PKIMITIVE AGKICULTUEAL RACES 193 



developed in the Marshall Islands. ^ According to Williams, 

 ' Fiji is rarely free from war and its attendant evils ' ; ^ ' natural 

 deaths are reduced to a small number among the heathen Fijians, 

 by the prevalence of war and various systems of murder which 

 custom demands.' ^ On the other hand, it is interesting to note 

 that Thomson thinks that the destructive nature of warfare in 

 Fiji is exaggerated as elsewhere in Oceania. He gives the following 

 account of his own experiences in another island as an example 

 of what he found warfare really to mean. ' As we travelled along 

 the coast we found that every village had its frontier ; a stream 

 mouth, or a sapling stuck upright in the sand, beyond which 

 none would venture. The natives did their best to dissuade us 

 from crossing these boundaries by representing their neighbours 

 as thirsting for the blood of strangers. But on the other side of 

 the frontier we found a meek folk, lost in wonder that we had 

 come through the last stage of our journey unscathed, so cruel 

 and ferocious were its inhabitants. Every man lived in active 

 terror of his neighbours, and went armed to his plantation, but 

 this did not prevent him from being a most skilful and indus- 

 trious husbandman, or from living to a good old age. The fear 

 being mutual, there was scarcely any war ; an occasional attack 

 upon a woman or upon an unarmed man served to keep the 

 hereditary feud alive.' * It may very well be that the murderous 

 nature of warfare has often been exaggerated, and that as a matter 

 of fact the true state of affairs often approximates more closely 

 to the picture given by this author. 



In the New Hebrides fighting is said to be fairly frequent ; ^ in 

 New Caledonia it is certainly common, though perhaps not very 

 serious.^ So too in the Solomon Islands there is ' unceasing war 'J 

 According to Romilly, ' in a battle the victorious party, if they 

 can surprise their enemies sufficiently to admit of a wholesale 

 massacre, kill not only the men, but also all the women and 

 children '.® A very similar general impression is gained from 

 descriptions of New Guinea. ' The Western section of the 

 Koita, especially the Arauwa and the Rokurokuna, were formerly 



» Seligman, Melanesians, p. 671. * Williams, Fiji, p. 43. » Ibid., 



p. 203. He calculates the annual loss as from 1,500 to 2,000, and adds that this 

 should be increased in order to include widows strangled on the death of their 

 husbands (p. 53). * Thomson, Fijians, p. 86. ' Hagen and Pineau, loo. 



cit., p. 336. * Lambert, loc. cit., pp. 173 ff. ; Moncelon, loc. cit., p. 358 ; 



de Rochas, p. 304 ; Brainne, loc. cit., pp. 244 ff. ' Guppy, loc. cit., p. 33 ; 



Verguet, loc, cit., p. 215. * Romilly, Western Pacific, p. 69. 



2493 N 



