CHAPTER XXIV

HOSPITALITY

WE have seen that in early society regard for the life and physical well-being of a fellow-creature is, generally speaking, restricted to members of the social unit, whereas foreigners are subject to a very different treatment. But to this rule there are remarkable exceptions. Side by side with gross indifference or positive hatred to strangers we find, among the lower races, instances of great kindness displayed even towards persons of a foreign race. The Veddahs are ready to help any stranger in distress who asks for their assistance, and Sinhalese fugitives who have sought refuge in their wilds have always been kindly received.[1] Mr. Moffat was deeply affected by the sympathy which some poor Bushmans showed to him during an illness, although he was an utter stranger to them. Speaking of the mutual affection which the Andaman Islanders display in their social relations, Mr. Man adds that, "in their dealings with strangers, the same characteristic is observable when once a good understanding has been established."[2] We have also to remember the friendly manner in which the aborigines in various parts of the savage world behaved to the earliest European visitors. Nothing could be more courteous than the reception which Cook and his party met with in New Caledonia, where the natives guided and accompanied them on their {571} excursions. Forster says of the Society Islanders, "We should indeed be ungrateful if we did not acknowledge the kindness with which they always treated us."[3] De Clerque observes with reference to the Papuans on the north coast of New Guinea:--"The inhabitants seemed always ready to help. . . . On our visit to the village all the male and female inhabitants with their children flocked around me, and offered me cocoanuts and sugar-cane; which, for the first contact with Europeans, is certainly remarkable."[4] On the arrival of white people in various parts of Australia, the natives were not only inoffensive, but disposed to meet them on terms of amity and kindness.[5] "In a short intercourse," says Eyre, "they are easily made friends. . . . On many occasions where I have met these wanderers in the wild, far removed from the abodes of civilisation, and when I have been accompanied only by a single native boy, I have been received by them in the kindest and most friendly manner, had presents made to me of fish, kangaroo, or fruit, had them accompany me for miles to point out where water was to be procured, and been assisted by them in getting at it."[6] Nor must we forget the kind reception which Australian Blacks have given to men cast upon their mercy,[7] and the tenderness with which the natives of Cooper's Creek wept for the death of Burke and Wills, and comforted King, the survivor.[8] Unfortunately, native races have often received anything but favourable impressions from their earliest interviews with Europeans; and both in Australia and elsewhere prolonged intercourse with white people has, in many instances, induced them to change {572} their friendly behaviour into unkindness or hostility. The Canadian traders, for instance, when they first appeared among the Beaver and Rocky Mountain Indians, were treated by these people with the utmost hospitality and attention; but by their subsequent conduct they taught the natives to withdraw their respect, and sometimes to treat them with indignity.[9] Harmon writes, "I have always experienced the greatest hospitality and kindness among those Indians who have had the least intercourse with white people."[10] Many facts seem to verify the statement made by a missionary who speaks from forty years' experience among the natives of New Guinea and Polynesia, that our conduct towards savages determines their conduct towards us.[11]

[Footnote 1: Sarasin, _Ergebnisse naturwissenschaftlicher Forschungen auf Ceylon_, iii. 544.]

[Footnote 2: Man, 'Aboriginal Inhabitants of the Andaman Islands,' in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ xii. 93.]

[Footnote 3: Forster, _Voyage Round the World_, ii. 157.]

[Footnote 4: De Clerque, in _Glimpses of the Eastern Archipelago_, p. 14.]

[Footnote 5: Breton, _Excursions in New South Wales_, p. 218. Curr, _The Australian Race_, i. 64. Salvado, _Mémoires historiques sur l'Australie_, p. 340. Ridley, _Aborigines of Australia_, p. 24. Eyre, _Journals of Expeditions of Discovery into Central Australia_, ii. 212, 382.]

[Footnote 6: Eyre, _op. cit._ ii. 211.]

[Footnote 7: Mathew, 'Australian Aborigines,' in _Jour. & Proceed. Roy. Soc. N. S. Wales_, xxiii. 388. Brough Smyth, _Aborigines of Victoria_, ii. 229. Ridley, _Aborigines of Australia_, p. 22.]

[Footnote 8: Jung, 'Aus dem Seelenleben der Australier,' in _Mittheilungen des Vereins für Erdkunde zu Leipzig_, 1877, p. 11 _sq._]

[Footnote 9: Mackenzie, _Voyage to the Frozen and Pacific Ocean_, p. 149.]

