Odd people

by Mayne Reid

Of the animal kingdom there is not much to be said. Of quadrupeds there is the usual paucity of species that is noticed everywhere throughout the Polynesian islands. Dogs and pigs are kept; the latter in considerable numbers, as the flesh forms an important article of food; but they are not indigenous to the Feegee group, though the period of their introduction is unknown. Two or three small rodents are the only quadrupeds yet known to be true natives of the soil. Reptiles are alike scarce in species,—though the turtle is common upon the coasts, and its fishery forms the regular occupation of a particular class of the inhabitants. The species of birds are more numerous, and there are parrots, peculiar to the islands, of rich and beautiful plumage.

But we are not allowed to dwell upon these subjects. Interesting as may be the zoology and botany of the Feegeean Archipelago, both sink into insignificance when brought into comparison with its ethnology,—the natural history of its human inhabitants;—a subject of deep, but alas! of a terribly painful interest. By inquiry into the condition and character of these people, we shall see how little they have deserved the favours which nature has so bounteously bestowed upon them.

In the portrait of the Feegeean you will expect something frightfully hideous,—knowing, as you already do, that he is an eater of human flesh,—a man of gigantic stature, swarthy skin, bloodshot eyes, gaunt, bony jaws, and terrific aspect. You will expect this man to be described as being naked,—or only with the skin of a wild beast upon his shoulders,—building no house, manufacturing no household or other utensils, and armed with a huge knotted club, which he is ever ready to use:—a man who dwells in a cavern, sleeps indifferently in the open air or under the shelter of a bush; in short, a true savage. That is the sort of creature you expect me to describe, and I confess that just such a physical aspect—just such a condition of personal hideousness—would be exactly in keeping with the moral deformity of the Feegeean. You would furthermore expect this savage to be almost devoid of intellectual power,—altogether wanting in moral sense,—without knowledge of right and wrong,—without knowledge of any kind,—without ideas. It seems but natural you should look for such characteristics in a cannibal.

The portrait I am about to paint will disappoint you. I do not regret it, since it enables me to bring forward another testimony that man in his original nature is not a being of such desperate wickedness. That simple and primitive state, which men glibly call savage, is not the condition favourable to cannibalism. I know that it is to such people that the habit is usually ascribed, but quite erroneously. The Andaman islander has been blamed with it simply becauses he chances to go naked, and looks, as he is, hungry and emaciated. The charge is proved false. The Bushman of South Africa has enjoyed a similar reputation. It also turns out to be a libel. The Carib long lived under the imputation, simply because he presented a fierce front to the Spanish tyrant, who would have enslaved him; and we have heard the same stigma cast upon a dozen other tribes, the lowest savages being usually selected; in other words, those whose condition appeared the most wretched. In such cases the accusation has ever been found, upon investigation, to be erroneous.

In the most primitive state in which man appears upon the earth, he is either without social organisation altogether, or if any do exist, it is either patriarchal of republican. Neither of these conditions is favourable to the development of vice,—much less the most horrible of all vices.

It will not do to quote the character of the Bushman, or certain other of the low tribes, to refute this statement. These are not men in their primitive state ascending upward, but a condition altogether the reverse. They are the decaying remnants of some corrupt civilisation, sinking back into the dust out of which they were created.

No—and I am happy to say it—man, as he originally came from the hands of the Creator, has no such horrid propensity as cannibalism. In his primitive state he has never been known to practise it,—except when the motives have been such as have equally tempted men professing the highest civilisation,—but this cannot be considered cannibalism. Where that exists in its true unmitigated form,—and unhappily it does so,—the early stages of social organisation must have been passed; the republican and patriarchal forms must both have given place to the absolute and monarchical. This condition of things is absolutely necessary, before man can obtain sufficient power to prey upon his fellow-man to the extent of eating him. There can be no “cannibal” without a “king.”

So far from the Feegeean cannibals being savages, according to the ordinary acceptation of the term, they are in reality the very reverse. If we adhere to the usual meaning of the word civilisation, understanding by it a people possessing an intelligent knowledge of arts, living in well-built houses, fabricating fine goods, tilling their lands in a scientific and successful manner, practising the little politenesses and accomplishments of social life,—if these be the criteria of civilisation, then it is no more than the truth to say that the standard possessed by the Feegee islanders is incomparably above that of the lower orders of most European nations.

It is startling to reflect—startling as sad—that a people possessed of such intellectual power, and who have ever exercised it to a wonderful extent, in arts, manufactures, and even in the accomplishing of their own persons, should at the same time exhibit moral traits of such an opposite character. An atrocious cruelty,—an instinct for oppression, brutal and ferocious,—a heart pitiless as that of the fiend himself,—a hand ever ready to strike the murderous blow, even though the victim be a brother,—lips that lie in every word they speak,—a tongue ever bent on barbaric boasting,—a bosom that beats only with sentiments of treachery and abject cowardice,—these are the revolting characteristics of the Feegeean. Dark as is his skin, his soul is many shades darker.

It is time, however, to descend to a more particular delineation of this man-eating monster; and first, we shall give a description of his personal appearance.