Du développement intellectuel acquis dans les îles du grand Océan, sous différents degrés de latitud

CHAP. 10: > Of the intellectual development acquired in the islands of the great Ocean, under different degrees of latitude, by peoples of the Malay species, and by peoples of the negro or Ethiopian species.

We observe among the peoples who inhabit the numerous islands of the great Ocean a phenomenon analogous to that which we have observed on the American continent. These peoples, with a very small number of exceptions, belong to the same species; they have the same physical organization; they speak dialects of the same language. Their common origin is, it is supposed, perhaps without much reason, the Malay Peninsula, at the southern extremity of Asia, between the second and tenth degree of northern latitude. It is under the torrid zone that the Malay race, like the American race, has manifested its first intellectual developments.

When the Europeans first visited the islands of the great Ocean situated between the tropics, all the islanders were ignorant of the use or even the existence of metals; they consequently possessed none of the tools with whose help we execute all the things that are necessary to us, and without which we would perhaps be not much more advanced than were most of the natives of North America at the arrival of the Europeans; of all the domestic animals that contribute to the execution of our labors, or that serve us as food, they possessed only dogs, chickens, and pigs; finally, they possessed none of our vegetables, nor of our grains. However, they drew no resources from hunting, and fishing was abandoned to the most miserable part of the population. Their implements consisted of sharp stones, pieces of shells, shark teeth, and ray skins: it is with the sole help of these implements that they had to fell trees, clear the soil, fabricate their weapons, weave their cloths, and construct their pirogues and their houses [234]: the trees they had to fell and shape often had a circumference of eight feet in the trunk and four in the branches [235]; the soil they had to clear was often hard, covered with trees and brushwood [236].Having such weak means of execution, being placed in a climate deemed so unfavorable to the development of intelligence, and belonging to a species whose intellectual faculties are believed to be less susceptible to perfection than our own, did these peoples remain or fall back into the savage state? Had those who are placed at the equator made less progress than those who are more or less distant from it?

The peoples of the Marquesas Islands, who, according to the testimony of travelers, are the most beautiful encountered in the great Ocean, are agriculturalists, as are almost all those found between the tropics. We have been given few extensive details on their agriculture; we see, however, that the land there is divided with more equality than in any other archipelago; that properties are better guaranteed; that the soil, which consists of a rich loam, is covered with beautiful banana plantations or groves of fruit trees, and that fishing, which is the principal resource of savage peoples living on the shores of lakes or rivers, is disdained there by anyone who possesses a portion of land sufficient for his maintenance [237]. We see that their utensils, their furniture, their clothing, their ornaments, all announce, in the men who invented them and in those who fabricate them, intelligence and industry, and that their fishing instruments differ little from our own [238]. We will be able, moreover, to judge their agriculture, their dwellings, and their pirogues by those of the peoples who are closest to them and whom we know better.

The Navigators’ Islands, which are only at the thirteenth degree of southern latitude, are remarkable for the cleanliness of their villages and dwellings: La Pérouse, who visited them, was seized with admiration. He moved away from the men of his crew by about two hundred paces, to go visit a village placed in the middle of a wood, or rather an orchard, whose trees were laden with fruit. The houses were placed on the circumference of a circle of about one hundred and fifty fathoms in diameter, the center of which formed a vast square, carpeted with the most beautiful greenery; the trees that shaded it maintained a delicious coolness [239].

“The most cheerful imagination,” he says, “would find it difficult to picture more pleasant sites than those of their villages: all the houses are built under fruit trees, which maintain a delicious coolness in these dwellings. They are situated on the bank of a stream that descends from the mountains, and along which is made a path that goes deep into the interior of the island [240].”

The architecture of these islanders has for its principal object to preserve them from the heat, and they know how to join elegance to convenience. Their houses, large enough to lodge several families, are surrounded by blinds that are raised on the windward side, and closed on the sunward side. The islanders sleep on very fine, very clean mats, and are perfectly sheltered from humidity.

“I entered the most beautiful of these huts, which probably belonged to the chief,” says La Pérouse again, “and my surprise was extreme to see a vast cabinet of trelliswork, as well executed as any of those in the vicinity of Paris. The best architect could not have given a more elegant curve to the extremities of the ellipse that terminated this hut. A row of columns, five feet distant from one another, formed its perimeter: these columns were made of very neatly worked tree trunks, between which fine mats, artfully overlaid one upon another like fish scales, were raised or lowered with ropes like our blinds. The rest of the house was covered with coconut leaves [241].”

These peoples fabricate very fine mats, cloths that have the suppleness and solidity of our own, and wooden furniture so well polished that it seems covered with the finest varnish. They also build pirogues; but they are less large than those built in other islands. The most common carry only five or six men; the largest do not carry more than fourteen [242]. All the villages being situated on the shores of the sea, the islanders communicate with one another only by means of their pirogues. One penetrates into the interior of the country only by small paths; and La Pérouse was not able to see the state of agriculture. The inhabitants of the Society Islands are no less advanced than those of the Navigators’ Islands; with the same instruments, they fabricate the same objects, but their pirogues are much larger. All the lands there are divided and well cultivated. The inhabitants water them by raising the water by means of sluices. The care they take to extirpate useless plants from the fields is such that, in a three-day excursion into the interior of the island, naturalists could find only three different plants [243].

