SAVAGE CIVILISATION WOMAN AND CHILD OF THE NORTHERN NEW HEBRIDES SAVAGE CIVILISATION by TOM HARRISSON LONDON VICTOR GOLLANCZ LTD 1937 FirstpublishedJanuaryigsy SecondimpressionApril1937 PrintedinGreatBritainby TheCamelotPressLtd.,LondonandSouthampton SEESAW Ineverytropiclandthepoorestpeoplearealwaystheinhabitants. ALDOUS HUXLEY There can be little doubt that the importancewhich I thus claim for Oceania, and especially for Melanesia, as providing a basis for the analysis ofhuman culture over a vast part ofthe earth’s surface is the direct result of its insular character. It is only through the isolation due to this character that there have been preserved, often apparently in a wonderfully pure form, samples of cultures which have contributed to the building of some, perhaps all, ofthe great historical civilisationsofthe earth. W. H. R. RIVERS Beagoodboy, now. Ifyouarenaughty, lookout ... forthewhite man willgetyou ! Mothers' Saying in New Hebrides Doris: You’ll carry me off? To a cannibal isle? Sweeney: Til be the cannibal. Doris: I’ll be the missionary. I’ll convert you ! Sweeney: I’ll convert you ! Into a stew. Into a nice little, white little, missionary stew. T. S. ELIOT Cannibal. In sixteenth century plural Canibales, adopted from Spanish, a form ofCaribes, a nation ofthe West Indies, who were anthropophagi, Caribe signifies “ brave and daring.” OxfordDictionary Every culture rises and falls. The reason is that in every culture, as we can observe for example in our own, completely opposed principles, the principle of barbarism and the principle of civilisation are developed and evolved at the same time. OUSPENSKY If we are indifferent to the art of dancing, we have failed to understand . . . thesupremesymbol ofspiritual life. HAVELOCK ELLIS Youmusthaveachaosinsideyoutogiverisetoadancingstar. NIETZSCHE Proceeding therefore to moreinland places, I saw a secret place, where there were not many, beside Lucifer himselfe; to which, onely they had title, which had so attempted any inovation in this life, that they gave an affront to all antiquitie, and induced doubts, and anxieties, and scruples, and after, a libertie of beleeving what they would; at length established opinions, directly contrary to all established before. Of which place in Hell, Lucifer affoarded us heretofore some little knowledge, when more than 200 years since, in an Epistlewritten to the CardinallS. Sexti, hee promised him a roome in hispalace, in the remotestpart of hiseternallChaos, which I take to bee this place. DONNE I hope, nevertheless, that we shall arrive somewhere. ... I am not addicted to the dilettantism ofchaos. The world, no doubt, atanygivenmomentofits existence,isanything you like to call it. But it is out ofthis aimless dispersion, out ofall these zigzagging efforts, outofall thisdisorderlygrowth, thattheideal ofanepoch ends by disentangling itself. JULES ROMAINS ButbecauseonedoesnotwanttofollowWestern thoughtinto this dilemma, one none the less recognises the value of its achieve- ments. One would not have the world discount them and retrogress in terror to a primitive state. It is simply that one recoils from the Western intellectual’s idea that, having got him- selfon to this peakoverhanging an abyss, he should want to drag all other people ... on pain of being dubbed inferior if they refuse ... up afterhiminto thesameprecarious position. That,inasentence, ismycaseagainst Westernvalues. PAUL ROBESON Slowly but painfully we are beginning to learn that when even themostlaudable ofidealsdepartstoowidely from the discipline of reality thinking, it can be just as dangerous as the inflated ideas of the possessed. For, despite his self-satisfaction, the undisciplined idealist is a heavy liability, not an asset, to society. Yet, even ifwewould, we cannot dispensewith these ideals. The task ofcivilisation is to make our day-dreams correspond more closelywith the capacities ofman. GLOVER Roses round the door, Babies on the floor. Who could ask for more in Sleepy Valley? Jazz tune JIGSAW At the end of19321waswanderingaroundapproximately in the middle ofBorneo, when I got a much black-handed letter saying would I (as biologist) go with the Oxford University Expedition to the New Hebrides islands in the western Pacific, in the following year. I was on thatjob in July 1933. After the official end of the expedition in early 1934, I stayed on, until I had spent my fare home; so I ‘‘ went native ” and lived mostly among people who were still eating each other. Then, curiously, I became a civil servant, finally a film star; all within the New Hebrides. Hollywood bound, November 1935, a millionaire shot a peregrine falcon. I spent the first halfof 1936 studying the vast literature ofthis subject. In writing about it I have had in mind [a) the goodness of D. B. Kittermaster, {b) the obstinacy of Thomas Manning and Reynold Bray, who have insisted on going for four years with Smitch to the Magnetic Pole and (I hope) back; they wander the endless snow and ice. I thank my friend OLIVER BELL for frequent criticism and valuable help; also Lindsay Macmillan of the New Hebrides, John Layard (for unpublished notes and a song translation, page 69), and Frank Stimson of Tahiti (for Polynesian chant translations and ideas). Others who have helped me are mentioned in the text. The Cambridge Ethnological Museum (through Dr. A. C. Haddon and Dr. Louis Clarke), the Royal Geographical Society, the Hakluyt Society, the Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Pro- tection Society, Dr. Williams’ Library, the Melanesian and Presbyterian Missions, John G. Paton Fund, and