Origin of the Brown South Pacific Islander, II

Origin of the Brown South Pacific Islander

BY JOHN Q. ADAMS

In Two Parts —Part II [The author is thirty-three years of age, and spent forty-two months, beginning in 1907, as a missionary on the South Pacific islands, principally in Samoa. He was edu- cated in the state schools and in the University of Utah, in which latter institution he studied for two years. As branch and mission secretary, conference president, general supervisor of the Mapusaga school, the largest Latter-day Saint institution of learning in the islands, and as director of a 360-acre cocoanut plantation, he had ample oppor- tunities to get a varied experience, and to learn the ins and outs of native life. Shoot- ing the breakers surrounding the islands, in row boats; raising cocoanuts, rounding up Church cattle in the forests, and swinging pick and shovel in building heavy-grade roads, were divisions of his ticklish tasks and strenuous labor in his Samoan career, in addition to teaching -the gospel to the natives. He is a ready writer, an extensive reader, a careful observer and thinker, and is, therefore, well prepared to discuss the question under consideration as well as any subject relating to the islands. Editors.]

In the preceding article we rested our case of establishing the identity of the brown islander of the South Pacific with the simple narration of a series of facts which tended to show that the inhab-

THE MAORI AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE MILITARY BAND Which made an extensive tour of the dominion during December, 1914, and January, 1915. (See note at end of article.)

itants of various groups of islands of that quarter of the globe un- doubtedly originated on the American continent, at the time the Nephites and Lamanites were alternately at the helm of history. This one fact is quite sufficient to connect them up with an Israel- itish origin, for no doubt exists as to the identity of the offspring

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of Father Lehi. The declaration, then, of "Indian Islander," must be fortified with an array of all available facts to stand. Bearing in mind Hagoth and his very plausible sea-faring link of evidence, let us proceed to reinforce our premise First, there looms up the confronting task of establishing the common origin of the language in which the various groups of brown islanders converse. With a map before us, beginning at the Hawaiian, or Sandwich Islands, let us trace a line to Tahiti, two thousand miles distant. From there, ex- tend the course to Samoa, a direct jump of one thousand miles more, and a little further on, in a southerly sweep of some three hundred miles, take in the Tongan group. From there strike out direct for New Zealand, the land of the Maori, dis- tant one thousand five hundred miles, and as the great enclosing bar of this immense geographical pasture wherein browses some of Israel's choicest blood-line, mark the three thousand mile line back to Hon- olulu from Auckland. These five groups comprise the more important aggrega- tions of differing languages, although within the circumscribing irregular line are here and there island dots on which HAWAIIAN GIRL OF cling brown peoples of still different INDIAN FEATURES consfues. No one language is intelligible to any other group, and yet let us here and now strike directly at the heart of the question by making the broad as- sertion that all have developed from one parent root, assuming the aspects and proportions of separate and dis- tinct languages, because of no written record having been perpetuated, which inevitably means changing to an en- tirely new form. Below, at a glance, may be noted '

the strong analogy which the five named island nations bear to each other in the way of speech. But a few widely varying words were se- lected at random from a list which could be multiplied vastly. Without further comment, it speaks for itself, MAORI GIRL WHO MIGHT NATURALLY IMPERSON- the only difference being in a letter ATE POCAHONTAS or so:

536 IMPROVEMENT ERA English God the us man thing his Hawaiian Akua ke makou kanaka mea kana Samoan Atua le matou tagata mea lana Tongan Otua he oku tagata me'a hono Maori Atua te matou tangata mea tona Tahitian Atua te matou ta'ata mea ona

Tahiti and Samoa in particular have both unconsciously gone far towards specifying the direction whence came the first man to their shores when they say that the first landing was to the east of the group from the way the sun first appears. In Samoa, according to tradition of the dim and misty bygone ages, Manua, the eastern island of the group, first saw the advent of man. Is it an unimportant incident, unworthy of credence, that the isl- ander, in his only method of transferring the records of the past, unwittingly gives a Jewish boost to his ancestry when he says that from the. direction of the Americas came his forbears ? Ver- ily, tradition must be accorded a place*

It might be well now to point out the fallacy of holding to the untenable theory that brown and black are akin, as met up with in the South Seas, this idea being prevalent among some eth- nologists. Often has the writer beheld the wiry, ebony-hued Sol- omon Islanders, as they busied themselves in some of the exten- sive German cocoanut plantations of German Samoa, or as they appeared in their diminutive domiciles. In fact, close observa- tion of their every characteristic, as revealed in act, physique or ideal, fails to promote them into the class of their brown contem- poraries. Inferior in every way, that inferiority can be best em- phasized by taking them in their native haunts a few hundred miles from Australia. As yet a century of Christianity has failed, utterly failed, to even eradicate their racial propensity for canni- balistic rites. Only five years since, while the writer was treading in absolute security the isles of the brown Samoan, a couple of less fortunate representatives of another denomination met a horrible end in the Solomons, to the southwest, their bones, picked clean, telling vividly of their fate. Not this case alone, but others, unite in overwhelmingly controverting any theory of close relationship with a more light and enlightened division of the human race. In bright contrast we shall quite appropriately make much of the fact right here that Christianity has had a far easier field in brown than in black spheres. In all the 33,000 inhabitants of Samoa, for example, an atheist or even a person tending that way, has yet to be encountered at the present time, and this despite the fact that just one generation back they were as foreign to Chris- tianity as could well be, its advent occurring in the year 1830. Within the short span of eighty-four years since, the light of truth has penetrated every soul, and we have there what no white

