Part 9

Polynesian dress differed somewhat with the region. In New Zealand fine, soft, and flexible robes and blankets were woven of the native flax. In Hawaii the king and chiefs had wonderful feather cloaks which hung to the knees or even to the ankles. The little feathers of which these were composed were red and yellow; a garment composed only of yellow feathers could be worn only by the king; when both colors of feathers were used, they were arranged in diamond-shaped or other ornamental forms, with spots and lines of dark purple or black feathers. Besides the cloaks, there were tippets of feathers, which were generally worn by lower chiefs, who had not, or might not have, feather cloaks. In these feather garments the dress was made of a sort of netted foundation, into which these bright feathers were worked. Chiefs also had wonderful helmets of wickerwork which were covered with feathers. The helmet might be simple, just fitting the head, or large, ridged, or crested, and rising high above the head. In some islands the clothing consisted of a fringed girdle hanging from the waist to the knees.

But everywhere in Polynesia the common dress was made of _tapa_. This was a kind of paper or cloth beaten out of the bark of certain trees. The bark was removed from the tree and soaked in water; it was laid upon a large piece of wood and beaten with a sort of club or mallet. This was made of hard wood and was round at one end for being taken in the hand; the remainder was squared, and the four faces were either smooth or ribbed by longitudinal grooves. By this beating the wood was separated into its fibres, and these were mashed together into a sheet of firm paper or cloth. This tapa differs with the tree from the bark of which it is made. Some is thin and dark brown; that from the bark of the breadfruit tree is fawn-colored; that from the paper-mulberry, best and finest of all, is beautifully white. The women were so expert at beating tapa that single strips, four yards wide and two hundred yards long, were beaten. Such cloth might be left plain, or it might be stained with colors, or it might be stamped with patterns. Wooden blocks or strips of bamboo were carved with designs which were smeared with color and stamped on the cloth; sometimes ferns were laid in coloring matter, then the form transferred to the tapa.

The two chief food supplies in Polynesia were breadfruit and cocoanuts; yams (much like sweet potatoes) and bananas were plenty. A favorite food in places is _poi_, a sort of gruel or pudding made from the root of _taro_. It was not eaten with a spoon, but the finger was dipped into it and stirred around to get a good load of the sticky stuff on it, when it was stuck into the mouth and sucked clean. Fish were much eaten, though not all kinds nor at all times.

The Polynesian oven was a hole, three or four feet across, and a foot deep, dug in the ground. The bottom was lined with stones, which were covered with dry leaves, upon which a brisk fire was built. When the stones were red-hot, the dust and ashes were brushed out of the oven, and the potatoes, yams, and taro, or the pigs, dogs, fish, and birds were wrapped in leaves, and laid upon the hot stones. When all the food to be cooked had been neatly placed, leaves were laid above them, and hot stones on these. All was then covered in with leaves and earth, and left until thoroughly baked through.

Many of the strange peoples we have considered are filthy; Polynesians were unusually cleanly, and bathed frequently. In some islands surf bathing was the chief sport. Every traveller to Hawaii has described the practice. Babies were taken into the sea by their mothers within two or three days of their birth, and could swim as soon as they could walk. Old and young, men and women, bathe in the surf, and the heavier the waves the greater the sport. The surf-bathing board was five or six feet long, and a foot wide; it was carefully polished. Taking his board and pushing it before him, the man swam far out to sea, diving under the billows as he met them. When far enough out, he lay himself on the end of the board and waited for a great wave. When it came, he poised himself on its very crest, and paddling with hands and feet rode in upon it almost to the shore.

The Polynesians were warriors, and their battles were cruel and bloody. They rarely ventured into battle until their gods, through their priests, promised them success. To prepare themselves for war they practised in warlike arts. Thus they slung stones at marks, threw javelins, and wrestled. It is said that, in slinging, they were able to strike a small stick at fifty yards’ distance, four times out of five. In their javelin practice, the man at whom the weapon was thrown often caught it and hurled it back; some were so skilled that they “would allow six men to throw their javelins at them, which they would either catch and return on their assailants, or so dextrously turn aside that they fell harmless to the ground.” In going to war, a chief summoned all his friends and subordinates. When they had gathered, the gods—especially the war gods—were brought out to assist and encourage them. During the battle there was great noise and confusion; effort was made to kill the great chiefs of the enemy, so that their followers might be discouraged. Many were killed. Survivors fled to some fortress, or the mountains, or found safety in one of the curious “places of refuge,” within whose sacred precincts no harm could be done them.

