No one should pronounce upon the Evolution of Mind till he has seen a savage.
By this is not meant the show savage of an Australian town, or the quay Kaffir
of a South African port, or the Reservation Indian of a Western State; but the
savage as he is in reality, and as he may be seen today by any who care to
look upon so weird a spectacle. No study from the life can compare with this
in interest or in pathos, nor stir so many strange emotions in the mind of a
thoughtful man. To sit with the incalculable creature in the heart of the
great forest; to live with him in his natural home as the guest of Nature; to
watch his ways and moods and try to resolve the ceaseless mystery of his
thoughts--this, whether the existing savage represents the primitive savage or
not, is to open one of the workshops of Creation and behold the half-finished
product from which humanity has been evolved.
The world is getting old, but the traveller who cares to follow the
daybreak of Mind for himself can almost do so still. Selecting a region where
the wand of western civilization has scarcely reached, let him begin with a
cruise in the Malay Archipelago or in the Coral Seas of the Southern Pacific.
He may find himself there even yet on spots on which no white foot has ever
trod, on islands where unknown races have worked out their destiny for untold
centuries, whose teeming peoples have no name, and whose habits and mode of
life are only known to the outer world through a ship's telescope. As he
coasts along, he will see the dusky figures steal like shades among the trees,
or hurry past in their bark canoes, or crouch in fear upon the coral sand. He
can watch them gather the breadfruit from the tree and pull the cocoanut from
the palm and root out the taro for a meal which, all the year round and all
the centuries through, has never changed. In an hour or two he can compass
almost the whole round of their simple life, and realize the gulf between
himself and them in at least one way--in the utter impossibility of framing to
himself an image of the mental world of men and women whose only world is
this.
Let him pass on to the coast of Northern Queensland, and, landing where
fear of the white man makes landing possible, penetrate the Australian bush.
Though the settlements of the European have been there for a generation, eh
will find the child of Nature still untouched, and neither by intercourse nor
imitation removed by one degree from the lowest savage state. These
aboriginal peoples know neither house nor home. They neither sow nor reap.
Their weapons are those of Nature, a pointed stick and a knotted club. They
live like wild things on roots and berries and birds and wallabies, and in the
monotony of their life and the uncouthness of their Mind represent almost the
lowest level of humanity.
From these rudiments of mankind let him make his way to the New
Hebrides, to Tanna, and Santo, and Ambrym, and Aurora. These islands, besides
Man, contain only three things, coral, lava, and trees. Until but yesterday
their peoples had never seen anything but coral, lava, and trees. They did
not know that there was anything else in the world. One hundred years ago
Captain Cook discovered these islanders and gave them a few nails. They
planted them in the ground that they might grow into bigger nails. It is true
that in other lands a very rich life and a very wide world could be made out
of no more varied materials than coral, lava, and trees; but on these Tropical
Islands Nature is disastrously kind. All that her children need is provided
for them ready-made. Her sun shines on them so that they are never either
cold or hot; she provides crops for them in unexampled luxuriance, and
arranges the year to be one long harvest; she allows no wild animals to prowl
among the forests; and surrounding them with the alienating sea she preserves
them from the attacks of human enemies. Outside the struggle for life, they
are out of life itself. Treated as children, they remain children. To look
at them now is to recall the long holiday of the childhood of the world. It
is to behold one's natural face in a glass.
Pass on through the other Cannibal Islands and, apart from the
improvement of weapons and the construction of a hut, throughout vast regions
there is still no sign of mental progress. But before one has completed the
circuit of the Pacific the change begins to come. Gradually there appear the
beginnings of industry and even of art. In the Solomon Group and in New
Guinea, carving and painting may be seen in an early infancy. The canoes are
large and good, fish-hooks are manufactured, and weaving of a rude kind has
been established. There can be no question at this stage that the Mind of Man
has begun its upward path. And what now begins to impress one is not the
poverty of the early Mind, but the enormous potentialities that lie within it,
and the exceeding swiftness of its Ascent towards higher things. When the
Sandwich Islands are reached, the contrast appears in its full significance.
Here, a century ago, Captain Cook, through whom the first knowledge of their
existence reached the outer world, was killed and eaten. Today the children
of his murderers have taken their place among the civilized nations of the
world, and their Kings and Queens demand acknowledgment at modern Courts.