Plea For Polynesian Peoples

The Theories and Arguments of Alain Gerbault

JN the “ PIM” of December last we published the life-story of Alain Gerbault, whose most untimely death (from fever ) occurred in Dili, Portu guese Timor, in December, 1941. This Frenchman was famous for his single handed navigation of small yachts around the world.

In his last book, “Gospel of the Sun,” published just before the out break of World War 11, Gerbault made an urgent plea that the Poly nesians’ way of life be protected from “Europeanisationand he attacked Western civilisation which, he de clared, is already on the decline' and will eventually disappear.

New principles of government, for application in many lands of the Pacific,, are even now being sought.

We have considered it timely, there fore, to publish hereunder a number of extracts from Alain Gerbault’s book, “Gospel of the Sun.” His state ments and his arguments may help some of those who are seeking a better administrative set-up in Poly nesia.

IT is, indeed, impossible to leave those marvellous Pacific Islands without a sickening distress at the sight of the steady disappearance and dreadful decad ence of the native races.

I will exemplify my statement in the order of the places I visited on my voyage.

In the Gambler Islands (French Oceania) there remain 500 survivors of a population that once numbered 5,000; and these survivors are of poor physique, are clothed in cast-off European clothing, ignore their ancient history and tradi tions, and are already contaminated by the desire of making money.

In the Marquesas (French Oceania; it is more striking. Eighteen hundred in habitants are all that remain of a population that exceeded 100,000, when the first explorers visited the islands. To such small numbers is reduced the finest race of men the world has ever seen, whose beauty struck Quiros and Captain Cook with amazement.

Tahiti is even sadder. Hardly any pure Tahitians are left; the race is absorbed and disappears before the half-caste ele ment, and even more before the Chinese, who have been allowed to invade the island and purchase land. Ihe Govern ment seems unaware of the danger, and each succeeding Governor prefers to be queath to his successor the legacy of dealing with this situation. The Chinese are already more than half the popu lation of the island, a great part of the business and of the lands belongs to them; and, simply because no one will take the necessary steps to put matters on a proper footing, Tahiti is fast becom ing nothing more than a Chinese island.

In Samoa, where the English and Americans govern, radical steps have been taken to absolutely prohibit Chinese im migration, and it has been made illegal for foreigners to own land.

I know I shall be told that it is im possible to do away with foreign labour

in French Oceania, and that our French interests in China make it impossible for us to take such drastic steps; but why not limit the number of Chinese to a definite percentage of the native population, and see that this quota is not exceeded?

Surely we French have a duty to perform in protecting the native races against such an invasion.

AS against all this unhappiness and distress, what do we find on the credit side? A certain praiseworthy attempt at medical service, a fight against infant mortality, and a calm, official resignation that declares that the dis appearance of the native races before white civilisation is a normal and natural law against which nothing can be done.

This frame of mind is nothing short of criminal. We seem to forget that the word “impossible” is not a French one.

It is perfectly possible to put a brake on the annihilation of the native races, but medicine is in this case without avail. It is useless to try to cure effect; it is the causes of evil that must be destroyed.

The steady disappearance of the Poly nesian race and its no less steady physical deterioration are due almost entirely to the European style of living, which has been made compulsory and forced on the inhabitants in place of age-old customs that had their origin in the experience of generations, in the matter of clothing, diet and housing.

Of the three, the obligation to wear European dress is undoubtedly the most harmful, both for the individual and for the race. This is a fact that has been recognised by me,ny scientists who have studied the beneficial effects of skin pig mentation by sun exposure and violet rays, and have demonstrated the danger of garments, however light, which allow only the infra-red rays to reach the skin. rE exposure of the naked body to the rays of the sun is a necessity in the tropics. The European is afraid of the sun and spreads this fear round him.

Deprived of its beneficial effect, obliged to wear clothes that are continually damp with the abundant perspiration of the tropics, the native falls an easy prey to tuberculosis.

But clothing and food or diet are two problems which cannot be treated apart.

The ancient style of nourishment was almost entirely vegetarian, and by reason of the thousands of calories stored in the system by the exposure of the naked body to the sun’s rays, the alimentary canal was not over-charged, and the digestive organs were subjected to no undue strain.

These facts are borne but by my own personal experience. For several years I lived in the tropics wearing only a simple loin-cloth and eating mainly vegetables and fruit. I never enjoyed better health and could even play football beneath a noon-day sun without suffering the least fatigue.

The facts in support of this theory are numerous and indisputable. At the Gam biers, at the Marquesas, at Tahiti, at Hawaii, European clothing and houses are accompanied by a rapid fall in the popu lation. In Samoa—and this is not written in praise of Anglo-Saxon administration, for in general we French have been able to make the natives like us, whereas the Anglo-Saxon has looked down on them as inferiors and treated them as such— yet in Samoa, in Fiji, in New Guinea, the British Government esteems that white ways are not good for the native, and has forbidden him to adopt them.

