As I have introduced several Polynesian legends and myths in this book, I would like to make a few remarks with reference thereto. In recording7 my memories of Island folk-lore8 I have to use, of course, my own order of intelligence—as compared with that of the wild people who told the stories—when I attempt to recreate the legendary9 lore, the poetry, and the loveliness of the natural world as it must have appeared to the imagination of primitive10 minds believing in them. In doing this I merely accept the inevitable11 transmutation which all legends and myths of primitive peoples must undergo when written down.
Myths in their earliest stage were the poetic12 babblings VIIIof the children of nature. It is certain that folk-lore which comes to us in written form has been subjected to obvious transformation13. All creation-myths and subtle moving legends that are representative of human passions and yearning14, be they from the lore of the ancient Finns, Hindoos, Babylonians, Japanese, Egyptians, or Greeks, have been completely transformed before they reached us. Legends are told, retold, and embellished15 in accordance with the storyteller’s notion of what seems compatible with and faithful to primitive conceptions, until, out of the imaginative fires of a dozen or so narrators, we get the poetic picture which the primitive mind probably conceived, but was unable to express. There is little doubt, I imagine, that, if it were possible to trace our great epic16 poems to their remote original sources, we should find them based on simple poetic superstition17 which had its origin in the minds of the lowest tribes of primitive man. Thus, through the influence of mind on mind, the world’s great epic, when compared to that far-off original, will resemble it as much as the nightingale’s egg of this summer will resemble the full-fledged bird’s midnight-song to next year’s moon.
So much would I say for my method in writing my reminiscences of heathen fairy-land. As for idol-worship, I have written about it just as O’Hara and I saw it with our own eyes, distinct and solid as are the biblical images of stone in the churches of our own sacred creed18.
I make no attempt to trace outside influences on the mythologies19 of Island creeds20; indeed, no influences can be traced. The only influence I was aware of, or ever heard discussed, was this, that with the advent1 of the missionary21, Island mythology22 and heathen legends were sponged off the map of existence. The missionaries23, IXnaturally enough, could see no use in preserving legendary creeds founded on idol-worship and sacrificial cannibalism24, and all that was certainly “not the correct thing” in a world where morals and manners differ so greatly from our own. In this way, both the old legends and the crude, primitive conceptions of religious worship have long since been swept away, and sometimes also the tribes that cherished these crude ideas were swept away with their creeds.
Islands that twenty years ago had populations numbering many thousand, to-day have a scattered25 population of a hundred or so. The blue-blooded Marquesan tribes have been wiped out. The survivors26 are so mixed in blood that they do not seem the children of their fathers. So rapid has been the change that many old chiefs are still living who recall the days when the voices of the winds and mountains were mutterings of the mighty27 gods of shadowland. Born under the influences of new conditions, the natives of to-day do not look back beyond the lotu times. Their imaginations are steeped in the atmosphere of the biblical stories they learn in the mission-room. Having a sense of shame for the sins of their fathers, they deny even the far-off wonders of the tapu-groves. In these tapu-groves, and beneath the sacred banyan28 trees, there once stood the heathen temples (mareas), the dwelling-places of those terrible priests who, empowered by superstitious29 reverence30, officiated at the sacrificial altars. These priests were more powerful in their profession than cannibal chiefs or heathen kings. Looking at the ruins of the altars overgrown with weeds, it seems incredible that human hands were once lifted in supplication31 to relentless32 captors before they were sacrificed to the bigotry33 of heathen gospel. It forces upon us the similarity of their fate and that of our old English martyrs34. In the forest, hard by, slept the dead—the Xdead who were the strange, wild peoples that once made every shadow a lurking35 god, their superstitious eyes seeing the starlit forest’s height as some mighty dark-branched brain of a heathen deity’s glittering thoughts.
