CHAPTER XIV CIVILIZATION AND ITS BENEFITS

To “wonder furiously”—Better Government, or Worse?—Comparison of Standards—A Conversation with Aborigine Friends—The Question of Money—Tabus.

Looking back over what I learned, during the two years that I was in Formosa, of the manners and customs—collectively speaking—of the aboriginal tribes, and of the outlook on life of these Naturv?lker, I am given to “think furiously” along lines other than anthropological; that is, along those that are sociological as well. Rather, perhaps, to “wonder furiously.”

If it be true, as Dr. Tylor—in Primitive Culture—points out, that “no human thought is so primitive as to have lost bearing on our own thought, or so ancient as to have broken connection with our own life,” it opens up an interesting field for speculation. For one thing, as to what would have been the line of social evolution of the so-called superior races had they, like the seban, continued to regard the cutting off of an enemy head as meritorious rather than otherwise. (Yet what is war between “civilized” races, except head-hunting on a grand scale;[201] only with accompanying mangling and gassing and other horrors of which the island seban[102] knows nothing?) And if, also like the seban, prostitution had remained unknown, and the breaking of a promise been regarded as so heinous a crime that only the death of the one guilty of so foul a thing could save his family and relatives and all who came into contact with him from being contaminated by his own uncleanness.

What then? One wonders. What sort of civilization would have been evolved, had culture progressed—as in Europe, for example, in the matter of learning, of arts, and of sciences—yet had the standards of right and wrong remained as they are with the primitive folk among whom I spent two years, and if the fundamental conception of government had remained the same—that of a matriarchal theocracy, which is yet, in a sense, communistic.

Were they, too, matriarchal—the “tattooed and woaded, winter-clad in skins” European forefathers of ours? It is a dangerous thing to assume a unilineal line of evolution. Because there are evidences of mother-right[103] having been dominant in certain parts of the world, or with certain[202] peoples—and of this mother-right still existing in a few isolated instances—it would be rashly unwise to assume, as a few writers and speakers have done, that the female of the species was once the dominant half of the genus homo. However, assuming for the sake of argument—or of phantasy—that matriarchal government was once universal, until the male learned that in the matter of governing the power of brute force equalled, in efficacious results, that of summoning spirits from the vasty deep on the part of priestess and sibyl, or of ruling the tribe through aruspicy and the cries of birds; or until he learned, perhaps, that brute force could even make his own those priestly offices which had been the prerogative of that sex once solely associated with the Mystic Force (by virtue of that medium still regarded by primitive folk as sacred and mysterious).[104]

Suppose, I say—and I underscore suppose—we assume this mother-right—matri-potestal as well as matrilineal and matri-local—once to have existed in Europe in as full force as it still does in a few islands of the South Pacific; and, again, suppose the male had never learned, or never chosen to apply, the force of muscular suasion, what sort of Midsummer’s Night Dream of a world should we have had? Would it have been an Eden—with Adam kept very much in his place—a[203] sort of Golden Age, such as many equal-suffrage advocates assert would be the outcome of matriarchal rule; or would it have resulted in “confusion worse confounded” (in this year of grace, 1922, is such a state possible to conceive?), such as Weininger[105] and his school would assert could be the only result of woman-rule? Or would this school concede that there could be such a thing as a woman-ruled State? Would it not hold, rather, that such an attempt could end only in anarchy?

Yet the realm which the women-chiefs and priestesses of Formosa govern is the reverse of anarchic. Laws there are as the laws of the Medes and Persians; or as those are supposed to have been. Every act of daily life, personal as well as communal, is regulated by law, and any infringement of this law is met with dire penalty. This—incidentally—holds true with all primitive peoples, patriarchal as well as matriarchal. Those who fancy that a “return to nature”—meaning to primitive conditions—would give licence either for lawlessness or for the indulgence without restraint in individual preference, social or political, reckon without knowledge of conditions actually existing in primitive society. One shudders to think what would have been Rousseau’s fate had he really “returned to nature”—i.e. lived among the Naturv?lker—and broken tabu of marriage or[204] parenthood. For those who hold in contempt established convention, or life regulated by law, primitive society is not the place.