These peoples, by means of their pirogues, make voyages of four hundred leagues, with no other guides than the sun during the day, the stars during the night [244], and the direction of the winds when the weather is overcast [245]. They distinguish the stars by particular names; they know in what part of the sky they will appear, in each of the months when they are visible on the horizon; finally, they know the time of year when they must appear and disappear [246]. The size and solidity of the pirogues with which these peoples travel and trade among themselves are such that, in Cook’s judgment, it is no more difficult to build a large ship with our instruments, than to build one of these pirogues with the tools that the inhabitants of these islands possessed upon the arrival of the Europeans [247]. Finally, at the same period these peoples had already made progress in surgery and in medicine; they had elements of calculation; they employed the decimal system and could count up to two thousand [248].

We find the same intellectual development among the inhabitants of the Friendly Islands. The lands there are divided, surrounded by hedges, and covered with plantations. One sees uncultivated lands there only those that the inhabitants believe they need to let rest, and they are not considerable. The properties, says Dentrecasteaux, are marked and guaranteed there by enclosures much better made even than those of Ambon [249]. The country is pierced by wide, smooth roads, surrounded by hedges, and protected from the ardor of the sun by fruit trees [250]. The houses, however, do not appear as well-cared-for as they are in the archipelago of the Navigators [251]. Their pirogues differ little from those of the inhabitants of the Society Islands. The Sandwich Islands seem less fertile than most of those that are placed at the equator; and this may explain why the population is less beautiful. The inhabitants belong equally to the Malay species; they are placed like the others in the equinoctial regions; but their intellectual faculties are a little less developed. However, before communicating with the Europeans, they had made, in agriculture, all the progress that their situation and the natural advantages they enjoyed allowed. Their instruments, their productions, were the same as in the other islands placed under the same latitude [252]. Their pirogues were much lighter and much more frail [253]. This people appeared above all very curious, and manifested much surprise in seeing the superiority that the Europeans had over them [254].

The inhabitants of Easter Island, more distant from the equator than the inhabitants of the Society Islands by about eight degrees, have also made much less progress in the arts. Their tools are very imperfect, and no agricultural instrument has been observed among them [255]. It appears that after having cleared the land, they make holes in it with wooden stakes and thus plant the small number of vegetables they possess [256]. Their fields are however cultivated with intelligence, although they are not enclosed. The weeds they pull from them are piled up and burned; the ashes are used to fertilize the land [257]. These islanders cultivate potatoes, yams, bananas, sugar canes; they gather, on the rocks at the seaside, a small fruit similar to the bunches of grapes found around the tropics [258]. They possess no other animals than a very small number of poultry of a very small species, with sparse plumage [259]. A part of their dwellings are subterranean; the others are made of rushes [260]. Finally, in the entire island, only three or four pirogues were seen, constructed of several pieces of wood joined together, very poor, and capable at most of carrying three or four people [261].

The peoples of New Zealand inhabit a cold climate compared to those who are placed between the tropics, and even to the inhabitants of Easter Island; there is between them and the inhabitants of the Society Islands a distance of about twenty degrees of latitude. They belong to the same species of men, speak the same language, and are provided with the same instruments; there is however between the intellectual development of the ones and the others an immense difference. The peoples of New Zealand know how to make pirogues; they cultivate the land and construct fortifications to protect themselves from the invasions of their enemies [262]. But they are, in almost everything, so inferior to most of the peoples who inhabit the tropics, that one can establish no analogy between them. They have for dwellings only small huts full of smoke and filth; they wear very poor, very dirty clothes covered with vermin. They are themselves covered with such a mass of filth that it is impossible to discern the color of their complexion, and they exhale a horrible stench [263]. They nourish themselves on the crudest foods, devouring rotten fish and meat; they drink the rancid oil of sea calf with such avidity that, in emptying Captain Cook’s lamps, they swallowed the flaming wicks [264]. Finally, even the vermin that covers them serves them as food [265]. Moreover, they see the European crews without astonishment and without curiosity, and they have not known how to cultivate the plants sown in their island, although they love them passionately [266].

