FIJI-NEW ZEALAND EXPEDITION 111 
they have enough work to keep them in fair physical condition. 
As said before, they do not have the soft, over-fed, flabby bodies 
that one so often sees in Rarotonga and Tahiti. Their pleasures 
are simple but apparently adequate. They enjoy singing and often 
have good voices. Occasionally they indulge in a dance, or ‘‘meke,”’ 
but we did not see men and women dancing together. Kava 
drinking is a sort of social ceremony, even more so than the 
‘‘afternoon tea’’ of our British friends; but the women are sel- 
dom allowed to indulge as it is supposed to induce sterility, which 
may be at the foundation of the ‘‘tabu.”’ 
The women are modest and retiring in demeanor; they exhibit 
little sex consciousness, at least to the stranger, and in this differ 
from many of the inhabitants of other island groups in the Pacifie. 
We saw no evidence of moral laxity and were told by the officials 
that the Fijians are a really moral people; neither was there 
evidence of any serious degree of admixture of races. The Fijians 
have a deep aversion to the Indians and want little to do with 
them, while the whites are not particularly attracted to the native 
women. 
In regard to natural intellectual endowment, we find the Fijians 
by no means an inferior people. Ratu Sukuna, the Oxford man 
who visited us at Makuluva, was apparently up to the high mental 
level of the typical Oxoniam and Ratu Popé had the mental grasp 
of affairs of the ordinary white official. Both of these men spoke 
English with as fine diction as our ordinary college man. As a 
matter of fact I am inclined to believe that racial differences in 
intellectual capacity have been greatly over-emphasized and that 
innate capacity has been generally confused with the effect of en- 
vironment in our estimate of the comparative psychology of races. 
Of course it may be argued that the two chiefs mentioned are 
exceptional men; nevertheless they show a capability of intellectual 
achievement that would do credit to exceptional men of the so- 
called highly civilized races anywhere. Given equality of educa- 
tion, I believe the Fijians would show themselves by no means in- 
ferior to the ordinary Europeans in mental status. 
After reading the romantic narratives of travelers who have 
visited the South Seas in recent years one has the impression that 
morality, particularly in matters of sex, is at an exceedingly low 
level among the peoples of Oceanica. Indeed, according to these 
returned travelers, they are not so immoral as unmoral. But we 
have positive evidence to the contrary in the little book, ‘‘ Fiji, its 
