Creative power of the Polynesian mind

The Polynesians show themselves quite open to the requirements of an industrial life in the European sense. The sugar-plantations which form the chief wealth of Hawaii are no doubt at present chiefly in the hands of whites or half-breeds; but King Kamehameha III. rendered essential service in promoting the cultivation of the sugar-cane. The first Christians on Maui performed a wonderful feat when they built a church 100 feet in length; carrying stone, lime, and sand on their backs, and hauling timber with their hands. Twice the principal rafter gave way, and for the third time they put it up again, nothing loth.

A Tongan. (Godeffroy Album.)

It is, to be sure, just the valiant, laborious, progressive Polynesians who are decried by Europeans as avaricious and stubborn. The Samoans and Tahitians are reckoned more serviceable. The profound difference between the dissolute, idle, light-skinned inhabitants of fertile Tahiti, and the industrious, clever, sober, muscular native of the poorer Tonga Islands is instructive. Is it not significant that the Tongans escaped the corrupt aristocratic rule of Tahiti?

Licentiousness

In order to form a fair judgment as to the licentiousness ascribed to the Polynesians, we must consider that their excesses were described with much exaggeration by visitors who only learned to know the people superficially. Much of it no doubt arises from their general level of culture. Levity and idleness have in some places allowed sexual irregularity to reach an incredible pitch of corruption among the upper classes; while in New Zealand, in Samoa, and especially in Tonga, women hold, on the contrary, a high position.

Human sacrifices, cannibalism, and infanticide

Human sacrifices, cannibalism and traces of it, also infanticide, will be dealt with in the section on society.

Influence of Christianity

With the first ray of light which falls upon the life of Polynesia, together with the opening-up of the central regions of the Pacific, we get a glimpse of a strong movement of great value in the history of civilization. If indeed it be too much to assume that a development in the direction of a pure monotheism was making its way in their religion before the arrival of Christian influences, we can, at any rate, recognise therein a powerful impulse towards the creation of a pantheon. With a little more space and a little more stability, we should have found an Indian mythology in Polynesia.

Morally the Polynesians did not and do not stand high; and yet their abandonment of cannibalism and human sacrifice speaks a great deal for their self-education.

It is a progress towards humanity to which full justice has not been done by all critics. Generally too the Polynesians have shown a rare capacity for education; quite apart from their faculty of imitating European dress-customs. Nowhere else have missions so soon attained to the point of sending out native teachers. For many years whole groups, such as Tonga, Samoa, Hervey, have possessed a church and a school in every village, with clergy and teachers of whom by far the greater part are natives. At the same time these communities soon became self-supporting. The London Missionary Society has for years no longer had occasion to send pecuniary aid to Samoa; on the contrary, that Mission has itself forwarded material contributions for missionary purposes to other districts.

Among the most curious phenomena are the independent offshoots from Christianity. Thus in Upolu, Siovedi, a native of Savaii, founded the "gimblet-religion." Professing to converse with God and to work miracles, he enjoined a mutual confession of sins in cases of sickness; and his divine service was rendered specially impressive by the discharge of firearms. Also in Samoa, a native, who taught the invocation of the God of Heaven, brought with him on his return from the whale-fishery an old woman who used to "touch" for diseases from behind a curtain, alleging that Christ resided within her.