This has resulted in a better state of health, for the loin-cloth, the native dietary and the primitive type of dwelling have been preserved. As a natural con sequence the population of Samoa has increased by 5,000 souls since World War I, and that in spite of a fearful epidemic

of Spanish influenza. Farther to the west, in the Wallis Islands, where the natives have not given up their own mode of life, there is an excess of population, though infant mortality is heavy and sanitary conditions are bad.

ANOTHER great factor in the down fall of the native races is the sup pression by the missionaries of all the age-old customs which belong to the pagan religions. These had penetrated so deeply into the lives of the individuals

that every act throughout the day was regulated by them. At one stroke the Polynesian’s dances, his games, his sports were forbidden, and the whole pleasure of life, which is the key to the riddle of existence, were torn away from his grasp.

As the native is unable to comprehend the European false ideal of the conquest of wealth by work, when he is robbed of his pleasures there is nothing else worth living for, and he calmly resigns himself to death.

The remedy for all these evils is very simple, and only requires the definite will to accomplishment. It is, in effect, as criminal to dress natives in European clothes as it. would be to stand them against the wall and shoot them. The result is the same in either case, and I should hesitate to say whether the suffer ing in the former is not the greater.

It ought to be made compulsory for the native to wear the loin-cloth, for it is more decent, more aesthetic and more hygienic than trousers. The loin-cloth is easy to wash, and always drapes itself tastefully, whereas the trousers and shirts imposed by civilisation, though they may

be passable when properly tailored and worn with shoes, are merely ugly and absurd on the figure of a bare-footed native.

My theories will, of course, meet with opposition from the many traders who have no thought save for their immediate profits, who are solely anxious to sell their calicoes and boxes of tinned beef, who only laugh at the disappearance of the natives whom they are exploiting. I shall certainly count missionaries among my opponents, though it is really no question of religion, for Europeanisation and Christianisation should not be con founded with one another. In the Gam bier and Marquesas Islands the natives are obliged to go to church, and the children to school, in European clothes, while in Samoa the very same religious order —the Picpus Fathers —thinks it quite right that they attend church simply wearing a loin-cloth.

In Papua the Governor, Sir Hubert Murray, in agreement with the French Bishop, Mgr. de Boismenu, has forbidden the native men and women to wear European clothes.

More than that, young children ought to go about almost naked, for it is still more indispensable for them to acquire early, by exposure to the sun’s rays, the pigmentation which is absolutely a neces sity of life in the tropics.

THE first things to do, therefore, will be to convince the natives that their old customs are good, and that the un doubted scientific superiority of the Europeans is in no wise a matter of

Alain Gerbault, from a painting by Sir John Lavery.

clothing, for it is one of the most bar barous, unhygienic and uncomfortable — imposed by a tyrannic civilisation that admits of neither progress, innovation nor originality in the modes of life, and which considers the individual search for hap piness of but secondary importance.

The picturesque native huts and dwell ings must also be re-introduced, for they are healthy, well aired and comfortable.

On the contrary, in the Marquesas there is a law dating back some fifty years that makes it compulsory to build houses of deal board, with corrugated iron roofs.

Do not think that I am inimical in principle to the progress of science. I think that it would be good to cement the floors of all the dwellings, making them clean and easily washable, as I have seen done in the Malay huts at Dutch Timor; but the old paepor, or platform, on which the Marquesan houses were built is infinitely better than plank flooring, as is also the fine gravel used in the huts of Samoa. Just in the same way, mats are much more suitable for use in the tropics than the European beds and mattresses introduced into Gambier and Marquesas Islands.

I have said that food and clothing are inseparably bound up together. And yet during my stay in the islands I had an opportunity of seeing the report of a pre -1914 medical administrator who affirmed that the food of the Marquesans was in sufficient, and that he hoped that intro duction of tinned food and European dietary would be of great benefit to the Marquesan race.

Truly, the fruit and vegetable diet of the native needs to be supplemented by the great quantity of calories that is given by the exposure of the skin to the sun’s rays, but this mischievous and dangerous report entirely ignored the nutritive and antirachitic value of irradiated food, and its author was also wholly unaware of the modern discoveries of the new-born bioheliochemical science.

I HAVE already explained that the life of the natives has been made too severe by the senseless suppression of all their ancient customs, without dis crimination. They must be given back all their old pleasures in life; their open-air dances must be encouraged, and sports must be developed' to take the places of their ancient games, which have dis appeared. \ The Polynesians were anciently a people passionately addicted to sport, and one day I will write about the games and pastimes in which they used to excel.

