CUSTOM AND OURSELVES

New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 328, 5 October 1945, Page 5

CUSTOM AND OURSELVES

Sir,-The talk by G. W. Parkyn ("Custom Shapes Our Lives") left me confused and rebellious. It seemed a roundabout way to tell us that environment plays a large part in our character; after all, who does not realise that? Custom is a part of our enyironment; but Mr. Parkyn has left me hazy as to what is a custom and what is the effect of a custom. My knowledge of anthropology may be weak, but I suspect that Mr. Parkyn has occasionally driven his cart over the horse because the horse

wouldn’t go fast enough to win his argument. His illustrations of the Indians would have been more illuminating had he chosen two tribes more nearly akin than the West Coast Indian and the Pueblo, I should think that the Pueblo character would be largely moulded by their warlike neighbours, the Apaches. Living in Dunedin, Mr. Parkyn must realise that Scottish women have some customs resembling the Canadian West Coast Indians. In a Scottish home, towards the time of a visitor’s departure the hostess becomes a little distrait, her eyes wander from cupboard to vegetable garden, and an expression caused by working intricate sums mentally takes possession of her face. Then as she leaves, the guest is presented with a cabbage, a pot of jam, or a cake. The gift can imply that the guest is a dear and that the hostess wishes to shower tangible Pee OE RE eae ae OTS ee ere

blessings on her, or that for once at least, the guest’s family will taste prop-erly-made jam, or that the hostess is no longer beholden to the guest for her gift, which was also capable of being interpreted in several ways. As to Indians burning their wealth to impress or humiliate their guests, no poker-faced Indian could outface Scottish women when they deal with the pride of some erring sister who flaunts her wealth unbecomingly before her less fortunate sisters. But though their customs are simi-. lar I dare Mr. Parkyn to say that megalomania is more rife among Otago women than others. As to saying that individuals cannot alter customs, Mr, Parkyn has left me muddled in regard to what customs are, but I have seen a newcomer to a district alter the habits of the inhabitants in a small way in a comparatively short time, and the saint, the artist, and other intelligent people who have from time to time altered our modes of living have been those who were able to keep their own unity and integrity no matter how adverse or hampering was its environment.

A

PICT

(Dunedin).

Sir,-I detected a weakness or two in the article by G. W. Parkyn on "Custom Shapes Our Lives." I refer to two excerpts which he quotes with evident approval. In the first, from "Little Golden America" the Indian speaks in the language of European culture: "That’s fraud, you're advising me to deceive people. You’re advising me to do something dishonest." These are terms which seem to me to connote purely western standards, and therefore are not evidence in support of the main thesis. Secondly, the quotation from "Coming of age in Samoa" seems to simplify overmuch. Surely Samoa must be feeling the same influences as are at work among their Polynesian cousins, the Maori, who is being at present submitted to a tremendous strain, to take only his mental life for example, in finding a substitute for the all important ideas of "mana" and "tapu" that governed his ancient

life, That in the matter of customs regarding sex, the missionaries "have dissented in vain" does not make their dissent "unimportant." It was this same dissent that built up out of peoples living communally a civilisation in which the family unit was substituted for the communal idea, and which provided the best -conditions ever produced for the development of the individual. And, by the way, are not the medical officers and the school teachers in Samoa apostles of dissent on behalf of western culture? Samoa cannot remain indefinitely in tribalism. Inevitably, even if it takes time, their customs and culture which have stereotyped them for thousands of years, will yield before western culture, and then they may be glad that their first contact with it was in the exposition of its fundamental values by the

missionaries.

J.

DURNING

(Okato).