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or Tongan Islands, lying away to the east of Fiji, had already forced or were 
forcing their way into the Fijian Islands. 
The meeting in Fiji of these two folk, both still in a state of ‘ savagery,’ but 
the Polynesians much further advanced in culture than the Melanesians, at a 
time before European influence had begun to strengthen in those islands, affords 
an exceptionally good opportunity for the study of successive stages in the 
development of primitive character, especially as the two sets of ‘savages’ were 
not yet so closely intermingled as to be indistinguishable—at least in many parts 
of Fiji. It is unfortunate that the earliest European visitors to Fiji were not 
of the kind to observe and to leave proper records of their observations. 
The earlier, Melanesian, occupants of Fiji had to some extent given way, but 
by no means readily and completely, to the Polynesian invaders. The former, not 
only in the mountain fastnesses difficult of access, but also in such of the islets 
as the local wind and weather conditions made difficult of access, retained 
their own distinct and simpler culture, their own thoughts, habits, and arts, long 
after the Polynesians had seized the more important places accessible to the sea, 
and had imposed much of their own more elaborate (but still ‘savage’) culture 
on such of the Melanesians’ communities as they had there subjugated and 
absorbed. 
The social organisation throughout Fiji remained communistic; but in the 
purely Melanesian communities the system was purely democratic (i.e., without 
chiefs), while in the newer mixed Polynesian-Melanesian communities—as was 
natural when there had been intermingling of two unequally cultured races— 
there had been developed a sort of oligarchic system, in which the Melanesian 
commoners worked contentedly, or at least with characteristic resignation, for 
their new Polynesian chiefs. 
Alike in all these communities custom enforced by club-law prevailed ; but in 
the one case the administrative function rested with the community as a whole, 
while in the other it was usurped by the chiefs. 
Though we are here to consider mainly the ideas, the mentality, of these 
people, it will be useful to say a few preliminary words as to their arts and 
crafts. The Melanesians during their long undisturbed occupation of the islands 
had undoubtedly made great progress, on lines peculiar to them, especially 
in boat building, in which they excelled all other South Sea islanders, in the 
making of clubs and other weapons, and in otherwise using the timber, which 
grew more abundantly, and of better quality, in their islands than elsewhere. 
Meanwhile the Polynesians, in their earlier homes and long before they reached 
Fiji, had developed, in very high degree, corresponding but different and much 
more elaborate arts (and ideas) of their own. But, as we know from Captain 
Cook, the Polynesians, despite their own higher culture, from their Tongan 
homes, greatly admired and appreciated the special craftsmanship of the Fijians, 
and it was indeed this admiration which attracted the former from Tonga to Fiji; 
and when the Polynesians had gained footing in the Fijis they—quite in accord- 
ance with human nature—were inclined, for a time at least, to foster the foreign 
Fijian arts—if not Fijian ideas—rather than replace these by their own arts; and 
before the struggle, both physical and cultural, between the two sets of ‘ savages’ 
had gone far it was interrupted, and more or less definitely arrested, by the 
arrival and gradual settlement of the still more powerful, because civilised, white 
folk from the Western world. 
In turning to the earlier (Melanesian) occupants of Fiji, and especially to 
the less advanced of these, to find the traces of which we are in search of the 
more primitive habit of thought, it must not be forgotten that even at the stage 
at which we begin to know about them they had made considerable advance, in 
their ideas as well as in their arts and crafts. They still used their most 
primitive form of club, but also made others of much more elaborated form; so, 
though the ideas which lay at the basis of their habit of thought were of very 
primitive kind, they had acquired others of more complex character. 
Before going further may I say—and I sincerely hope that the suggestion will 
not be misunderstood—that in the difficult task of forming a clear conception of 
the fundamental stock of thought which must have guided the conduct of the more 
primitive folk we must constantly bear in mind the parallelism (I do not mean 
necessary identity of origin) between the thoughts of the earliest human folk and 
