[328] Darmesteter, ‘Introduction’ to the Zend-Avesta, in Sacred Books of the East, iv. p. lxxx.
CHAPTER XXIV
HOSPITALITY
WE have seen that in early society regard for the life and physical well-being of a fellow-creature is, generally speaking, restricted to members of the social unit, whereas foreigners are subject to a very different treatment. But to this rule there are remarkable exceptions. Side by side with gross indifference or positive hatred to strangers we find, among the lower races, instances of great kindness displayed even towards persons of a foreign race. The Veddahs are ready to help any stranger in distress who asks for their assistance, and Sinhalese fugitives who have sought refuge in their wilds have always been kindly received.[1] Mr. Moffat was deeply affected by the sympathy which some poor Bushmans showed to him during an illness, although he was an utter stranger to them. Speaking of the mutual affection which the Andaman Islanders display in their social relations, Mr. Man adds that, “in their dealings with strangers, the same characteristic is observable when once a good understanding has been established.”[2] We have also to remember the friendly manner in which the aborigines in various parts of the savage world behaved to the earliest European visitors. Nothing could be more courteous than the reception which Cook and his party met with in New Caledonia, where the natives guided and accompanied them on their excursions. Forster says of the Society Islanders, “We should indeed be ungrateful if we did not acknowledge the kindness with which they always treated us.”[3] De Clerque observes with reference to the Papuans on the north coast of New Guinea:—“The inhabitants seemed always ready to help…. On our visit to the village all the male and female inhabitants with their children flocked around me, and offered me cocoanuts and sugar-cane; which, for the first contact with Europeans, is certainly remarkable.”[4] On the arrival of white people in various parts of Australia, the natives were not only inoffensive, but disposed to meet them on terms of amity and kindness.[5] “In a short intercourse,” says Eyre, “they are easily made friends…. On many occasions where I have met these wanderers in the wild, far removed from the abodes of civilisation, and when I have been accompanied only by a single native boy, I have been received by them in the kindest and most friendly manner, had presents made to me of fish, kangaroo, or fruit, had them accompany me for miles to point out where water was to be procured, and been assisted by them in getting at it.”[6] Nor must we forget the kind reception which Australian Blacks have given to men cast upon their mercy,[7] and the tenderness with which the natives of Cooper’s Creek wept for the death of Burke and Wills, and comforted King, the survivor.[8] Unfortunately, native races have often received anything but favourable impressions from their earliest interviews with Europeans; and both in Australia and elsewhere prolonged intercourse with white people has, in many instances, induced them to change their friendly behaviour into unkindness or hostility. The Canadian traders, for instance, when they first appeared among the Beaver and Rocky Mountain Indians, were treated by these people with the utmost hospitality and attention; but by their subsequent conduct they taught the natives to withdraw their respect, and sometimes to treat them with indignity.[9] Harmon writes, “I have always experienced the greatest hospitality and kindness among those Indians who have had the least intercourse with white people.”[10] Many facts seem to verify the statement made by a missionary who speaks from forty years’ experience among the natives of New Guinea and Polynesia, that our conduct towards savages determines their conduct towards us.[11]
[1] Sarasin, Ergebnisse naturwissenschaftlicher Forschungen auf Ceylon, iii. 544.
[2] Man, ‘Aboriginal Inhabitants of the Andaman Islands,’ in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xii. 93.
[3] Forster, Voyage Round the World, ii. 157.
[4] De Clerque, in Glimpses of the Eastern Archipelago, p. 14.
[5] Breton, Excursions in New South Wales, p. 218. Curr, The Australian Race, i. 64. Salvado, Mémoires historiques sur l’Australie, p. 340. Ridley, Aborigines of Australia, p. 24. Eyre, Journals of Expeditions of Discovery into Central Australia, ii. 212, 382.
[6] Eyre, op. cit. ii. 211.