Character of the Melanesian population

The difference between the Melanesian character and the Polynesian has often been noted. It lies essentially on the Negro side. Their bodily resemblance is paralleled by a mental one. The Melanesian is more impulsive, more frank, noisier, and more violent than the Polynesian. In cases where he appears in less favourable light, the key to many contradictions is to be found in a pride which at one moment is elated, and at the next has a keen scent for anything like injury. Those who know the Fijians best depict them as the vainest of all men. A casual utterance will cause a woman to sit down in the public place of a village, shed tears without end, and fill the air with lamentations and a flood of scolding and threatening language. The cry will be heard from the top of a hill, "War, war! will no man kill me that I may go to the shade of my father?" All rush to the spot and find a man in the depths of grief because his friend has cut off a yard or two from a piece of bark cloth belonging to them in common. Suicide is not uncommon. Closely connected with pride is swagger, often shown in the compilation of fantastic pedigrees. The arts of diplomacy thrive in this soil; these hot-blooded natures have a capacity, which one would hardly suspect, for clothing themselves in an impenetrable etiquette. The forms of good manners are strictly observed.

Woman of the Anchorite's Islands. (From the Godeffroy Album.)

The frequency of theft is well known, but it is chiefly directed against strangers. Native plantations are to natives inviolable; yet so powerful a motive is covetousness, that the plundering of a grave is no uncommon event, even when nothing more than a few rags is to be got by it. It sometimes happens, however, that a person caught in the act of committing this crime gets burnt or buried alive.

Revenge may form the most important duty in life for a Melanesian. If a man is injured he puts up a stick or a stone where he can see it, to keep him constantly in mind of the duty of revenge. If a man abstains from food or keeps away from the dance it is a bad sign for his enemies. The man who goes about with his head half-shaved, or, in addition to this, allows a long twisted bunch of hair to hang down his back, is thinking of revenge. Sometimes a bundle of tobacco hangs from the gable, which is only to be smoked over the corpse of an enemy, or the bloody clothes of a slain relation preserves the memory of an unatoned deed. Nor is there any lack of friends to keep a man in mind of his duty with songs either lamenting or censuring. Open violence is not the only means of appeasing revenge. Hired assassins are employed, or magical devices with sticks, leaves, or reeds, are adopted.

A dead man often takes a whole generation with him; his wives are throttled, and his mother often shares the same fate. Treacherous and bloodthirsty acts, such as have earned a bad reputation for the Solomons Islanders in particular, may often be referred only to expiation for some injustice suffered. There is no abstract word corresponding to our "Thanks," it is even regarded as good manners for the person who receives a present not to betray any feeling. People when they meet greet each other with words like, "You are staying," "Go on"; rubbing of noses is only found among the Polynesians, kissing was originally unknown. The Banks Islanders use as a familiar greeting a sounding smack with the hand.

Woman of the Anchorite's Islands. (From the Godeffroy Album.)

The degrees of activity and prosperity are numerous. In Mallicollo and New Caledonia the people are poor and lazy. On the other hand those of Fiji and New Britain are proud of possession and greedy for gain; quite ready to beg of strangers, but clever in trade. Our ethnographical museums possess an astounding wealth of works of art from certain favoured spots; of which we need only name Astrolabe Bay and the little D'Entrecasteaux Islands. Though outward appearance is indistinguishable, there are poor people, well-to-do people, rich, very rich, just as with us. The saying is, as Finsch tells us, "He is worth ten or more rings of diwarra."We have already contradicted the unfounded assumption that the Melanesians are an altogether weak, backward-driven group of races; and need here only recall a remark of D'Albertis concerning the inhabitants of Hall Sound in New Guinea, who have come but little into contact with civilization: "We may have many reasons for calling them savages; but they live in a state of relative comfort and good fortune which one might almost denote as culture."