But to return to the question of gynarchic rule: All the women of this particular island—or of that particular part of it still under aboriginal control and hence matriarchal—are not Sapphos or Katherines—are not even the primitive prototypes of these illustrious ladies—any more than they are simpering Doras,[106] neurotics, or nymphomaniacs. As George Eliot made one of her characters, in speaking of her own sex, remark, “The Lord made ‘em fools to match the men,” so one is inclined to ask, after having seen the practical working of a gynocracy, if women were made also good and bad—in the comprehensive inclusiveness of those words—wise and foolish, to match the so-called sterner sex; the sex which seems, however, in reality neither sterner nor more bloodthirsty than the so-called gentler one; any more than it seems a greater lover of abstract justice, which, according to one English writer, “no woman understands.”[107]

Which train of wondering brings us back to the original wonder with which this chapter started: If our European forefathers had ever, in the dim “once-upon-a-time” of long ago, the same standards of right and wrong as the present-day seban of Formosa; if they, too, were once[205] matri-potestal—what would have been the line of evolution that Europe would have followed had this state of affairs continued, only gradually evolving, through letters and arts, from savagery to so-called civilization? Should we have been better governed or worse?

Or—another wonder intervenes. Would letters and arts have ever developed under a matriarchy? Probably yes. Perhaps even to a greater extent than has been the case during the long centuries of patriarchal rule that have followed the possible once-upon-a-time primitive matriarchates of antiquity. For even recognizing that the creative faculty—artistic and inventive—is the heritage of man rather than of woman, has it not, within historic times, in civilized countries, been ever under queen rulership that letters and art have flourished? Perhaps an unrecognized, sublimated form of sex-instinct—or so a certain school of psycho-analysts would argue—that has spurred masculine creative genius to its highest point; as it spurred, apparently, the venturous spirit of the great explorers, certainly of the Elizabethan age; and as, in a later age in England, it spurred those who dreamed of world conquest in the name of the “Great Good Queen.” Has personal idolatry rendered to a king ever equalled that rendered to a queen, whether by soldier or poet, artist or farm-labourer? The sex instinct here, as in other fields, has played its part, and in this particular field usually for good rather than for[206] evil. Perhaps no more Sapphos would have arisen under the rule of women than of men; but it seems not improbable that more men poets might have arisen, worthily and lustily to sing the praises of queens.

And the governing—worse governed or better under theocratic queens than under kings or under mobs? Not worse, I think. Executive ability seems woman’s in surprising degree where she has had the opportunity to exercise it; often where the exercise of it has been unrecognized, because attributed to the male—her man—who stood before the world, or who sat upon the throne.

As executive and ruler in miniature—executive in the household and ruler over the children, since house, in any form, has existed or maternal responsibility, however elementary, been recognized—executive ability seems to have been developed in women; just as through child-bearing and rearing—or psycho-physical potentiality for this—intellectual creative faculty has, with the normal woman, remained dormant.

So much for wondering over possible might-have-beens in connection with matriarchal government, if this system in some supposititious long-ago ever existed in Europe.

As for the general standards of right and wrong—standards as they exist among the aborigines of Formosa, compared with standards which exist to-day in Europe: Would it be more agreeable to be in danger of losing one’s head, if[207] one went for a sunset stroll and ventured too near enemy territory—provided oneself were not the first to secure the enemy head—yet to know that a word once given, by friend or enemy, would never be broken; that no lock would be needed to guard one’s possessions; that life-insurance had not to be taken into consideration, because, in case of one’s untimely demise, one’s wife and children would, as a matter of course, be given equal provender with the other members of the community; that not only was no special plea for mercy needed for “fatherless children and widows,” but that, as a matter of fact, these usually fared somewhat better than other members of the community, because the widow generally became a priestess, and as such wielded greater power and influence in the community than a mere wife could do?

Also to know that fire-insurance might equally be left out of the reckoning, as in case one’s house were destroyed by fire, all one’s neighbours could be relied upon to build one a new house.

