Problem Of Saving Primitive Races

Lessons Derived From Study of Culture-Contact In New Ireland.

TO anyone who is interested in prob lems of native administration in the Pacific —more particularly in the Aus tralian territories and the other parts of Melanesia —and the part that may be played by anthropological investigations and research in the solution of those problems and in native affairs generally, a careful perusal of the recent “Report on Field-work in New Ireland” of Mr.

William C. Groves, is heartily recom mended.

A copy of this work, in reprint form has just been received by the writer; it was published originally in “Oceania” for March of this year. The author spent a period of about 10 months, during 1932- 33, in the village of Fisoa and its en virons, his purpose being to study the results observable in the social organisa tion and native culture to-day of the im pact upon native life of European and other modifying influences and agencies.

The research work was not motivated by a purely academic interest. For, as the concluding section of the report shows, certain very practical recom mendations are made, based on the con clusions arrived at by the author. The data upon which these conclusions are based, as well as the method upon which the research work proceeded, are pre sented in summarized form, in the first portion of the report. Full acknowledge ment is made to residents and officials for help received.

STARTING with the assumption that the interests of the natives and those of European settlers are not incon sistent, and that in the all-embracing problem of reconciling these two sets of interests some form of native “educa tion” must play a large part, the report points out that — “The ultimate aim of the research pro posed under the Fellowship was to ar rive at some scientifically-established conclusions as to the place, nature and scope of education, conceived as an in strument of social adjustment, amongst the native people concerned. It was hoped that, as a result of such research, it might be possible to establish prin ciples valid in their relation to the par ticular group being studied, that might be found to have wider application in such territories and amongst such people as are represented in Melanesia to-day.

Discussing the problem of cultural re conciliation in general, the report pro ceeds: “Native institutions and primitive society imperatively demand preserva tion, while European commercial and in dustrial enterprises equally imperatively demand protection. While the native on his part has willingly adopted European ideas and materials, modifying his for mer culture-pattern to accord with the introduced ideas to such an extent that he has now become largely dependent for his livelihood on the existence of European enterprises and for his social stability on European governments and religious institutions, the European, on his part, finds economic development quite impossible except through the will ing agency of the native. Such, in bare skeleton, is a summary of the position to-day.”

WITH regard to the response of native people to the approach of the an thropologist (referred to as “the ethnographer”), the author points out how, with increasing use of the native vernacular (and he, perhaps too mod estly, disclaims any but a fragmentary knowledge of the language of Fisoa) “one finds oneself becoming more and more en rapport with the people, attun ing one's mind to their mental key, learning to appreciate something of the nature of the native and his outlook, and to understand the functioning and inter relation of the various aspects of his culture; in short, to see the way of his life.”

“The writer believes,” the report pro ceeds, “that the association of a Euro pean with ethnographic work amongst such people gives him a unique position in their minds, and one that, by the circumscribed nature of the work of each, is not possible to the government district official (associated in the native’s mind with courts and tax-gathering) or to the missionary.” Such a unique rela tion of understanding that begets mutual confidence, the author claims, is possible without any show of sentimentality on the part of the European concerned. It is certainly not inconsistent, with the maintenance of personal dignity and so called “white man’s prestige.”

The practical suggestion that arises from this fact is that any new social or educational enterprise to be instituted amongst such native people—whether vocational, craftwork, agricultural or or dinary schooling—can be fully successful only when its European agents (teachers, doctors, agriculture instructors, and such) have the necessary training in the principles of anthropology; that is, when the enterprise is placed under anthropo logical direction or subject in its early stages to anthropological guidance.

TO the ordinary man, the most interest ing section of the publication is that devoted to an outline of the history and effects of European cultural infiltration.

This section was built up by means of case-histories, lives and experiences of individual natives representing the old culture and the new.

Such types are met with as “bearded Balasam,” a friendly old fellow who once —long, long ago —ventured as far afield as Sydney, an event which he remembers vividly and which gave him facility in the use of such English touches as “Yu like some beer, Charley?”

“Cases” are given, too, of “disillu sioned” young adult males of the village, the group that is reacting most notice ably to the culture contact. “These have all grown to manhood under the in fluence of European contact. They ap pear to be living through a period of dis quiet, which expresses itself here in an attitude of patient questioning, there is one of complete inertia and fatalism—a ‘maski!’, shoulder-shrugging attitude that is not pleasing to meet.”

DISCUSSING the third group studied, the young folk, Mr. Groves remarks that “These children have been brought into contact from their earliest years with a form of life that is, in all its essentials, alien to the old primitive life. It is these children who present to the educationist (as to the practical an thropologist in native administration) his big problem; for soon it will be too late.”

“These children know little of, and care less for, things of yesterday; they look forward with characteristic childish faith and exuberance to to-morrow.

Theirs is the future: ours the moulding of that future.”