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country of culture and centuries of gospel contact can ever lay — claim to throughout all time a nation without a disbeliever in God. Wonderful, isn't it? And yet account for it in any other way than that they have heard the "old, old story, ever new," known once to their forefathers, which has now succeeded in striking a responsive chord, long in dis- use. This one fact is of tremendous weight in giving them a place in Is- rael's royal blood-line. A striking picture is it to behold one of nature's freaks in the form of a — brown man made white the tetea of the Samoan and the albino of the In- dian. There are several such in that group, and classic, indeed, does the pro- file become when the miraculous of na-

ture steps in and covers an otherwise native body with dazzling white skin with accompanying light eyes and hair. \n such cases the tendency is towards a distinct type, not of the slant-eyed Mon- golian, nor the slant-headed Ethiopian, but towards the classic in physiog- nomy. Forceful and convincing is such a transformation, and the observer can read for himself therein the history of a preceding age as it is there depicted in startling simplicity, Of the Hebrew race it can be said that their racial characteristics and cus- toms have remained as firmly stamped upon each generation as upon its pre- decessor, reaching thus into the bygone SAMOAN GIRL ages when they played a more major Who unconsciously portrays the part in world affairs. Take the rite of direct relationship with her In- circumcision for an example, and a dian sister of this hemisphere.

Hebrew of today, tomorrow or yester- day would be found designating his nationality in the undeviating -

performance of it. In adhering closely to this practice the isl- ander unknowingly betrays himself racially. Where else could he or did he inherit the idea of circumcision? To revert once more to the close relationship of the brown races of the seas with those of the continent, we may take either in their council house or lodge and find their course there dupli- cated in the council circle of the other. We are familiar with the trait of character invariably exhibited by the Indian in the tribal councils of the past. Cooper, in his delightful and accurate vol-

538 IMPROVEMENT ERA umes on aboriginal life in America a century and a half ago, lays much stress upon the peculiar, almost weird form of eloquence that apparently was the birthright of the Redman. In his coun- cils, deliberate and crafty as exigencies demanded, he could arise in his turn in the wild, flickering, ember-gJow of the lodge-fire and, with glittering eye and forceful gesture, coupled with biting, straight-to-the-point phraseology, sway his silent, attentive hearers with the magic of his eloquence. Civilization, with all its polished oratory, fails to equal the sort of outbursts above referred to. The writer has sat in the councils of the islander when it became a dif- ficult matter to force upon the mind the conviction that he was not back in some Delaware or Mingo wickiup in the heyday of Coop- er's depicting. Such stinging and comprehensive words of sar- casm and warning, of rebuke and reproof, of admonition and pleading, could never find expression in the vocabulary of the most fervid white orator. And so again we say that the two brown branches are of the same family tree. In a limited way mention might be made in passing of the curious customs of decorating the body, both by intricate tattooing and adornments of varying sorts, of dancing and drinking, image- worshiping, etc., which each has preserved, but these are of minor importance, and their value is rather incidentally corroborative than otherwise, as other races do likewise. In conclusion, we shall deal with the question that might arise regarding just how this brown type of Israel spread through such an extensive area of the South Pacific. Bear in mind, to begin with, the part played by winds and ocean currents when navigation ways are crude, and then let us pay the island of Upolu (Samoa) a flying visit. There, just on the outskirts of Apia, its chief sea- port, is an aboriginal curio that commands instant attention, and serves us a useful purpose at this particular stage of our discus- sion. A sheltering roof covers it in its now obsolete station on the beach, where it is to be preserved by the government. It is nothing more nor less than a huge war canoe of olden type, in which past generations sailed forth to battle in primitive naval en- counter with like adversaries. Massive it is, for the time and method of construction, and valuable is its tale spoken out from the numerous engravings on its surface. Of perhaps eighty feet in length and ten feet in width, and of sufficient hold capacity to ad- mit of a person standing upright beneath its rude deck, it consists of two such canoes fastened together securely, each of the dimen- sions given above. It is or was a craft that could scarcely cap- size nor sink, and on which perhaps 200 dusky warriors could find quarters. The timbers were doubtless shaped by aid of the prevalent stone ax of the time, and while rude, are perfectly joined together throughout, forming a hull as thoroughly impervious to water as the modern steel ribbed and plated ship. With sail

THE BROWN SOUTH PACIFIC ISLANDER 539

set and manned by swarthy warriors, it must have presented an extremely picturesque appearance, albeit a formidable one for its time and place. The Maoris and other groups also had them. On such a craft the bosom of the naturally restful Pacific Ocean would have afforded at least equal security to the pigmy caravels of an adventurous Columbus on a more restive Atlantic. And so we account for the planting of humanity on different island groups, not knowing which particular group first saw it. In the face of all this, are we not justified in ascribing to the brown islander of the south seas the distinction of having for a parent root, Father Lehi of Jerusalem? RIVERSIDE, UTAH

[Note: The tour of the military band was arranged with a three- fold idea, namely, that we might attend two Church conferences, one in Thames, and the other in Bay of Islands; to aid, if possible, in the great movement to alleviate the sufferings of the unfortunate Belgians; and lastly, to allow our boys to show their folks at home just what they were accomplishing. The tour was very successful and enjoyable to the members of the company, and to those who were visited. As in most other things attempted by our unpopular people, we were at times heavily opposed by the sectarian ministry, but such happenings only added spice to our trip and conduced to better work. We en- joyed good health during the tour, and with the help of the Lord we opened up the path for a great labor among the Maoris and Europeans. Brother Walter Smith, who had developed the band from practically raw material with one season's labor, is deserving of great credit. Prayer and push can accomplish wonders when directed by a compe- tent man." — S. J. Ottley, Hastings, New Zealand.]

ST. JOSEPH, ARIZONA, M. I. A. LEADERSHIP CLASS