For weapons, the Hawaiians had spears of great length, javelins, clubs which were used both for thrusting and striking, a hard wood dagger, and slings often made of human hair. On the Kingsmill Islands the natives made weapons, in many shapes or sizes, of wooden shafts, along the sides of which great numbers of sharks’ teeth were securely lashed. These weapons were used both for thrusting and striking, and were fearful things on naked bodies. In those same islands, and on account of these shark-tooth weapons, the natives had curious protective clothing or armor of cocoanut fibre.

Many Polynesians were cannibals: some of them dreadful cannibals. Their eating of human flesh was often connected with their religion. They had many gods, whom they represented by idols. The Hawaiian war god is an example. His idol was an image four or five feet high; the upper part was of wickerwork covered with red feathers; the hideous face was supplied with a great mouth with triple rows of dog’s or shark’s teeth; the eyes were of shell, and upon the head was a helmet crested with long tresses of human hair.

XXXI. CONCLUSION.

We have spoken of many Strange Peoples. We have gone around the world in our search. But after all we have examined but a small part. Remember that there are fifty-one peoples at least in the Philippines alone. We have not examined the Australians, or the unfortunate Tasmanians, or the many tribes of Siberia, or the sixty native populations of India. We have omitted great nations like the southeast Asians,—Siamese, Burmese, Annamese. In fact there are many times more Strange Peoples in the world whom we have _not_ examined, than whom we have. But we have examined enough, I hope, to learn that they are interesting and deserve our acquaintance and our sympathy.

There are few unknown peoples left. Travellers have gone to almost all parts of the world. The spots which represent absolutely unexplored regions on our maps are now neither large nor numerous. There are many peoples about whom we know little, but there are not many who are actually unknown. Those that may be discovered hereafter will be interesting, but they are not likely to be very different from those now known.

Many of the Strange Peoples are becoming less “strange” every year. Old customs and peculiar practices are dying out in every part of the world. Travellers, missionaries, and merchants from white men’s lands are taking our ideas, our tools, our weapons, our dress, our learning, our religion, and our vices to the remotest parts of the world. Some of the Strange Peoples here described have already lost most of their old customs. The Polynesians and Fijians have little of the old life which we have described. Many American Indian tribes have changed less. Some populations have still changed little. But a tribe must indeed be remote and difficult of access to actually escape our touch absolutely. Usually the change is _not_ improvement. Other people more quickly adopt our vices than our virtues. Many tribes have become drunken, diseased, and depraved through the white man’s influence. It is rare, indeed, that a lower people gains in happiness or virtue by contact with “higher civilization.”

Many of the Strange Peoples will disappear. The Tasmanians were killed off almost like so many animals by the English. American Indian tribes have suffered almost as badly at our hands. Many tribes have gone; others are going. The Lipans were once a fairly numerous tribe. In 1892 I saw all who were left in the United States—four women and one man; six months later I saw them again—the man was dead and only four women remained. The Tonkaways are dying out at the rate of one-third each eight years. The Polynesians, strong, handsome, active, and happy as they were when James Cook visited their islands little more than one hundred years ago, have dwindled, and fifty years more may blot them from the earth. Not all American Indian tribes are dying out; it is possible too that Polynesian decline began before Cook’s travels. But it is certain that on the whole the changes brought by the newcomers sealed the doom of the Indian and Polynesian.