Would it be more agreeable to know that battle, murder, and sudden death were ever-present possibilities, if one happened to be a man and a warrior (and to be one meant being the other), yet to know that while life lasted it would ever be a merry one; that if by chance old age or illness overtook one, one would be cared for, not as a matter of charity, but again—as in the case of widows and orphans—as a matter[208] of course; or to cower before what old age and illness and out-of-work days mean for the poverty-stricken in present-day civilization?

To live knowing that death sudden, yet swift and comparatively painless, might one day be one’s portion—or the portion of one’s husband—yet ever to be certain, while one lived, of a home as good as that of any member of the people to whom one belonged; of clothing and fuel and food in abundance; or to live as the poor in the great cities of Christian civilization live, and to die as they die; to cry not only for bread where there is no bread, but for work where there is no work; in decrepit old age and illness to be cared for by the community, if at all, as a matter of contemptuous pity,—which were preferable?

I tried once to explain something of economic conditions in the white man’s world, and in that of modern Japan, to one of my Formosan aborigine friends. The idea that one should receive more than another, unless that other had by misconduct forfeited his share, was as difficult for my friend to understand as it was that a man could not work who wanted to work, or that there should not be food enough for all. That it was held to be a matter of shame to be helped by the community when one was too old or too ill to work was incomprehensible; as incomprehensible as was the question of prostitution. “But women who live so, how can they have strong sons and daughters?” he asked. “And how[209] can they make good priestesses to the people?” an old priestess who was standing by asked. “Such women destroy faith,” she added, “not build it up for the guidance of men.”

I thought of the Inari temples—those devoted to the worship of the Fox-god—and of the votaries of these temples, in Japan. I thought of the stories of the temples of Babylon, of Egypt, of certain of those in ancient Greece—all these had represented mighty civilizations; the votaries of the Fox-god temples belong to a nation that is to-day one of the great world-powers; while the old Formosan woman was only a savage. How could she know anything of the refinements of civilization, or of what civilization demands?

But those ancient civilizations, I reflected—they were “heathen”; even present-day Japan is “heathen.” As a member of a race that is supposed to uphold Christian civilization and to convert heathen peoples to its tenets, there was momentary unction in this thought. Then, as the old man and old woman stood looking up at me, with inquiring, wrinkled faces, awaiting an answer to questions that would solve the problem that was puzzling them, there flashed across my mind the memory of a Christian temple, in a great Christian capital, which it was the fashion of the more fashionable stratum of the painted ladies of the city to attend, and where——

[210]

But no, they were not priestesses; only devotees who exchanged glances with the male devotees, and who after the services spoke with the latter, doubtless for the “upbuilding of their faith.”

And as for the question of the old man; how could women who lived so have strong sons and daughters? I thought of all the painted women of all the great cities of the world—those flaunting their silks and furs and jewels under the electric glare of the great thoroughfares, inviting with smiles and glances; and those others, shivering, wrapping their rags about them in dark corners, croaking, cackling, and clutching desperately, hoping to earn, in an ancient profession of civilization, enough to buy food and drink sufficient to keep life a little longer in unclean, diseased bodies. These women had no children; but I thought of their male companions; some their victims; some who had victimized and had started certain of the painted ones in their profession; some merely the boon companions of an hour. And I thought of hospitals I had visited; of operations that I had witnessed on the wives of the men who had “settled down after sowing a few wild oats”—years of agony in one life as a vicarious atonement for perhaps one night of wine and laughter and song in the life of another. And I thought of children I had seen, and of grandchildren.... It made it a little difficult to explain clearly, to the old man and the old woman, the benefits of a[211] system inextricably interwoven with civilization, ancient and modern; and the reason why this system lent a delicate zest to the art of civilized living. And part of my wonder to-day is: Supposing, supposing, this art—this profession—had never been introduced into society——?