The natives of Van Diemen's Land, placed under the same latitude as the most southern part of New Zealand, but belonging to a variety of the negro species, have still less developed intelligence. As devoid of curiosity as those of Tierra del Fuego, and appearing even more stupid, they have no idea of the cultivation of the land, although placed on a very fertile soil [267]. Ceaselessly wandering on the seashore, they have to live on nothing but shellfish and a few fish that they catch with great difficulty. They drink, without repugnance, the most stagnant and muddy water [268]. Completely naked, although in a climate where the winters are harsh, they are ceaselessly exposed to the inclemencies of the weather and to the bites of the most venomous insects; they are torn by the brushwood through which they pass, and devoured by vermin which they get rid of by eating it [269]. Their dwellings consist of a few miserable windbreaks made of bark, or they are formed in the trunks of trees by means of fire [270]. Their pirogues are but rafts formed by means of a few bundles of tree bark [271]. Their furniture, a basket also made of bark, a bag made of seaweed, a crudely made club, and a pointed stick that they throw clumsily and at a short distance [272]. Their villages, if one may give them this name, are never composed of more than three or four temporary dwellings, each of which can shelter three or four people. Finally, these men have neither government, nor chiefs: they live in perfect independence of one another. They are weak, suspicious, and wicked: they are, says Péron, the children of nature par excellence [273].

The inhabitants of New Holland, closer to the equator, and belonging to other varieties of the same species, have a little more developed intelligence. They manifest no more curiosity than those of Van Diemen's Land, and receive with no less indifference the presents that are made to them [274]; they are no less foreign to the cultivation of the land, and know no better the art of clothing themselves. But they are a little less unskilled at procuring food, at forming their pirogues, their huts, and their weapons. Their hordes are a little more numerous, and one finds among them a first germ of social organization, since they recognize chiefs. Those who live on the seashores draw from it the principal part of their subsistence; but they know, more than the inhabitants of Van Diemen's Land, the use of the hook, the art of fabricating nets, and of constructing dikes or weirs that retain the fish at the ebbing of the tide [275]. They add to the subsistence that fishing furnishes them, that which they can procure by hunting; they go to take from the trees the animals that take refuge there, or the honey that the bees deposit there; they climb them by making notches on the trunk [276]. They dig huts in the earth into which they enter by crawling, and thus protect themselves from the cold, from the ardor of the sun, and from the bites of insects [277]. Their bark pirogues can carry up to three people, and they even make some, with the help of fire and by hollowing out tree trunks, that are up to fourteen feet long [278]. Their weapons, although crude, are more dangerous [279]. Finally, they can count up to four [280]. Péron, who was able to compare these peoples himself to those of Van Diemen's Land, found that the latter were inferior to them in many respects.

“As for what concerns the social state,” he says, “the inhabitants of New Holland are, it is true, still completely foreign to the cultivation of lands, to the use of metals; they are, like the people of Van Diemen's Land, without clothing, without arts properly so called, without laws, without apparent worship, without any assured means of existence, constrained like them to go seek their food in the heart of the forests, or on the shores of the ocean. But already the first elements of social organization are manifest among them: the particular hordes are composed of a greater number of individuals; they have chiefs; the dwellings, although still very crude, are more numerous, better constructed; the weapons are more varied and more formidable; navigation is more daring, the canoes are better worked; the hunts more regular; the wars more general. The law of nations is already no longer foreign to them. Finally, these peoples have subjugated the dog; it is the companion of their hunts, their excursions, and their wars [281].”

The inhabitants of New Caledonia, who have been judged to belong to the same species as the inhabitants of Van Diemen's Land and who are closer to the equator than they are by about twenty-three degrees, are also much less barbarous: they have already made much progress in agriculture. Not only have they divided the land among themselves, but the pains they take to fertilize it even seem to exceed those taken in islands where the inhabitants are more advanced. They build walls in the mountains to prevent the collapse of the earth, like the peoples of Asia Minor and of several regions of Europe [282]. They trace furrows to conduct water to places where it is lacking [283]. Finally, they put much intelligence into the fabrication of their weapons, although they are ignorant of the use of the bow [284].

The inhabitants of Tanna, neighbors of those of New Caledonia and belonging to the same species, have equally turned their industry toward agriculture and fishing. Their pirogues, their lances, their clubs, their mats, and their cloths are crudely made, and partake of the harshness of their situation [285]. But they take great pains to clear the land, and to improve the productions of the soil; they put into their labors all the intelligence that the crudeness of their instruments allows. They draw from the earth almost all that is necessary for their subsistence; they take good care of their trees; they surround their plantations with walls [286].

The inhabitants of the New Hebrides, closer to the equator and belonging to the same species, have made more progress in their industry. They construct canoes that can follow for a long time the best of our vessels and that do not move less quickly [287].

Finally, the negroes of New Guinea, placed under a more ardent sky, are more advanced still; they fabricate mats, earthenware vessels, pirogues, and procure by the trade they conduct with the Chinese, the utensils, instruments, and cloths they need [288].

I will not speak of the peoples who inhabit the Sunda Islands, the Philippines, and the Moluccas, because several species are found confounded together there, and because the facts I would report would moreover only confirm the preceding observations.Thus, far from cold or even temperate climates having been a cause of the development of their intelligence for the peoples of the great Ocean, we see that it is, on the contrary, between the tropics that the human mind has made the most progress, and that it is the peoples closest to the poles who have remained furthest behind in civilization [289].