Report of the Commission appointed to Inquire into the Decrease of the Native Population, with appendices.

  • Fiji. Commission appointed to Inquire into the Decrease of the Native Population.
Date:
1896
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Commission appointed to Inquire into the Decrease of the Native Population, with appendices. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

    301/442 (page 23)
    I find that the treatment is atrociously bad in every way ; that these unfortunate infants and young children receive very little really proper food and, that after the excitement of their birth and the novelty of their presence in the household dies out, not even decent attention. I believe that, v/hile a good many from constitutional weakness would never have survived at all, that by far the larger portion— fully 75 per cent.—have been fairly starved to death, and that this state of things has been brought about by the physical inability, ignorance, and apathy of one or of both parents. Of these causes I will examine physical inability first, because it did not exist under polygamy, and may perhaps have first given rise to it. Graminivorous animals suckle their young much longer than carnivorous ones do. A kitten passes from mother's milk to flesh in a few weeks ; a calf cannot subsist on grass alone for months. A vegetarian race must, and does, suckle their children longer than one which eats much meat. The same rule holds good among human beings. Our upper and middle class mother, if she suckle her infant at all, weans it in a few months. I have seen among the peasantry in Lancashire a child still at the breast who could rvm about and speak quite plainly—was, in fact, close on two years old—and it seemed to excite no surprise. I gathered that it was quite a common occurrence. These peasants were pretty strict vegetarians ; but the length, of time the mother suckled her child did not depend on that fact, certainly unknown to her, but on her wish to have no more children at all. She knew, or thought she knew, that so long as she suckled her first child constantly and faithfully she would not conceive a second. This is not the case with the Fiji mother. Months before her infant can safely dispense with her breast, it dries up from a second concejition having taken place ; and, unless she takes measures either to prevent this occurring, or to substitute suitable food for the lost natural nourishment, her infant must die. As a polygamist, she left her husband's company and never returned to it, till the existence of her child was assured, till it could live on the ordinary food of adults. As a mono- gamist, she is utterly lost; she blunders hopelessly and helplessly along, and probably only rears eventually the last of what ought to have been a family of eight or nine; and that because old age stepping in puts an end to her reproductive power, and the last child gets the long period of lactation denied to his predecessors. A return to polygamy is now quite impossible. Modern civilisation and our Christian religion forbid such a return utterly. The whole clerical body to whom the instruction of the people is confided look on a polygamous house father as one manifestly transgressing both the laws of God and those of nature. In the first supposition they may be, in the second they are certainly not correct. I find, then, that at present for this physical inability of the Fiji mother there is not any efficient remedy,—it is an evil which cannot be cured and must be endured. The entire ignorance of the proper way of enduring it is the second cause; which I will now consider. This ignorance is twofold. The Fiji mother is not, and never was, a nurse. She neither knows how to ]Drepare proper food—food suited to the abnormal condition of her infant—nor how to give the kind she has with judgment. Physicians tell us that, to ensure health, food must be given at regular intervals; that time must be allowed between meals to allow the stomach to digest one before it receives another; that, above all things, this member must not be overgorged. Animal food is much more rapidly digested tlian vegetable—or, rather, the effect of a meal of animal food in staying hunger is almost immediate, while that of a vegetable one is long deferred. A child at the breast, or fed on a carefully prepared substitute for milk, has at intervals an easily satisfied hv;nger ; one deprived of milk and fed on vegetable food only is ravenously liungry all the time. An experienced nurse, having given the proper and sufficient meal of vegetable food at the proper time, hears its cries with indifference, certain they will cease when the tardy digestion is at last taking jilace. The Fiji mother crams and crams her infant so long as, and whenever, it screams for more, under the impression that the food, really fatal when so given, is really needful for its wellbeing. The stomach, constantly supplied with fresh material, passes on its previous contents only half prepared, thereby irritating the bowels and bringing on a diarrhoea, soon followed by death. Fijian ignorance is not now nearly so dense as it was. England has given Fiji a good deal of knowledge, all more or less viseful ; but she has not taught her the duties of a nurse ; she has not initiated her into the mysteries of that nurse's bottle : and this is the more extraordinary since it is to that benign functionary and her life-giving implement Queen Victoria owes the existence of fully one-third of her purely English subjects themselves. Here, by changing this state of the case, a good deal of good can be done. Let the Government doctors—I beg their jDardon, medical officers—prepare a short impressive chajiter on the duties of a nurse—their vital importance—and how to discharge them jaroperly. Let them learn from persons who know—(there are such persons, notably the Gilbert Islanders)—how to best fill and use the Fiji bottle with ingredients and means at every Fiji mother's command, but now unknown to her. Let them pen concise, plain directions on this head. This having been done, let the Government insist that the missions, hitherto only intent on saving the souls of a man's family, shall take a turn at saving their bodies. Let each Fiji teacher, under penalty, every Sunday, and to his full congregation, sujoplement the chapter from the Bible read for the one purpose by that chapter from Na Mata devoted to the other. Then the Fiji mother will have a fair chance of rearing her infant if she wants to do so. But does she want to do so ? Which brings me to the third cause,—Apathy. Man, except in his maturity, is always in want of protection. His old age is fully as helpless as his infancy. The father's hand opposes bravely to his children's enemies that shield under which, when time transfers it to theirs, he will find shelter from his own. The birth of a man-child has always caused joy to the household. His advent in savage tribes promises for his parents a protection which will soon become indispensable. Men must have mothers, and the birth of a girl provides one for the future descendant, who will take up his place as a warrior in his turn. This occurs in every class of society, to the savage and to the civilised man alike, and to both the birth and wellbeing of children after them are of the greatest importance. Now, the position of the Fijiman is peculiar; he is neither savage nor civilised. Protected by English power from the open and palpable evils of his former savage state, he fails to perceive that civilisation has dangers quite as serious if not so evident. Confident, that now the hostile murderer is effectually restrained, he does not think it necessary to protect his old age from evils of whose existence he is unaware, and which, in fact, it would be extremely difficult to make clear to his apprehension. Car-pe diem is his motto. An injunction he thinks he will now be able to carry out fully and joyously on this and on every future day. Really, when you come to think of it, there is hardly any reason, beyond natural affection for their children, why a Fiji couple only moderately fond of each other should have any at all. And, since their breeding has diminished that affection most woefully, that is the conclusion most Fiji couples seem to have come to. The death of a child excites but little grief since it entails no actual loss on them, while the rearing of one causes a vast deal of care and trouble that promises no advantage that they can see. The remedy for this is exceedingly simple. Make it their evident interest to rear their children, and depend ujjon it, if human nature is human nature, their children will be reared. The Government is the best judge of how this can be best done. I think the following plan, while far from perfect, presents some advantages :— Let a number of medals or badges, conspicuous and by preference ornamental, be prepared. Let them be conferred ' with considerable ceremony, and command, under penalty, wherever seen, whether worn or not, the Tama (perhaps in a modified form) now exacted by chiefs. Let the recipients be women of good moral character, who have never been convicted of any crime, nor divorced from a husband—the mothers of a given number of living childi-en : that number to be above the average determined by the statistics as proper to each marriage. Let the mother in Fiji, while she retains her medal, receive the honours accorded formerly to the mothers in Israel. Let her release her husband from Ms taxes, her husband and her sons from the chief's lala for either private or public work or contribution of food. Let the death of a child, except by unavoidable accident, recall her medal till another is born (deaths after 21 not to have this effect). Let a conviction of crime on her own part, or on that of any member of her family, have the same effect; the period of recall to be proportionate ( to that offence; while fornication or adultei-y either on her own part or on theirs should deprive her of it altogether. Let this