After this, of course, we had to go through our repertoire, at the end of which an escort appeared to take the marvellous apparatus home. The grateful audience surpassed by smothering it with wrappings of all kinds. They would rather have died than allow such angelic voices to run the risk of catching cold.
Another explanation of their tastes in music is the love of exaggeration in any and every form which seems to sway the savage. The sound that pleases him must be explosive. A colour must be brilliant, an outline striking or grotesque. The more we examined examples of their decorative art, a branch of activity for which the Moï display real aptitude, the more we realized their over-emphasis of the dominant lines. Another characteristic, common among all races with a low standard of culture, is their repugnance to leave bare places in a scheme of decoration. There are no such things as contrast, foil, or background. Each part of the design has as much importance as any other. If they decorate a room, for example, they do not leave the smallest space without treatment of some kind. It follows from this that the Moï, as critic, is concerned solely with details and has no thought of the inward meaning or larger significance of a composition.
I frequently demonstrated the truth of this observation by the following experiment. When I visited a new group I used to make a bid for popular favour by a generous distribution of tobacco to the few children who overcame their alarm at my beard and strange costume. Thus encouraged, they soon flocked round when I drew out my pocket stereoscope and a box of slides consisting of photographs of children of the neighbouring tribes, taken at a moment when these restless rascals were still. The astonished exclamations of my juvenile audience soon brought their mothers, grandfathers, and even some of the less shy sisters on the scene. The men, of course, were either out hunting or busy with a siesta which must on no account be interrupted. A circle was formed round me and every one had a look in turn.
"What a big nose!" said number one. "There's the red mark of betel on his mouth," he continued. "Look at the lovely white ring in his ear! Why, it's a whole head! I believe it's 'Little Buffalo' who came here with his father for the last harvest!"
He was right. It was indeed "Little Buffalo," whose resemblance was thus not established before our savage had examined every detail of his face.
Shouts of laughter greeted the discovery and it was plain that they all really thought "Little Buffalo" was there in the flesh. They all put out their hands to feel him, and great was the amazement when they only touched the back of the card. My box of slides soon acquired a baneful reputation as the abode of Spirits.