There have always been movements of peoples from place to place. We have seen the Malays pouring three great masses of immigrants into the Philippines. There are white peoples in Asia; there are yellow peoples in Europe. Recently plenty of whites and of blacks have poured into America. Such movements contain some danger. The fair whites will probably never be able to live in the tropical lands. A certain sort of skin, hair, nose, breathing apparatus, is necessary for men who are to live and prosper in low, hot, marshy parts of Africa. For Germans to try to _colonize_ equatorial Africa is probably a fatal blunder. So far as we know the dark whites—Spaniards, Italians, south Frenchmen—make better tropical colonizers than we do; but even they are not successful. The negro is a bad colonizer, he hardly holds his own even in our Southern states. Of all the peoples of the globe the Chinese seem to be the best able to colonize differing countries. He seems to go to hot lands and cold lands, to small islands and to great continents, but flourishes everywhere. So true is this that some writers have urged that Africa be opened up for settlement to the crowded millions of the old empire. For most peoples, however, migration, if they _must_ migrate, is best along the lines of latitude into lands as much like the old home as possible. Many Scandinavians live to-day happily where Wisconsin, Iowa, and Michigan join; and they may be expected to prosper there, for land and water, soil and products, scenery and climate, are there much what they were in the fatherland.

LIST OF BOOKS REGARDING STRANGE PEOPLES.

This list makes no pretension to completeness; a few only of the many books of the kind are mentioned. Those with a prefixed asterisk will be useful to teachers; those without will interest children; those followed by an asterisk have directly contributed to this book in reading matter or illustration.

ARNOLD: Japonica.*

BATCHELLER: The Ainu of Japan.*

BRAMHALL: The Wee Ones of Japan.*

*BRINTON: Races and Peoples.

DU CHAILLU: The Land of the Dwarfs.*

*DENIKER: The Races of Man.

DOOLITTLE: Social Life of the Chinese.*

ELLIS: Polynesian Researches.*

FIELDE: A Corner of Cathay.

HEARN: Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan.

HUC: Travels in Tartary, Thibet, and China.*

*KEANE: Ethnology.

*KEANE: Man; Past and Present.

LANE: The Modern Egyptians.

LEONOWENS: The English Governess at the Siamese Court.

*LOWELL: Chosön.*

*LUBBOCK: Origin of Civilization.

*LUMMIS: The Land of Poco Tiempo.*

MARSHALL: Phrenologist among the Todas.*

*MEYER: Album von Philippinen-Typen.*

MILN: Little Folk of Many Lands.*

NANSEN: Eskimo Life.

*PESCHEL: The Races of Man.

DE QUATREFAGES: The Pygmies.

*RATZEL: History of Mankind.

*RATZEL: Völkerkunde.*

*RÉCLUS: Primitive Folk.

ROCKHILL: The Land of the Lamas.

SCHWEINFURTH: The Heart of Africa.*

SMITH: Chinese Characteristics.

STANLEY: In Darkest Africa.*

*TURNER: Samoa.

*TYLOR: Anthropology.*

*VERNEAU: Les Races Humaines.*

WALLACE: The Malay Archipelago.

WARD: India and the Hindoos.*

WILLIAMS: Fiji and the Fijians.*

ADVERTISEMENTS

╔═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗ ║ AMERICAN INDIANS ║ ║ ║ ║ BY FREDERICK STARR, PH.D., ║ ║ ║ ║ _Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Chicago_. ║ ║ ║ ║ Cloth. 240 Pages. Fully Illustrated. Price, 45 Cents. ║ ║ ║ ║ D. C. HEATH & CO., Publishers, ║ ║ BOSTON. NEW YORK. CHICAGO. ║ ╚═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝

=W. N. Hailman=, _Supt. of Schools, Dayton, O., formerly U. S. Commissioner of Indian Schools_: The book is beyond question the most attractive and conscientious presentation of the subject I have met.

=M. V. O’Shea=, _School of Education, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis._: I am glad to say that I regard Starr’s “American Indians” as one of the most appropriate books for grammar grade reading that I have seen.

