Pacific Islanders and their Ways.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 200, 23 April 1887, Page 8

Pacific Islanders and their Ways.

Sir John CtOupjk, formerly Chief Justice of Fiji, recently g*ne a chatty lecture at Trinidad on " Memories of jNlany Lands." In the course of his remaiks he said :—: — I heard a clergyman speaking at a meeting in London about Fiji. He was a clergyman from Sydney, and there they have the most extreme notions about the native races. The native races are only worth looking at, I think, when they aie drewd in their own dresses ; they look becoming, and most of them look picturesque. But the people of Sydney no sooner get the native race down to their town than they compel them to take off their own clothing and put on European clothing. If you think of it as I do you will consider that that is simply a step in an entirely wrong direction. The clergyman had seen the son of Thakombau, the king of the group, and he said : " When I saw that man -walking about Sydney with Lady RobinKon, tlie wife of Sir Hercules Robinson, the Governor, with nothing on but a white shirt and some of his native cloth round his loins, I was peifectly ashamed." 1 had to get up afterward^ I hid to reply about something and I said I could assure this clergyman from Sydney that I had seen the same gentleman, v. horn I had the pleasme ot knowing, A\ithout his shirt in a lady's drawing-room (laughter), and ho never looked more of a gentleman. 1 say with perfect good faith and honesty that the notion that these people arc to be improved .simply by putting them in European dresses, and that they will look better than in their own native costumes, is something mmvellous. That was a iinc man, upwards of 6ft. in height, and in his bronze .skin he looked remarkably well. No one could ever doubt he was a chief, from his bearing and manner. I have seen these chiefs from all parts of the group. They liavo sat down at table and never committed one bingle mistake of etiquette. They watched quietly and in a dignified way to see how others would use spoons or knives and forks. They had used wooden forks when human flesh was eaten, but no knives and forks. They sat with the utmost composure and grace. They were men who had never sat down at a European table before. The native dress is really the native cloth tied round the Ioin&, and. a kilt coming dovrn below the knee, and when they are dressed for festivals they hang themselves about with lianes and sweet-smelling boughs, both men and women. The hybiscus flower is a great favourite with the Fijian ladies ; it suits them remarkably well the red, single hybiscus— and it suits their complexion and their hair, and makes a very nice ornament for them. Their hair is something like the hah" of a negro frizzly — but they ornament it differently, because when they dress, it is covered with soft lime that has been mixed with water soft lime such as a mason would work with (laughter) and their head is all covered over with this stuff. It makes them exactly like what the powdered flunkeys were at Home in the last generation. You, soon get accustomed to it, and it had a remarkable effect upon the hair, and I wonder that some of the people here do not try it. (Laughter. ) The effect, of it was this : When the lime got dry and had to be shaken oif in the morning like a, dry powder, it did not hurt the hair -it might European hair, which is softer, but not their hair; but it gave the women's hair a beautiful golden colour, and some of it was really beautiful just on that account, because of the dressing with lime. The

liiae was very cheap, because the whole of the islands are surrounded by coraf reefs, i and they simply take some of the coral and ' burw it, and they have lime 1 ready to their I hand's^