One night we arranged for a meeting of the "classes." We promised the Samoans a good collection if they would come and dance for us on deck. We invited the first-class folk to come, too. They stood as far to one side of us as was consonant with first-class dignity represented by an extra few pounds sterling in the price of the ticket. But for a moment we forgot that there were class and race in the world.
It was not one of those interminable revelries one reads about, that begin with twilight and end with twilight. On the contrary, it was a little squall of entertainment, one that breaks out of a clear sky and leaves the sky just as clear in a trice. There was no occasion for self-expression here. They had been asked to dance for our entertainment, not for theirs. There we stood, ready to applaud; there they were, ready to be applauded, to receive the collection promised. It was another little thing they had picked up in our world, from our civilization,—the commercialization of art. Our artists, scribes, and entertainers have been considerably raised above prostitution of their talents by a certain commercialization, by the translation of their worth in dollars and cents; and we need a little more of it to free art from bondage to patronage. But in the tropics, where the dance and jollity are no private matters, there is something sterile in commercialization. No doubt to the natives there is little difference between a woman giving herself for gain and a man dancing for the money there is in it without the whole group becoming part of the performance: the dancer feels that his purchaser, his public, is cold and unresponsive. And so it seemed to me at this dance. They finished, they expected their money, they got it and departed, and there seemed something immoral to me in the exploitation of their emotions.
What a different lot they were one night when I visited the little house they rented in Suva while waiting for the Atua to arrive from New Zealand and take them on to Samoa. There it was song and dance out of sheer ecstasy: life was so full. They were again in their home atmosphere, and their voices only helped swell the volume of song which issued forth everywhere about,—an electrification of humanity all along the line, in village after village.
They hung about the pier before sailing for Samoa till after midnight, singing sentimental songs and hobnobbing with the Fijians. The Fijian constable joined them with a flute, and the lot of them tried to drown out the voices of the natives loading and unloading cargo. Not until notice was given that the ship was about to get under steam did they think of going aboard. They looked as though ready for rest, but by no means dissipated, by no means weary. The spell of song was still upon them.
When we woke next morning, we were tied up to a pier at the foot of the hills of Levuka. But I have already dwelt upon the features of this former capital, and am only concerned with it here as it was reflected in the eyes of the Samoans. Levuka to me was one thing; to them it was quite another. The moldy little stores afforded them more interest than the village to the left, or the shipyards to the right which were to my Western notions commendable.
I followed in the wake of these gliding natives as we left the steamer. They looked neither to the right nor to the left, but wended their ways, like cattle in the pasture, straight toward the shops. Into one and out the other they went, bargaining, pricing, buying little trinkets and simple cloths, chatting with the Fijians as though friends of old.
Setu's sweetheart and the pretty mother of the young American citizen, who was left in the care of the fat "chaperon," set off by themselves through the one and only street of Levuka. It was obvious that they were quite aware of whither they were going,—so direct was their journey. My curiosity was roused and I wandered along with them. They said never a word to me, nor objected to my presence. We turned to the left, off into a side street that began to insinuate its way along the bed of a stream lined with wooden huts and shacks. Some of these were fairly well constructed, with verandas, like the houses of a miniature American town, garlanded in flowers. Just above the village, where the stream began to emerge from behind a rocky little gorge, the two women turned in at a gate to a private cottage. A bridge led across the stream to the little house, the veranda of which extended slightly over the stream. Beneath, in a corner formed by a projecting boulder, lay a quiet little pool of water—clear, cool, fresh and deep.
Without asking permission from the owners, the women began slowly, cautiously to wade into the pool. Seeing that I had no thought of going, they put modesty aside, slipped the loose garments down to their waists and immersed themselves up to their necks. One of them was tattooed from below her breasts to her hips; the other's breasts alone bore these designs. They dipped and rose, splashed and spluttered, but there was none of that intimacy with their own flesh which is the essence of cleanliness and passion in our world. There was no soap, no scrubbing. It was something objective, almost, a contact with nature like looking at a landscape or listening to a storm.
Presently some of the inmates of the cottage, evidently well-to-do Fijians, came out to greet them. I could not tell whether they were friends or not, but the women were invited in,—and I turned into town through back roads and alleys that were just like the back roads and alleys anywhere in the world.
That afternoon we steamed out again for Apia, Samoa. The sea was disturbed somewhat and gave us various sensations; but the vile odors that threatened my nautical pride never changed.