There follows, then—and this is to the scientific mind the most valuable part of the report—a detailed outline .of the nature of the changes that have come about in the primitive culture since the beginning of European contact. One learns, for instance, of the complete breakdown of the old clan system, of the restrictive nature of the law of exogamy (marriage outside one’s own clan), of the fight that is being waged by the na tives themselves for the survival of the primitive religion represented by mala gan; that sorcery is no longer, except clandestinely, practised; that the former system of inducting youths into full citi zenship—a ceremony associated with malagan procedure—no longer operates.

“And so,” says the author, in sum mary, “the account might be continued through every aspect of the former cul ture, revealing ultimately a society divided in its allegiance to the things of the past, and quite uncertain of —nor much caring about—the future; a so ciety sick and dispirited; a society which, accustomed as it is to being buf feted about by various agencies, is pre pared in a spirit of fatalistic resigna tion, uncomplainingly to follow any path pointed out; uncomplainingly, but with no impulse of interest —only complete apathy.”

And, as the writer explains in a foot note, he does not belong to the school of anthropologists that expresses academic resentment at the disappearance of the primitive. Such an attitude is merely beating the air. He sees and knows that the primitive is even now disappearing and doomed. His concern, as a human being as well as an anthropologist, is what is to be done to ensure the re moulding, on lines that are acceptable to and in the ultimate interest of the new native, of his future —to ensure his eco nomic security, social stability, and re ligious satisfaction; and, if possible, his personal happiness.

Unlike so many anthropologists, Mr.

Groves takes a most reasonable view of the place of the missionary enterprise in such culture - contact communities, though one gathers that there is room for criticism of an attitude of aggressive proselysization that threatens to destroy the malagan without any idea of what the function of malagan is in the society.

SECTION 3 is given over to “Conclu sions and Recommendations.” In view of the imminent breakdown of the old clan system and the irksome nature in the society of to-day of certain of the old tabus and restrictions, a radical ulti mate re-organisation of the basis of the social organisation is suggested.

“The inevitable must be realised and accepted. We must turn the faces of the young people towards a new era; train and prepare them to fit into a new cul tural background which they themselves, by a process of education, will have helped to evolve. New wants, new faiths, new allegiances, new interests, an en tirely new outlook —these and these alone will set the feet of future generations along the road that leads to that in dividual happiness that is essential now adays to social welfare and progress.”

What is required for the attainment of this worthy end is an entirely new or ganisation, one that the natives will look upon, by their participation in its work, as their own, belonging to and existing for them.

The report continues, “It is not enough to leave the rising generation of natives alone with pious hopes that all will be well, that these things will right them selves; not enough to talk airily of “peasant proprietorship” and such shib boleths, to attempt to develop new economic interests and social pursuits against the stone walls of European op

position, missionary single-mindedness and smug official satisfaction. Such words are only catch-phrases; such halfhearted attempts at development merely palliatives; sops to European self esteem, salves to the official conscience.”

Such a new enterprise as that referred to would be, in essence, “educational”, but “not the education of popular con ception, of books and schools and black boards and such impedimenta; but edu cation in its widest possible connotation, as the instrument set up by society for its own preservation; as the machinery of social adjustment. This broad inter pretation of the function of education dismisses at the outset the wholly er roneous view that the educational ma chinery necessary for the special task of social adjustment in primitive communi ties is the same as that of European society.

“In the planning of the new suggested educational enterprise, the necessity is pointed out of giving full recognition to the basic fact that the natives are essen tially villagers; the village is the organ ised unit of the society; upon the wel fare and stability of the village depends the welfare, the very life of the people as a race. It is there, in the village, that the ethos finds expression. And it is there, in the village itself and in relation to its activities, that all rightly-conceived edu cational efforts must operate; towards the enrichment of village life and the ad justment of the culture to changing con ditions due to contact, educational policy must be directed.”

A MORE detailed idea of the nature of such an enterprise is given, as well as a suggestion that an inexpensive experiment on the lines indicated be tried out in New Ireland.

“The fact must be stressed,” says the author, “that to proceed to ‘educate’ such recently primitive, culture - contact natives with the popular idea that the school as we Europeans know it is the sole or right educational medium or piece of machinery, is not only a disastrously wrong method of approach to the very delicate problem; it is, in the light of the experience of thoughtful people in the past, tragic and burlesque.”

These terms, strong enough, are not too strong to give full expression to the writer’s attitude in this connection. “It makes education as a social force appear unscientific and ridiculous; it is largely responsible for that air of tolerant scorn that' has in the past frequently been the public attitude to a conscientious teacher working among natives.”

OF the need for selection of suitable Europeans for engagement in such work, the author speaks wisely. “In such an enterprise,” we read, “none but broad-visioned, chivalrously - minded European should find any part. What is required is a combination of the zeal and faith of the missionary with the re sources and freedom of action that the individual missionary, by the specifically religious nature of his work and the limitation of his funds, cannot possibly enjoy.

If only because, for the first time in the Pacific, there are enunciated in its pages, the basic principles upon which native education should function in such a background, and because it gives pro minence to the basic idea of concentrat ing educational effort on the village life of the natives, the report is worthy of serious consideration by every native ad ministration in the Western Pacific that is concerned with the problem of the ad justment of a primitive society to the changes introduced by the impact upon it of alien influences.