[Footnote 10: Harmon, _Journal of Voyages and Travels in the Interior of North America_, p. 315.]

[Footnote 11: Murray, _Forty Years' Mission Work in Polynesia and New Guinea_, p. 499. For other instances of kindness displayed by savages towards white men, see von Kotzebue, _Voyage of Discovery into the South Sea_, iii. 174 (people of Radack); Yate, _Account of New Zealand_, p. 102 _sq._; Dieffenbach, _Travels in New Zealand_, ii. 112; Keate, _Account of the Pelew Islands_, p. 329 _sq._; Earl, _Papuans_, p. 79 (natives of Port Dory, New Guinea); Sarytschew, 'Voyage of ** Discovery to the North-East of Siberia,' in _Collection of Modern and Contemporary Voyages and Travels_, vi. 78 (Aleuts); King and Fitzroy, _Voyages of the "Adventure" and "Beagle,"_ ii. 168, 174 (Patagonians); Wilson and Felkin, _Uganda_, i. 225.]

The friendly reception which white men have met with in savage countries is closely connected with a custom which, as it seems, prevails universally among the lower races while in their native state,[12] as also among the {573} peoples of culture at the earlier stages of their civilisation[13] {574} --hospitality towards strangers. This custom presents several remarkable characteristics, which, to all appearance, ill agree with their tribal or national exclusiveness generally. The stranger is often welcomed with special marks of honour. The best seat is assigned to him; the best food at the host's disposal is set before {575} him; he takes precedence over all the members of the household; he enjoys extraordinary privileges. M. Hyades says of the Fuegians, "Quelque encombrée que soit une hutte, et si réduite que soit la quantité d'aliments dont on dispose, le nouvel arrivant est toujours assuré d'avoir une place près du foyer et une part de la nourriture."[14] The Mattoal of California, though they are sometimes heartlessly indifferent even to their parents, "will divide the last shred of dried salmon with any casual comer who has not a shadow of claim upon them, except the claim of that exaggerated and supererogatory hospitality that savages use."[15] A Creek Indian would not only receive into his house a traveller or sojourner of whatever nation or colour, but would treat him as a brother or as his own child, divide with him the last grain of corn or piece of flesh, and offer him the most valuable things in his possession.[16] Among the Arawaks, "when a stranger, and particularly an European, enters the house of an Indian, every thing is at his command."[17] Notwithstanding the Karen's suspicious nature, says Mr. Smeaton, his hospitality is unbounded. "He will entertain every stranger that comes, without asking a question. He feels himself disgraced if he does not receive all comers, and give them the very best cheer he has. The wildest Karen will receive a guest with a grace and dignity and entertain him with a lavish hospitality that would become a duke. Hundreds of their old legends inculcate the duty of receiving strangers without regard to pecuniary circumstances either of host or guest."[18] Among many uncivilised peoples it is customary for a man to offer even his wife, or one of his wives, to the stranger for the time he remains his guest.[19] The Bedouins of Nejd have a {576} saying that "the guest while in the house is its lord";[20] and in the Institutes of Vishnu we read that, as the Brâhmanas are lords over all other castes, and as a husband is lord over his wives, so the guest is the lord of his host.[21]

