NIUE OR SAVAGE ISLAND by Dr. M. G. Kellogg

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 16, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 49.

NIUE OR SAVAGE ISLAND.

By Dr. M. G. Kellogg

BY DR. M. G. KELLOGG.

NIUE, or Savage Island, as it is sometimes called, is about 60 miles in circumference and has an elevation of about two hundred feet. The island contains a population of 4,500 natives. There are two white traders with their families, one with a native wife, and two unmarried young men. These, with the missionary and his family, are all the whites there are on the island.

Niue offers no inducement for white settlers. It has no depth of soil and has neither rivers, brook, spring, nor lake. The island is one mass of coral rock, with no soil except that which is lodged in crevices, and a few inches in patches distributed here and there. At least three-fourths of the surface is bare rock, yet so porous and creviced is the rock that there is scarcely a square rod that does not contain a cocoanut tree, a banana plant, an orange tree, or some other kind of tree, shrub, or plant.

The natives are all evangelized, the London Missionary Society having placed missionaries there some thirty years back, or thereabouts. There are eleven villages on the island, in each of which there is a school with a native teacher. There is a fine large stone church in each of nine of the villages, and five or six hundred natives can comfortably seat themselves on the floor in each church. The teachers are all well educated on the island by the white missionaries. In all the villages there are assistant ministers who preach the gospel to their several flocks in the absence of the white missionary, who spends Sunday in the various villages, taking them in rotation.

The missionaries have accomplished much in the way of lifting their people from the depths of degradation in which they were when found by Captain Cook. Then each tribe or village considered all others as deadly enemies, and a constant watchfulness, especially by night, was necessary to avoid a surprise. These people, however, never practiced cannibalism, nor did they have idols. They believed in ghosts and spirits, and worshiped them through fear. They thought the sea was controlled by an unknown deity, which they also worshiped.

Stand where they would on their island, they saw naught else but the sea and sky, and thought that their little isle was all there was of earth, and they its only inhabitants. They believed that the earth was like the end sawed off from a round pole, the surface being flat like the smooth end of the pole, while its outer margin at the horizon corresponded with the rounded surface of the pole. They also supposed that the earth hung upon nothing in the heavens, as a fish appears to hang upon nothing when resting in the waters.

When they saw the first ship approach the island, they supposed that it came from the sky, or the heavens, and that the heavens opened for it to pass through to the earth. When Cook came, they saw that he and his people were of a different race and color, so they called them Papalangi, that is, people who came from the opening heavens.

The language of the Niue people is evidently of the same origin as the Tahitian and that of the Tonga and Cook isles, many of their words being alike both in pronunciation and meaning, yet the difference is so great that neither can be understood until learned by the people using the other. For this reason the missionaries have had to produce a translation of the Holy Scriptures into the language of each. As yet, the people of Niue have only a portion of the Bible in their language; the remainder, however, is in the hands of the printer.

Taking all things into consideration, the people of Niue have made creditable progress in civilization; for their advantages have been few and their disadvantages many.

Their situation is isolated, their means of production for export meager. Their produce is prepared for market at the cost of great labor, and they get very little for what they sell, and pay very dear for what they buy. To produce their food they plant cocoanuts, bananas, etc., in crevices not more than four or six inches wide between the rocks, while taro is grown in soil gathered up and carried in baskets and put in any cavity of the rocks which will hold three or four gallons. Their surplus cocoanuts are made into copra. Manioc is also grown, and fungus is gathered. They also make excellent matting for carpets, and broad fan hats.

After their produce is ready for market, it has to be carried on the shoulders of the people from one to fifteen miles, the women and children assisting in this, as in all other work. Arrived at the traders, they sell the copra at one and a half cents per pound, and are paid in trade, the traders charging twenty-five cents a yard for common calico and for other things in proportion.

The entire exports from the island amount to only about $25,000 per year. Of this amount about $14,000 is for copra; the remainder is for arrowroot, fungus, hats, and mats. A very few of the people have stone houses, but the most of them live in a small one-room hut. The greater portion of the men wear shirts and pants, and the women dress quite neatly as a general thing, especially on Sunday, their dresses being cut Mother Hubbard style, although many wear them short enough to suit the taste of the most radical of the American strong-minded, short-dress wearers, a Mother Hubbard dress for an adult being frequently made from three yards of common print calico.

Notwithstanding the great disadvantages under which these people are able to raise means, they contributed in the year 1892 $3,499 to the support of the gospel. Of this sum $1,728 was for the London Missionary Society, and the balance went to the support of the native missionaries.

The island has no well-established government. It is independent, no foreign power having considered it worth looking after. The missionaries have been industrious in their efforts to civilize and Christianize the people, and on the adoption of Christianity by them the missionaries have endeavored to have what they consider Christian laws and customs adopted. As a consequence, none but church members are allowed to hold office, and sin is punished instead of crime.

The same mistake has been made in all the islands that I have visited where the London Missionary Society have been at work. Strict laws are enacted against what the good missionary considers great sins, such as working on Sunday, for instance. Heavy fines are imposed, and zealous church members are set to spy out the transgressor. The judges, or fakafali, as they call them, are also church members, and they impose certain fines. The fine when collected is divided between the judges, the spies (police they call them on some isles), and the native teachers. On Maugia I was informed by a white resident that the white missionary received a portion of the fine, claiming that he was entitled to it for services as general counselor. The system of laws concocted by the missionaries, and the manner of executing them, have not resulted in arousing the individual conscience to a sense of what is right and to the importance of doing right for the sake of the right. Instead of this the natives who are disposed to do wrong have learned to practice deceit to avoid detection, but, if detected, they, by paying the fine, condone the offense and are again in good social standing, with no real reformation of character. On some of the islands the missionaries have not only been "regal" in authority, but, to use the language of the English resident on one of the islands, their reign has been as autocratic as that of the czar of Russia.

Suva, 15th August, 1893.