Because of the loneliness and inaccessibility of the place, the Savage Islanders have always been different from the rest of the Pacific. The typical “Kanaka” is straight-haired, light brown in colour, mild and gentle and generous in disposition, ready to welcome strangers and feast them hospitably. He is aristocratic to the backbone in his ideas, and almost always has a native class of nobles and princes, culminating in a hereditary king.
The Savage Islander is often frizzy-haired, and generally a darkish brown in colour. His manners are rather brusque, and he gives nothing without obtaining a heavy price for it. He has no chiefs, nobles, or princes, and does not want any. There is always a head of the State, who enjoys a certain amount of mild dignity, and may be called the King for want of a better name. The office is not hereditary, however, the monarch being elected by the natives who form the island Parliament. Meetings of this Parliament are held at irregular intervals; and the King, together with the British Resident Commissioner, takes an important part in the debates.
These are very formal affairs. The brown M.P.s who live, each in his own village, in the utmost simplicity of manners and attire, dress themselves up for the day in full suits of European clothing, very heavy and hot, instead of the light and comfortable cotton kilt they generally wear. They travel into Alofi and join the local members on the green before the public hall—generally used as a school-house. King Tongia joins them, the British Resident comes also, and for hour after hour, inside the great, cool hall, with its matted floor and many open window-embrasures, the talk goes on. This road is to be made, that banyan tree is to be removed, regulation pigsties are to be built in such a village, petitions are to be sent up to New Zealand about the tax on tobacco—and so on, and so on. The king is a tough old man; he has his say on most questions, and it is not considered generally good for health or business to oppose him too much; but of royal dignity he has, and asks for, none.
There is something quite American in the history of Tongia’s elevation, some seven years ago. He had acted as Prime Minister to the late head of the State; and when the latter died he calmly assumed the reins without going through the formality of an election. This was not the usual custom, and some of the members remonstrated. Tongia told them, however, that he was in the right, and meant to stay on. When the captain of a ship died on a voyage, did not his chief mate take over command? The cases were exactly parallel, to his mind. This argument pleased the members, who had most of them been to sea, and Tongia was allowed to retain his seat, the objectors calming themselves with the thought of the sovereign’s age—he was well over eighty at that time. “He is only the stump of a torch,” they said; “he will soon burn out.” But the stump is burning yet, and shows no symptoms of extinction. Tongia married a pretty young girl soon after his “election,” settled down in the royal palace—a whitewashed cottage with a palm-thatch roof—and seems likely to outlast many of his former opponents.
The powers of the king, limited as they are, have lessened since 1902, when New Zealand annexed Niué—a proceeding that had its humorous side, if one examines the map, for Niué is something like a thousand miles from Auckland. The Resident Commissioner who is responsible for the well-being of the island lives in a house much more like a palace than Tongia’s modest hut, and is in truth the real ruler of the place. His work, however, is not overpowering. He is supposed to be judge and lawgiver, among many other duties, but in Niué no one ever seems to do anything that requires punishment. There is nothing in the shape of a prison, if any one did. Innocent little crimes, such as chicken stealing with extenuating circumstances, or allowing pigs to trespass into somebody’s garden, occasionally blot the fair pages of the island records, but a little weeding, or a day’s work on the road is considered sufficient punishment for these. At the time of my stay, which lasted nearly two months, such a wave of goodness seemed to be passing over the island that the Resident complained he could not find enough crime in the place to keep his garden weeded, and declared that he really wished somebody would do something, and do it quick, or all his imported flowers would be spoiled! Since the forties, missionaries have been busy in Savage Island, and there is no doubt that they have done their work effectively. The early traders, who arrived near the same time, also helped considerably in the civilisation of the natives. Drink has never been a trouble on Niué, and at the present date, no native ever tastes it, and strict regulations govern importation by the whites, for their own use. The natives are healthy, although European diseases are by no means unknown. Skin diseases are so troublesome that many of the traders wash the money they get from the bush towns, before handling, and the new-comer’s first days in the island are sure to be harassed by the difficulties of avoiding miscellaneous hand-shaking. Knowing what one knows about the prevalence of skin-troubles, one does not care to run risks; but the Niuéan, like all islanders, has unfortunately learned the habit of continual hand-shaking from his earliest teachers, and is never likely to unlearn it. So the visitor who does not want to encounter disappointed faces and puzzled inquiries, looks out old gloves to go a-walking with, and burns them, once he or she is settled in the place, and no longer a novelty.
There are manners in Niué—of a sort. “Fanagé fei!” is the greeting to any one met on the road, and it must not be left out, or the Savage Islanders will say you have no manners. It means, “Where are you going?” and it is not at all an empty inquiry, for you must mention the name of your destination in reply, and then repeat the inquiry on your own account, and listen for the answer. Riding across the island day by day, I used to pass in a perfect whirlwind of “Where-are-you-goings?” callings out hastily, as the horse cantered over the grassy road, “Avatele,” or “Mutelau,” (names of villages) or “Misi Nicolasi” (Mrs. Nicholas, a trader’s wife), and adding as I passed on: “Fanagé fei?” to the man or woman who had greeted me. There was generally a long story in reply, but I fear I was usually out of hearing before it was ended. My manners, out riding, must have struck Niué as decidedly vulgar.
It was during the first few days of my stay that I attained a distinction that I had never hoped to see, and that I am not at all likely to see again. I was made a headline; in a copybook! If that is not fame, what is?
The native school-teacher—a brown, black-eyed and bearded man of middle age and dignified presence—had called at my house shortly after my arrival, to display his English and his importance, and welcome the stranger. He wanted, among a great many other things, to know what my name was, and how it was spelt. I wrote it down for him, and he carried it away, studying it the while. Next day, the copies set in the principal school for the youth of Niué consisted of my name in full, heading the following legend: “While this lady is in Niué, we must all be very good.” Evidently a case of “Après moi le déluge!”
Sitting on a box in my cool little shady house of a morning, writing on my knee, with the whisper of the palms about the door, and the empty changeless blue sea lying below, I used to receive visitor after visitor, calling on different errands—some to sit on the verandah and look at me in silence; some to come in, squat on the floor, and discourse fluently for half an hour in a language I did not understand (they never seemed distressed by the absence of replies); some to sell curios; some to give dinners!
You give dinners in Niué in a strictly literal sense. Instead of bringing the guest to the dinner, you take the dinner to the guests and then wait to see it eaten. It generally consists of a baked fish wrapped in leaves, several lumps of yam, hot and moist, and as heavy as iron, a pudding made of mashed pumpkin and breadfruit, another made of bananas, sugarcane, and cocoanut, some arrowroot boiled to jelly, and the inevitable taro top and cocoanut cream—about which I must confess I was rather greedy. The rest of the dinner I used to accept politely, as it was set out on the floor, eat a morsel or two here and there, and afterwards hand over the remainder to Kuru and his wife, who were always ready to dispose of it. At the beginning, I used to offer gifts in return, which were always refused. Then, acting on the advice of old residents, I reserved the gift for a day or two, and presented it at the first suitable opportunity. It was always readily accepted, when offered after this fashion, and thus I learned one more lesson as to island etiquette.