[Footnote 12: Azara, _Voyages dans l'Amérique méridionale_, ii. 91 (Guanas). Southey, _History of Brazil_, i. 247 (Tupis). Davis, _El Gringo_, p. 421 (Pueblos). Lafitau, _M[oe]urs des sauvages amériquains_, i. 106; ii. 88. Heriot, _Travels through the Canadas_, p. 318 _sq._ Buchanan, _North American Indians_, p. 6. Perrot, _Mémoire sur les m[oe]urs, coustumes et relligion des sauvages de l'Amérique septentrionale_, pp. 69, 202. Neighbors, in Schoolcraft, _Indian Tribes of the United States_, ii. 132 (Comanches). James, _Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains_, i. 321 _sq._ (Omahas). Morgan, _League of the Iroquois_, p. 327 _sqq._; Loskiel, _History of the Mission of the United Brethren among the Indians in North America_, i. 15; Colden, in Schoolcraft, _op. cit._ iii. 190 (Iroquois). Powers, _Tribes of California_, p. 183. Sproat, _Scenes and Studies of Savage Life_, p. 56 _sqq._ (Ahts). Boas, 'Report on the Indians of British Columbia,' in the _Report read at the Meeting of the British Association_, 1889, p. 36. Keating, _Expedition to the Source of St. Peter's River_, i. 101 (Potawatomis); ii. 167 (Chippewas). Richardson, _Arctic Searching Expedition_, ii. 18 (Crees and Chippewas). _Idem_, in Franklin, _Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea_, p. 66; Mackenzie, _Voyages to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans_, p. xcvi. (Crees). Dall, _Alaska_, p. 397; Sarytschew, _loc. cit._ vi. 78; Sauer, _Billing's Expedition to the Northern Parts of Russia_, p. 274 (Aleuts). Lyon, _Private Journal_, p. 349 _sq._; Parry, _Second Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage_, p. 526 (Eskimo of Igloolik). Egede, _Description of Greenland_, p. 126; Cranz, _History of Greenland_, i. 172 _sq._; Kane, _Arctic Explorations_, ii. 122; Holm, 'Ethnologisk Skizze af Angmagsalikerne,' in _Meddelelser om Grönland_, x. 87, 175 _sq._ (Greenlanders). Beechey, _Voyage to the Pacific and Behring's Strait_, ii. 571; Richardson, _Arctic Searching Expedition_, i. 367; Seemann, _Voyage of "Herald,"_ ii. 65 (Western Eskimo). Hooper, _Ten Months among the Tents of the Tuski_, pp. 160, 193, 194, 208; Nordenskiöld, _Vegas färd kring Asien och Europa_, ii. 145 (Chukchi). Dall, _op. cit._ pp. 381 (Tuski), 517 (Kamchadales), 526 (Ainos). Sarytschew, _loc. cit._ v. 67 (Kamchadales). Dobell, _Travels in Kamtschatka and Siberia_, i. 63, 82 _sq._ (Kamchadales); ii. 42 (Jakuts). Sauer, _op. cit._ p. 124 (Jakuts). Vámbéry, _Das Türkenvolk_, pp. 159 (Jakuts), 336 (natives of Eastern Turkestan), 411 (Turkomans), 451 (Tshuvashes), 509 (Baskirs), &c. Krasheninnikoff, _History of Kamschatka_, p. 236 (Kurile Islanders). Georgi, _Russia_, i. 113 (Mordvins); iii. 111 (Tunguses), 167 (Koriaks); iv. 22 (Kalmucks). Bergmann, _Nomadische Streifereien unter den Kalmüken_, ii. 281 _sqq._ Prejevalsky, _Mongolia_, i. 71 _sq._ Castrén, _Nordiska resor och forskningar_, i. 41 (Laplanders), 319 (Ostyaks). Scott Robertson, _Káfirs of the Hindu-Kush_, p. 187 _sq._ Fraser, _Tour through the Him[=a]l[=a] Mountains_, pp. 264 (people of Kunawar), 335 (Butias). Dalton, _Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal_, pp. 46 (Kukis), 68 (Garos). Hunter, _Annals of Rural Bengal_, i. 215 (Santals). Tickell, 'Memoir on the Hodésum,' in _Jour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal_, ix. (pt. ii.) 807 _sq._ (Hos). Lewin, _Wild Races of South-Eastern India_, p. 217 (Tipperahs). Colquhoun, _Amongst the Shans_, pp. 160 _sq._ (Steins), 371 (Shans). Foreman, _Philippine Islands_, p. 187. de Crespigny, 'Milanows of Borneo,' in _Jour. Anthr. Inst._ v, 34. Low, _Sarawak_, pp. 243 (Hill Dyaks), 336 (Kayans). Boyle, _Adventures among the Dyaks of Borneo_, p. 215. Ling Roth, _Natives of Sarawak_, i. 82 (Sea Dyaks). Marsden, _History of Sumatra_, p. 208 (natives of the interior of Sumatra). Raffles, _History of Java_, i. 249; Crawfurd, _History of the Indian Archipelago_, i. 53 (Javanese). Riedel, _De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua_, p. 41 (natives of Ambon and Uliase). von Kotzebue, _op. cit._ iii. 165 (natives of Radack), 215 (Pelew Islanders). Hale, _U.S. Exploring Expedition. Vol. VI.--Ethnography and Philology_, p. 95 (Kingsmill Islanders). Macdonald, _Oceania_, p. 195 (Efatese). Erskine, _Cruise among the Islands of the Western Pacific_, p. 273 _sq._; Williams and Calvert, _Fiji and the Fijians_, p. 110; Anderson, _Travel in Fiji and New Caledonia_, p. 134 _sq._ (Fijians). Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, i. 95. _Idem_, _Tour through Hawaii_, p. 346 _sq._ Forster, _op. cit._