498 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XL. No. 1032 



Polynesian invaders. The former, not only 

 in the mountain fastnesses difficult of ac- 

 cess, but also in such of the islets as the 

 local wind and weather conditions made 

 difficult of access, retained their own dis- 

 tinct 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 im- 

 posed mueh of their own more elaborate 

 (but still "savage") culture on such of the 

 Melanesians' communities as they had 

 there subjugated and absorbed. 



The social organization 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-Mela- 

 nesian communities — as was natural when 

 there had been intermingling of two un- 

 equally 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 aU 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 qual- 

 ity, in their islands than elsewhere. Mean- 

 while the Polynesians, in their earlier 

 homes and long before they reached Fiji, 



had developed, in very high degree, corre- 

 sponding but different and much more elab- 

 orate arts (and ideas) of their own. But, 

 as we know from Captain Cook, the Poly- 

 nesians, despite their own higher culture, 

 from their Tongan homes, greatly admired 

 and appreciated the special craftsmanship 

 of the Fijians, and it was indeed this ad- 

 miration which attracted the former from 

 Tonga to Fiji; and when the Polynesians 

 had gained footing in the Fijis they — quite 

 in accordance 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 "sav- 

 ages" had gone far it was interrupted, and 

 more or less definitely arrested, by the ar- 

 rival and gradual settlement of the still 

 more powerful, because civilized, white folk 

 from the western Avorld. 



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 primi- 

 tive habit of thought, it must not be for- 

 gotten 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 funda- 

 mental 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 iden- 