Men of magnificent physique, carefully teamed for their innumerable com petitions, their one idea was to rival each other in strength and skill. Their chiefs were also the greatest athletes in throw ing the javelin, wrestling, playing a sort of football, surf riding, as well as in such pastimes as spinning tops, archery, walk ing on stilts, kite-flying and other games of great social importance.

In Samoa, cricket has long been estab lished, and Rugby football is being encouraged by the New Zealand Govern ment. Alas, among our administrators in far away French Oceania, the anti sporting spirit of pre-1914 days existed when I was there, and no steps whatever were taken to develop sports and games among the natives!

This is not written in any spirit of criticism or carping against French colonial administration, for I have seen remarkable results obtained in our colony of Morocco, where the native customs and arts are encouraged. The pity is that there never was in French Oceania a Governor with the initiative, the force and the means that were the assets of Lyautey in Morocco.

One thing is certain: a protectorate has

many advantages over annexation. The natives keep their customs and arts, and their own chiefs are responsible for the good government of the country; our laws and Napoleon code have not been made for them.

When a country is annexed, it becomes extremely difficult to obtain native labour to carry out necessary public works.

Robbed of all initiative, the native casts the burden of supporting him upon his conquerors, and takes no thought for the future. Thus it is that Rapa (French Oceania), which in old times, thanks to its ingenious system of irrigation, afforded the means of subsistence to over 5,000 souls, now possesses a bare hundred, who exist solely on the help and food sent over to them from Tahiti. rE tenure of the Governor’s office in Oceania is four years, and each successively does his best to avoid any complications and difficulties during his short term of duty. It is always a matter of regret to me that there is no continuity of policy, and there is not at Tahiti a Governor who loves the people enough to consecrate his life to their service. In my opinion a naval Govern ment would be the best for these distant islands, whose strategic importance far outweighs their limited commercial in terests.

Such a Government, like that of the American Navy at Samoa, is far better adanted to the protection of the natives against the short-sighted exploitation of big trading firms. It is for lack of such government that the administration at Tahiti is practically powerless in applying the stringent regulations against the sale of alcohol to the natives by the traders.

The question of schools presents a marked contrast with what has been done in Morocco. If Europeanising and Chris tianising have been confounded, the same mistake has been made between instruc tion and education. Thus I can state with sorrow that in the Gambier Islands all the native children were confined within school buildings during the morn ings and afternoons, when it would have been infinitely better for their health if they had been left to play naked out in the open air and sunshine. There were considerable efforts, . praiseworthy, no doubt, but utterly futile if not harmful, to teach them the same things and no more, which are taught in our schools—the his tory by Lavisse and the geography of the French Departments.

Yet neither at the Gambier, nor at the Marquesas, nor at Tahiti, are there any modern native arts. Children are not trained in how to fight and live in their tropical surroundings—an education that they had in old times when everything was memorised by song and verse, when the art of navigation was taught in the Marquesas schools and when sculpture, poetry and dancing flourished. Every thing is now forgotten, and the native of to-day is incapable even of building a dug-out canoe or making tapas or mats.

Schools are necessary, of course, but why cannot we do in Polynesia what we have done in Morocco, and use them to restore the native handiworks and arts so neces sary to the existence of a nation? The schools should, above all, be professional, and held in the open air. The children should be taught the history of their own land, and be made to renovate their national crafts and arts, poetry and sculp ture. They should be instructed in physical culture, sports and general ex posure of the body to the sunshine which are a necessity to save the race from degeneration, and will also fight effic aciously against the ravages of alcohol.

All this is far more important for com munities living in small islands than learning to read or to write. If this were

done the natives of tropical climates would be able, as in old times, to multiply and live in health and happiness.

When one has visited, as I have, many and distant lands, it is indeed stupefying to witness the inconceivable pretensions of the white race that seeks to impose everywhere its customs and its strange conceptions of life on all whom it con quers. It has always been the same.

Thus, with the invasion of the Conquis tadores, disappeared the ancient Inca civilization, which possessed a social organi sation that has never been equalled. Thus also vanished the Aztec culture, which was far superior to that of its conquerors, both in the science of astronomy and the art of sculpture.

Are the Polynesians going to disappear like the Caribbeans? It would be an everlasting shame to the white race, which has hitherto always shut its eyes to the fact that these aboriginals, since they

were living content with few needs, were more advanced in the true science of life —happiness.

And also our civilisation has not even troubled to profit by the lessons taught by these natives. Despite a great mechanical and scientific development, it clings to a false ideal, for the winning of wealth, and the enjoyment of the fictitious plea sures it can procure, are directly opposed to the happiness of the individual. That is why our civilisation already is on the decline and will disappear, as disappeared all its predecessors.

Mr. Charles R. Turbet, who was Senior Veterinary Officer in Fiji for over 20 years, and who acted on occasion as Director of the Department of Agricul ture, passed through Australia recently en route to Ceylon, vrhere he will serve as a specialist, on the production side, in animal husbandry.