The Fijians: A Study of the Decay of CustomThomson, Basil
History
The Fijians: A Study of the Decay of Custom
Thomson, Basil
Ethnology -- Fiji; Fijians
With the introduction of Christianity there came a change. Sexual
licence, formerly prevented, was now only forbidden. The missionaries'
endeavours to inculcate "family life" on the English plan produced a
surprising result. The _mbure-ni-sa_ was gradually deserted by all but
the old men; the youths went to sleep in their parents' houses, and,
when once the novel idea of unmarried men sleeping in the same house
with women had been digested, the other houses of the village were open
to them. Association of the sexes and emancipation from parental control
did the rest. There were other changes. Education begat in the young a
contempt for the opinions of their elders. Against the precepts of the
old men, who had formerly controlled every detail of the village life,
there were the opposing teachings of the missionary and the trader, both
startling the young with echoes of a wider world than their own. While
the elders stayed at home, the young made voyages to the European
settlements of Suva and Levuka and tasted vice with the loafers on the
beach; they served three years with the constabulary and the police, or
worked a year on the plantations, revelling in their new-found freedom,
aping the manners of half-castes and white men who talked evil of
dignities, and would pass the highest chiefs, even the governor of the
colony, without doffing their turbans. Their favourite topic of
conversation is their amours, and they have the Gallic indifference to
the good fame of the women who have yielded to them. Illicit relations
extend far beyond the limits of the village. When young men are together
in a strange village some one exclaims, "_Me-nda-kari_" (_lit._, "Let us
rasp," _i.e._ shape to our will by repeated solicitation); and the
inferiors in rank will immediately constitute themselves procurers to
their chief--a _rôle_ which suggests no taint of infamy in their minds.
Sometimes they work through an old woman, sometimes through a young man
of the place who is dazzled by the notice taken of him by such
distinguished guests. The women are beguiled to the trysting-place, and
yield rather from feebleness of will than from appetite for vice. It is
this frailty of will that makes it difficult to believe in the charges
of rape that are frequently tried in the courts. The Fijian woman seems
rarely to yield willingly to any but her chosen lover. She is, moreover,
so muscular that any real and sustained resistance would prevail against
violence, but whether from her habit of obedience or some psychological
reaction of the sexual instinct, she cannot resist ardent solicitation.
"He took me by the hand," a girl exclaimed to the court, when asked why
she did not cry out, as if the accusation of violence was by no means
weakened. If a woman cannot be brought to a tryst her lover resorts to
_vei-ndaravi_ (_lit._, crawling); that is to say, he will crawl into the
house where she is sleeping with her companions and lie down beside her
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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