WOMEN'S LIFE IN THE SOLOMONS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 8, 9 July 1909, Page 9

WOMEN'S LIFE IN THE SOLOMONS.

NATIVE CUSTOMS. Under the Tropics lie a chain of islands, so near the equator that all the days are of equal length, and the seasons are merged. These aro the Solomons. They are inhabited by a cheery brown race, whose welfare has become the lifewoi'k of devoted white men and women. One of these is the wife of the Rev. W. G. lvens, of the Melanesuui Mission. Mr. and Mrs. lvens are .at present in Wellington, and an interesting interview with the former appeared in The Post last night. Mrs. lvens, too,, has much of interest to tell of the lives lived by the brown woman under the tropic sun. "The women on the island where I live are exceedingly good looking," said Mrs. lvens to a Post representative. "They aie^a very pretty brown in colour, not the slightest negroed, no thick lips or broad noses, and are naturally very intelligent. When trained for housework they are quite reliable. I had nine girls 1 trained, and they were bright — blight as new halfpence for intelligence ; .never failed me once. They could do all the washing, blueing, starching, and ironing, and do it perfectly. At Christmas and Easter there are processions held in the church, and the women do all the laundering required for the altar-cloths, and surplices the men wear. What is the life of the in the islands like? Well, it varies so. What applies to one island is contradicted by the next. In one, the women will do all the work : in another, all the bartering ; in another, they will do neither. Women in some islands work the canoes. In our island they would be shocked if they were suspected of such a thing. In Christian villages the da,y's work begins about five or half-past all the year round. The days are of almost equal length — equal day and equal night. About six in the evening it gets dark. Of course, it varies a little, but not much, as we are only about six degrees south of the equator. The sun is hot in the heavens by eight o'clock. At halfpast six the Christian villagers go to matins — that is, as near as we can tell, for we have no clocks. The climate does not agree with them. We get up and go to bed by the sun. An hour's school follows, and after that the girls take big bamboos, as thick as your two arms — these are the water jugs — put them over their shoulders, and saunter down to the streams, returning with them full. Little water is used in the houses* The women never cook during the morning. About ten o'clock ifc may strike them to do a little work in the garden. These gardens are remarkable. They have been cleared by the men, but centuries ago, perhaps thousands of years. They are situated in the dense forest, and are surrounded by stone walls six feet high, which the men have built to keep out the village pigs. The heathen villages are all in the forest, too, close to the shore, but hidden — hidden like their lives. In these gardens the women plant the yams,' which grow up poles ten feet in height. . They look exactly like a hop garden when. the vines have run up the poles. The kumera vines run along the ground. Taro looks like great patches of arum lilies. The coconut, of course, is the common diet. It is always eaten green, not as we cat it. If used ripe, the natives scrape it with a pawa shell, and squeeze the milk over cooked fish. The fish they bake upon hot stones, but it is not what we would called cooked. It is really half raw, and rather disgusting to our taste. But their yam puddings are very nice. The natives smash up boiled yams, with native cabbage and coconut, wrap them in big leaves, bananas for preference, and roast them amidst the hot embers. It is a very pood food indeed. They do the same with kumrras and taro. Fish is also wrapped in leaves and baked in the embers. When a girl is betrotheci they have a feast, and again when she is married. The bridegroom's relative^ bring pigs, and they hold another festivity. The parents arrange the betrothal, and when money has passed between the families, the girl, aged nine or ten, goes to live with her future mother-in-law. But the marriage does not take place till the girl is seventeen or eighteen. They aie absolutely' moral in their marital relations, and to fail in the moral obligation means death to both parties. The natives are devoted mothers and fathers. A woman holds her young babe in her arms day and night, and is never allowed to scold or correct the child. Therefore, the children grow up perfectly uncontrolled. A boy, if not pleased, will curse his mother, strike her, and run away to another village. Strange as it seems, their interest in their children wanes as soon a-s the young ones can take care of themselves, at about four or five, when they can run-out and gather their own coconuts. It is the unreasoning maternal instinct of the animal seen again in a primitive human race. "The houses are built of bamboo with walls three feet high, high pitched roofs witli piojecting eaves, covered with the leaves of the sago paim, mud floors, and inside is absolutely- nothing, except a lire hole, and possibly a platform where the natives lie. • There is nothing in the way of a table, nothing in the w.iy of a chair. The women weave lough baskets of long grass. The food is served in large bowls inlaid with mother of pearl, in designs of birds. They aro sold to museums in Europe for as much as ten pounds each. "The people ate gentle, loving, andimpulsive when in the hands of a strong will upon whom they seem to rely. Women are looked up to, for these islands are matriarchal — the descent goes down the mother's line. Yet the women may b« beaten, and sometimes are — chiefly for laziness. They will not cook the men's food . regularly, and that is the chief cause of strife. After marriage a woman does no work except mind and nurse the children till they are grown and can look after themselves. Five it> counted a huge family amongst the Solomon islciuders. The women become old from thirty -five to fifty and, work \tiy hard. Ihey have little in their lhts. If the}' fall ill, no one attends to their wants and they oiten die from weakness. A mothor may tiy to relieve a sick child, but tlie child would not co anything to atsi»fc its mother. It is from lack of knowledge — not knowing what to do, they do nothing. When old men or women are too feeble to go fishing or climb for coconuts th^y are left to die. Heathendom does not un derstand love as we understand it." It is to spread this knowledge that gently nurtured women leave theii homrs and fiiends and exile themselves out to tho«a little known islands in the Pacific . c o that light may be brought out oi" daikue"^, tind love out of feiir.

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