ruined by lying down with the head on the ground—so the Fijians had a wooden head-rest or pillow, which was set under the neck and held the head up, off the ground.

Men wore a long sash of bark cloth, which was anywhere from three to one hundred yards long. This was passed between the legs and wound around the waist any number of times; if it were long and the man wanted to present a _fine_ appearance it was folded several times up against the upper part of his body; the ends were allowed to trail behind. The men wore a turban of the same material, but fine and gauzy; from four to six feet long, it was wrapped around the head, several times if need be; if the hair mass was large, however, it would go little more than once. Women wore little but a fringed waist band, which hung to the knees.

Like the Polynesians, from whom they probably learned it, the Fijians used much _kava_, a drink which produces a stupefied or intoxicated condition. The preparation of kava for the king was a great occasion. The great kava bowl, made of wood carefully polished, was placed upon the ground. The guests seated themselves around it. A number of young men took pieces of the root from which the drink was to be made and chewed them well in their mouths; they stacked up the pellets in the dish; water was poured in until the bowl was nearly full and the balls of chewed root were well stirred about and squeezed in it. Then a man, especially trained to the work, strained them out with a bunch of fibre, in which, by twisting, he squeezed the pellets until no more juice or water ran out. The liquid was now ready for drinking. Prayer and song had accompanied the making of the kava. The king, receiving a cupful from a servant, spilled a little to the gods, and then drank. The others then drank in their order. It was a high honor to drink next after the king.

The Fijians carved neat bowls and other vessels from wood. The kava bowls, though usually plain, were carefully cut and beautifully polished. The Fijians—almost alone of Pacific Islanders—made pottery; the vessels were in various strange though rather graceful forms, and were somewhat glazed. They made remarkable war clubs of fine, heavy, dark woods which varied much in form, were decorated with carving, and were handsomely polished. Fijians were not good sailors, but they made better canoes than some of those made by Polynesians, who _were_ bold sailors. It is said that the Tongans (Polynesians) gave up their own style of canoe to adopt that of the Fijians. The canoes were, like those of many of the Pacific Islands, double canoes; two canoes of the same shape and size were placed side by side—with some little space between—and united by a platform of boards; one sail was sometimes hoisted; paddles were used for sculling and a great steering oar was employed. A much larger book than this would be needed for describing all the craft used on the water by Malayans, Melanesians, and Polynesians. The Fijians enjoyed music and had two or three kinds of drums, sticks that were beaten together, pan-pipes, a bamboo jew’s-harp, a conch-shell trumpet, and a little flute that was blown by the nose.

The Fijians were a polite people—that is, they had rules about greetings, behavior, and the treatment of superiors. One curious rule was that a servant or inferior, in case his master fell or got into some ridiculous position, must also fall or place himself in a similar ridiculous position. Afterward it was expected that he would be rewarded for his politeness. Mr. Williams tells us an incident that illustrates this practice:—

“One day I came to a long bridge formed of a single cocoanut tree, which was thrown across a rapid stream, the opposite bank of which was two or three feet lower, so that the declivity was too steep to be comfortable. The pole was also wet and slippery, and thus my crossing safely was very doubtful. Just as I commenced the experiment a heathen said, with much animation, ‘To-day I shall have a musket.’ I had, however, just then to heed my steps more than his words, and so succeeded in reaching the other side safely. When I asked him why he spoke of a musket, the man replied, ‘I felt certain you would fall in attempting to go over, and I should have fallen after you; and, as the bridge is high, the water rapid, and you a gentleman, you would not have thought of giving me less than a musket.’”

The _tabu_ is one of the most curious habits of Pacific Islanders. Though it occurred in Fiji, it was Polynesian, rather than Melanesian. Tabu was forbidding persons to touch, or use, or make some object. Chiefs and priests set most of the tabus, but lesser people might sometimes do so. A man might tabu all the cocoanuts in a district, setting up some sign or mark to show that he had done so; no one might thereafter touch a nut there until the tabu had been removed. A chief might tabu a man’s working; he could not do work of any kind until the chief removed the tabu. A chief might tabu the building of canoes by the people of a certain village; the people thenceforth would need to secure canoes from others. Thousands of tabus were set, and they made much trouble and inconvenience. The man who broke a tabu was punished, sometimes by death.

The Fijians were dreadful cannibals. England governed Fiji for many years, and it was believed that the practice had disappeared. A few old men were considered almost as curiosities because they had eaten flesh of men and were called “the last of the cannibals.” Then suddenly in 1889 the old custom broke out again. A party of Fijians killed some victims and ate them in a cave. A party in pursuit found evidence of the dreadful feast. Among these were some of the curious wooden forks used because it was not proper that the flesh should be touched with the fingers!

XXX. POLYNESIANS.

The Pacific Islands lying east from the Melanesian Islands, beginning with New Zealand and stretching to Easter Island, were occupied by Polynesians. The best known of their island groups were New Zealand, the Society Islands, Samoa, and the Hawaiian Islands. These islands are either volcanic islands or coral islands, and the natural animal and vegetable life occurring on them is less varied than on the great islands lying nearer to the Asiatic or Australian continents.

The Polynesians present a fine type. They are often tall and well built; their skins, though brown, are frequently light; the features are regular and the faces handsome. They are quick and intelligent, think and reason well, take new ideas readily, and are fond of beauty. They were barbarians, but had made so much progress that they were at the border-line of civilization. Living in a mass of islands that presented few natural resources, they had made the most of everything nature gave them.

Many Polynesian tribes tattoo. Elaborate patterns are pricked into the skin, with lines of needles set side by side and dipped in color. The New Zealanders tattooed their faces with curious curved-line patterns, each line had its proper place, and the patterns probably had a meaning. The Marquesas Islanders covered their bodies with elaborate and graceful patterns. The process was painful and only a small space was done at one time; the whole work required years.