=Richard E. Dodge=, _Prof. in Teacher’s College, Columbia Univ._, in “The Journal of School Geography”: The name of the author is a sufficient guarantee as to the accuracy and value of the little book whose title is noted above. We have long needed a well-written and true account of the much misused and misunderstood American Indians, and more especially an account that would appeal to the young, and give them different impressions from those gathered from nursery tales, school primers or Cooper’s stories. The book is attractive in general appearance, in typography, and illustration, and is well divided into thirty-three short chapters, each devoted to a pertinent topic. It deals with all the aspects of Indian life, as is shown by the following selected chapter headings—Houses, Dress, the Baby and Child, War, Hunting and Fishing, Picture Writing, Money, Medicine Men and Secret Societies, Dances and Ceremonials, The Algonquins, the Six Nations, the Creeks, the Cherokees, The Pueblos, Totem Posts, The Aztecs, etc. The author has made good use of authorities and includes notes concerning each author quoted. The book shows that great care has been expended in selecting and organizing materials, and is authoritative. It should receive a hearty welcome, and be used not only in schools, but in homes, as a book for boys and girls, or as a book for a parent to use in selecting true facts for family talks and conferences. Two valuable maps are included in the text, and are both very pertinent.

=Journal of Education, Boston, Mass.=: The book is interesting and instructive throughout, and should be read widely in school and out.

=The American, Philadelphia, Pa.=: This book, prepared especially for younger people, is a careful, interesting history of the chief tribes of North American Indians, their peculiarities and ways of life. The picture drawn is good and highly instructive.

=Tribune, Chicago, Ill.=: Professor Starr is already a recognized authority on Indian lore, having a personal acquaintance with some thirty tribes, from Alaska to Yucatan. His book condenses into 240 pages the main facts gathered by students and explorers among the red men since the discovery of America. One cannot read many pages without feeling that the author is deeply in sympathy with the people of whom he is writing.

Supplementary Reading

_A Classified List for all Grades._

GRADE I. Bass’s The Beginner’s Reader .25 Badlam’s Primer .25 Fuller’s Illustrated Primer .25 Griel’s Glimpses of Nature for Little Folks .30 Heart of Oak Readers, Book I .25 Regal’s Lessons for Little Readers .35

GRADE II. Warren’s From September to June with Nature .35 Badlam’s First Reader .30 Bass’s Stories of Plant Life .25 Heart of Oak Readers, Book I .25 Snedden’s Docas, the Indian Boy .35 Wright’s Seaside and Wayside Nature, Readers No. 1 .25

GRADE III. Heart of Oak Readers, Book II .35 Pratt’s America’s Story, Beginner’s Book .35 Wright’s Seaside and Wayside Nature Readers, No. 2 .35 Miller’s My Saturday Bird Class .25 Firth’s Stories of Old Greece .30 Bass’s Stories of Animal life .35 Spear’s Leaves and Flowers .25

GRADE IV. Bass’s Stories of Pioneer Life .40 Brown’s Alice and Tom .40 Grinnell’s Our Feathered Friends .30 Heart of Oak Readers, Book III .45 Pratt’s America’s Story—Discoverers and Explorers .40 Wright’s Seaside and Wayside Nature Readers, No. 3 .45 GRADE V. Bull’s Fridtjof Nansen .30 Grinnell’s Our Feathered Friends .30 Heart of Oak Readers, Book III .45 Pratt’s America’s Story—The Earlier Colonies .00 Kupfer’s Stories of Long Ago .35

GRADE VI. Starr’s Strange Peoples .40 Bull’s Fridtjof Nansen .30 Heart of Oak Readers, Book IV .50 Pratt’s America’s Story—The Colonial Period .00 Dole’s The Young Citizen .45

GRADE VII. Starr’s American Indians .45 Penniman’s School Poetry Book .30 Pratt’s America’s Story—The Revolution and the Republic .00 Eckstorm’s The Bird Book .60 Heart of Oak Readers, Book IV .50 Wright’s Seaside and Wayside Nature Readers, No. 4 .50

GRADES VIII _and_ IX. Heart of Oak Readers, Book V .55 Heart of Oak Readers, Book VI .60 Dole’s The American Citizen .80 Shaler’s First Book in Geology (boards) .40 Goldsmith’s Vicar of Wakefield .50 Addison’s Sir Roger de Coverley .35

_Descriptive circulars sent free on request._

Elementary Mathematics

=Atwood’s Complete Graded Arithmetic.= Presents a carefully graded course, to begin with the fourth year and continue through the eighth year. Part I, 30 cts.; Part II, 65 cts.

