Similarities and coincidences in labour and implements of labour

In trade the activity of the Melanesians is by no means insignificant, stimulated and instructed as it no doubt is by the trading of the Malays in New Guinea, and by that of the Tongans in Fiji. It was owing to this foreign trade that the natives of Hood Bay came unarmed to meet MacFarlane's schooner, or that the Papuas of Ansus have become honest brokers between the Malays and the Mountain tribes. This, too, it may be which has caused the Fijians to establish and level market-places at suitable points of their coasts; while the Fijian trading people of Levuka, Mbotoni, and Malaki have formed themselves upon the example of the Tongans. But even in Central Melanesia there is a lively traffic. Individual islands of the New Hebrides manufacture various weapons; thus the pointed weapons of Tanna come from Immer. In the Solomons, Malayta builds canoes; Bougainville mints shell-money; Guadalcanar makes rings and wooden dishes. A valuable article of export from New Ireland are cuscus-teeth, perforated for fillets and necklaces.

All these peoples were acquainted with trade and barter when first visited by Europeans; among some of them iron was found, which could have been introduced in no other manner. They rushed only too readily into commerce with white men. When the Gazelle visited Blanche Bay in 1877, canoes full of natives eager for trade swarmed around them; but in 1889 Rear-Admiral Strauch found the bay almost empty. The people had nothing left to exchange.

Money transactions play an important part, for rank and dignity are graded upon money. In New Britain its purpose is served by disks of shell strung on fibre; in the Banks Islands by the points of shells similarly strung; in the northern New Hebrides by long narrow mats which are more valuable in proportion as they are older and more smoke-blackened. Sperm-whales' teeth, which are valued as ornaments, represent large capitals in Fiji; just as do, in the Solomons, necklaces of dolphins' teeth, and armlets formed from rings of shell. Santa Cruz treasures red parrots' feathers; and Melanesia, in the Banks Islands, the feathers round hens' eyes. Similarly, in former times, the red hair below the ear of the flying-fox was used as money in the Loyalty Islands. Accumulated capital is represented also by the masses of tapa, of which the Fijian chiefs are so proud that on festive occasions they will wind 200 yards and more of it round their persons. What is even more, Codrington tells us that the Banks Islanders have organised a regular system of credit.

Wicker fans from the Gilbert or Marshall Islands (British Museum).

In Micronesia the position of currency is taken by stones, bits of glass or porcelain, fragments of enamel, and beads. In the Mew Islands, whence this seems to radiate, seven sorts are distinguished. First, brack or barak, of which, in Semper's time, the whole group did not contain more than three or four pieces. The most valuable was made of terra-cotta, in the shape of a bent prism with sides ground somewhat hollow, hard, fine-grained, and with almost a glassy lustre. Kubary gives a picture of a brack worth forty-five shillings - a polished fourteen-sided polyhedron. Second, pangungau or bungau, a red stone, polished like brack, perhaps jasper. It was preserved in the treasure-chest of the King of Korror, or buried on account of its value; in Aibukit the wives of great men wear it on their necks. Third, kalbukub or kalebukub, agate in a particular shape, or in some specimens, hard enamel. Kubary says: "Only very few chiefs possess a single kalebukub, and I was the first white man that ever had one." While these three kinds of money go only among the chiefs, the four others, kaldoir, kluk, adelobber, olelongl, circulate among the common people. For a bit of the last-named, consisting of fragments of white or green glass, you can buy at most a handful of bananas, or a bundle of native cigarettes. In the kluk class are found polished enamel beads, the production of a much higher ability than any with which we can now credit the people. The different classes are not, however, very sharply graded; large kluks outweigh inferior kalebukubs. With the exception of the most valuable, which are never brought out, all serve equally for ornament, and so are perforated.

Marks of rank are also a measure of property. Thus in Pelew wealthy persons wear as an armlet the klilt, or atlas vertebra of the rare Halicore dugong. The purchase of the klilt is a political requirement, with which every new chief is expected to comply. Since only the king can confer this, Semper calls it "the Order of the Bone." The same writer heard a pretty story at Aibukit in Pelew: Once upon a time a boat floated up, the occupants of which were the seven kinds of money. They had set out from their own island, Ngarutt, to seek new countries. They had floated about in the ocean for a long time without finding what they wanted, and at last they came ashore here on Pelew. Off the harbour, Brack, who as the most important was lying stretched out on the platform of the boat, told the next in rank, Pangungau, to go ashore and have a look at the island. Pangungau, as lazy as his sovereign, gave the order to Kalbukub; he passed it on to Kaldoir; he to Kluk, and so on till the much-enduring Olelongl, who had no one to send, had to go. But as he did not return, after a while Brack renewed his order. This time Adelobber went off grumbling, and he, too, did not return. Then Kluk was sent to fetch them both, but he also stayed on the island; and so it went on till Brack was deserted both by his common people and by his nobles. "So he went to fetch them himself, but he too liked the look of our town," said the narrator; "and so all seven stayed and took up their abode. Brack does nothing but eat, drink, and sleep, and the higher in rank always sends his inferior on errands; and thus it is," concluded the narrator with a sly laugh, "that, just as with us men, the big money sits quiet at home, and the smaller has to be smart and run about, and work for himself and the swells too."

In the Carolines we meet with a similar development of currency. Here the most frequent unit, called fe, consists of large pieces, like millstones, of a pale yellow granular limestone, from 1 foot to 2 yards in diameter, and weighing up to several tons. Their value depends upon their size, workmanship, and so on, and from a few dollars to 1000 or more. Every year many people go in gangs, on board European vessels, to Pelew, where they find the raw material. Since the working requires many hands, and the transport is expensive, these stone coins usually remain the property of the whole commune; very few find their way into private hands.

Wooden bowl for food, from the Admiralty Islands - one-eighth real size. (Christy Collection.)
[Click on picture for higher resolution]

This kind of money being somewhat unwieldy, other forms of coin come into use for commercial purposes: in the first place pearl-shells, or sar, strung on a cord; then rolls of matting, ambul, of coarse work and various value, the largest from 7£to 11£. A further form of money, gau (clearly the same as the bungau of Pelew), is made from various polished stones and pieces of shells twisted off, which can be strung into necklaces till wanted. These are found only among the chiefs. Plaques of nutshells and seashells strung on long cords of coco-nut fibre, black and white alternately - an arrangement of which, either in pieces of the same size or tapering towards the ends, the art of Oceania is as fond as were the ancient Americans - form money and neck ornaments for the Gilbert Islanders; polished beads of coco-nut shell, bracelets of tortoise-shell, spondylus armlets, are currency in Mortlock. How necessary a currency is may be imagined when we know that the Mortlock Islanders, though they weave themselves, import particular kinds of woven goods from the Ruk Islands.

The importance of these new coinages is not only economical - their age and their rarity gives an almost sacred character to some, while in the case of others the difficulty of obtaining them, and the power which they impart, invest them with political influence. Offences against chiefs can often only be expiated by the sacrifice of a piece of money which represents the whole wealth of a family; and then the family, losing with it the credit based upon it, drops several steps in the social ladder. Thus money is, to put it briefly, next to religious tradition, the basis of political influence and the standard of social position. The coinage also plays an important part in the inter-tribal festivals. Every island of the Pelew group gives from time to time a ruk, at which the representatives of a certain number of allied islands bring to the government a fixed contribution in native money. The visiting chiefs pay their host according to their rank. Besides this mulbekel, there are other ruks, in which only the small places of a district join with a view of showing friendship and good fellowship.