Almost as difficult to answer as was the question of the reason why of money-taking in exchange for love were other questions put to me by aboriginal friends in connection with money. Why money at all? What were the benefits of this “recognized medium of exchange,” and of the great banking systems, which are part of the economic fabric of every civilization of the world. I gave a few coins to some men and women of the Yami tribe; they began to beat them out into thin plates to add to their helmets. I gave some to the Ami people; they drilled holes in them and fastened them, as ornamental buttons, to their blankets. Those that I gave to the Paiwan they inserted in holes in their ears—all except one young warrior who set his ni-ju-sen[108] piece among the boars’ tusks that ornamented his cap. The Taiyal priestess to whom I gave a go-ju-sen[109] piece regarded it with reverence, and carefully wrapped it in a banana-leaf. A short time afterwards I saw her, sitting by the bedside of a patient, balancing the go-ju-sen on a bamboo-rod,[212] gripped between her knees; the small stone generally used on such occasions—mentioned in the chapter Illness and Death—having been replaced by the shining silver coin.

The Taiyal seemed to think that some particularly powerful Ottofu was connected with silver coins. Perhaps the “White Fathers,” and also the Chinese and Japanese, used these shining pieces to draw down the Ottofu of long-departed ancestors; hence had they waxed mighty. That such Ottofu pieces might be used as media of exchange between different tribes, when these were not actively at war with each other—this was comprehensible; but that such should be needed, or conceivably ever used, between members of the same tribe or nation—this was not comprehensible. “Surely man does not kill meat for himself alone, when his brothers, too, are hungry; nor does a woman grow millet for her own children alone, when the children of other women are crying for food.”

Nor could I ever quite make my savage friends realize the blessings of civilization in the matters of the economic system, any more than of the social. They could only comprehend that among the enlightened ones of the world it was somehow tabu for one man to have as many shining pieces as another, or as much meat and drink, as good a house to shelter him from the wind, or as much fuel to make fire in the rainy season, as another, that somehow the shining Ottofu pieces brought[213] these blessings. But just why was it tabu for one man to have more than another? They were much puzzled, until at last one Taiyal man suggested that no doubt the White God-descended Ones knew, in their wisdom, which of their brothers were most worthy, most noble and holy; and to the most holy was awarded the largest share of the Ottofu pieces.

And still I am wondering what if the speculations of my savage friends had been correct—what sort of a Europe should I be living in to-day? How would it contrast with the Europe that is?

When my friends learned of the tabu connected with the shining pieces, they wished to hear more of the tabus of the Great Ones. Were these the same as their own: tabus that surrounded young men and maidens, which prevented the latter from hearing an indelicate word or seeing a coarse gesture, that prevented the marriage of too near relations, that——

“Yes, yes,” I hurried to assent, “among the better classes all these tabus are observed.”

“But,” my interlocutors interrupted, “what is meant by classes, and, if there is more than one class among the same people, why should the young girls of one class be protected more than those of another?”

Again their intelligence failed to grasp my attempts at a logical explanation. But a priestess pressed for further knowledge on the subject of the[214] white man’s—and especially the white woman’s—tabus. Was it tabu for a husband to be either brutal to his wife—— “Yes, among the better——” I began. But the priestess hurried on: “or indelicate in his attentions to her; was she, his wife—as regards marital relations—to be tabu to him altogether before the birth of her children, and for some time afterwards? Was a disloyal husband himself so tabu that, even in the tribes where he was not beheaded or stoned to death, no self-respecting member of the community—either man or woman—would speak to him or supply him with food; so that he had to flee to the woods and live as an outcast?”

I tried to explain that it was difficult to know; one could not be sure, for there were some points on which neither men nor women always told the exact truth.

“But not to tell the truth!” my friends cried in chorus. “Surely the curses of their ancestors are on those who do not speak the truth!”

And I thought, or tried to think, of a civilization—white or yellow—in which men and women spoke always the truth, with nothing added, nothing suppressed; where “yea” meant always yea, and “nay,” nay; where the realization that anything more “cometh of evil” was put into practice; consequently the anything more left unsaid. And still I am trying to think what civilization[215] under these conditions would mean. Civilization—I am wondering.

Since my sojourn among the men and women who live in the mountains of Formosa that word—civilization—has had a new meaning; been a new source of wonder to me.

The End