=Badlam’s Aids to Number.= Teacher’s edition—First series, Nos. 1 to 10, 40 cts.; Second series, Nos. 10 to 20, 40 cts. Pupil’s edition—First series, 25 cts.; Second series, 25 cts.

=Branson’s Methods in Teaching Arithmetic.= 15 cts.

=Hanus’s Geometry in the Grammar Schools.= An essay, with outline of work for the last three years of the grammar school. 25 cts.

=Howland’s Drill Cards.= For middle grades in arithmetic. Each, 3 cts.; per hundred, $2.40.

=Hunt’s Geometry for Grammar Schools.= The definitions and elementary concepts are to be taught concretely, by much measuring, and by the making of models and diagrams by the pupils. 30 cts.

=Pierce’s Review Number Cards.= Two cards, for second and third year pupils. Each, 3 cts.; per hundred, $2.40.

=Safford’s Mathematical Teaching.= A monograph, with applications. 25 cts.

=Sloane’s Practical Lessons in Fractions.= 25 cts. Set of six fraction cards, for pupils to cut. 10 cts.

=Sutton and Kimbrough’s Pupils’ Series of Arithmetics.= Lower Book, for primary and intermediate grades, 35 cts. Higher Book, 65 cts.

=The New Arithmetic.= By 300 teachers. Little theory and much practice. An excellent review book. 65 cts.

=Walsh’s Arithmetics.= On the “spiral advancement” plan, and perfectly graded. Special features of this series are its division into half-yearly chapters instead of the arrangement by topics; the great number and variety of the problems; the use of the equation in solution of arithmetical problems; and the introduction of the elements of algebra and geometry. Its use shortens and enriches the course in common school mathematics. In two series:—

_Three Book Series_—Elementary, 30 cts.; Intermediate, 35 cts.; Higher, 65 cts. _Two Book Series_—Primary, 30 cts.; Grammar school, 65 cts.

=Walsh’s Algebra and Geometry for Grammar Grades.= Three chapters from Walsh’s Arithmetic printed separately. 15 cts.

=White’s Two Years with Numbers.= For second and third year classes. 35 cts.

=White’s Junior Arithmetic.= For fourth and fifth years. 45 cts.

=White’s Senior Arithmetic.= 65 cts.

_For advanced works see our list of books in Mathematics._

Drawing and Manual Training.

=Thompson’s New Short Course in Drawing.= A practical, well-balanced system, based on correct principles. Can be taught by the ordinary teacher and learned by the ordinary pupil. Books I-IV, 6 × 9 inches, per dozen, $1.20. Books V-VIII, 9 × 12 inches, per dozen, $1.75. Manual to Books I-IV, 40 cts. Manual to Books V-VIII, 40 cts. Two-Book Course: Book A, per dozen, $1.20; Book B, per dozen, $1.75; Manual, 40 cts.

=Thompson’s Æsthetic Series of Drawing.= This series includes the study of Historical Ornament and Decorative Design. Book I treats of Egyptian art; Book II, Greek; Book III, Roman; Book IV, Byzantine; Book V, Moorish; Book VI, Gothic. Per dozen, $1.50. Manual, 60 cents.

=Thompson’s Educational and Industrial Drawing.=

Primary Free-Hand Series (Nos. 1–4). Each No., per doz., $1.00. Manual, 40 cts. Advanced Free-Hand Series (Nos. 5–8). Each No., per doz., $1.50. Model and Object Series (Nos. 1–3). Each No., per doz., $1.75. Manual, 35 cts. Mechanical Series (Nos. 1–6). Each No., per doz., $2.00. Manual, 75 cts.

=Thompson’s Manual Training No. 1.= Clay modeling, stick laying, paper folding, color and construction of geometrical solids. Illus. 66 pp. 25 cts.