The Polynesians believed that their great ancestors were metamorphosed into stars; in this belief there is something of the Egyptian and Hellenic touch. There are many star-legends concerning the origin of the conspicuous36 constellations37 of their lovely skies, legends that strangely resemble those of Greek mythology. As Circé turned Odysseus’ comrades into swine, so did the heathen goddesses turn Samoan warriors38 into crabs39, snakes, and cuttle-fish. Travellers have often been struck by this resemblance in South-Sea mythology to the folk-lore of the western world. The resemblance, I think, is easy enough to understand, for Man is man wherever one goes in this wide world. Be he black, tawny40, or white, his innermost hopes and aspirations41 are much the same.
The South-Sea savage42 gazed with the same wondering eyes of hope on the travelling sun, moon, and stars. To his childlike mind they were the movements of his mighty deities43 and ancestors. He too peopled the visible universe with gods and goddesses, as did the ancient Greeks; the phenomena44 of nature impressed his mind in much the same way as it has impressed mankind from the remotest ages. The same kind of sorrow dwelt in the hearts of those old-time savages45 when they gazed on the dead child in the forest. The sunsets blew the silent bugles46 of mysterious hues47 along their horizons, touching48 their lovely skylines with unheard but visible melodies over the briefness of all living things. They too crept out of their forests long ages ago, and stared with wonder on the rainbow that shone over their empurpled seas. Those old rainbows, sunsets, XIand stars left the first etherealized impressions of beauty in the heart of primeval Man the world over. And those old rainbows, sunsets, and stars still exist, are shining to-day in Man’s imagination, in all those longings49 for the beautiful that we call “Strivings after Art.” Thus there is a strong link, a twinship between us and those past savage races. Their old symbols of the stars, drifting clouds, fading sunsets, and moons that once hung in the wide galleries of their heaven still exist in all our poetic conceptions of that which is wild and beautiful. Through the alchemy of man’s transmuting50 mind, the wonders of that old world are represented in all that is highest in our Art; the very landscape-painting that hangs on our homestead walls to-day faintly expresses the poetic light that once sparkled in the eyes of those who lived when the world dreamed in its savage childhood. The music maestro to-day stands before the footlights, not of the stars, but before Man’s artificial splendour of lamplit halls, a highly-cultured savage, some wonderful embodiment of the genius who once blew in the magical conch-shell—that old barbarian51 musician who instinctively52 caught the harmonies of creation from the resounding53 primeval seas, the winds in the forests, and the songs of the first birds, applying them as sympathetic symbols of sound that he might please the earnest longings, the deepest dreams of that shaggy-haired, fierce audience that assembled in their barbarian forest halls. So it seems that nothing that pleases our eyes and senses belong to civilization or is of our own making. I imagine that it has all been derived54 from the first tremendous blackboard—the primitive days and starlit nights of heathen lands. And, so, the first wild children of creation were our masters, who unconsciously studied in the great school of Art under God’s mysterious tuition that we might feel the pride XIIand glory of all that is beautiful and divine, with hope in this far-away New Day! We dwell to-day in a materialistic55 age of brassy-blare and “advanced thought.” We have weighted ourselves with the thick armour56 of civilization, till we fight on with curved spines57, hardly listing where we may fall. The old mythological58 light of the stars is now switched on the pounding machinery59 of our cities, instead of being fixed60 on our imaginations. We grope in some darkness of our own making, as a thousand sects61 mumble62 in their beards about some dubious63 hope beyond the grave. We are chained prisoners in the stone cells of our own vaunted ambitions. No flower or singing bird is a true symbol of hope, delight, or wonder; all that we see is divested64 of the fairy-wings of that imagination that brings us wealth beyond our fleshly selves. The true poetry of life has gone for ever. The wild bird’s song steams in our old stew-pot—we like it better that way! But one must suppose that all this is as it should be. Nevertheless, we are the old savages, the Dark Ages, in a double sense, dreaming that we are the children of the Golden Age! The nursery tale told to the children as they sat by some Kentish homestead’s fireside last night, was whispered into the ears of wondering children of the South Seas long ages ago.
In reference to the general style of my book, I have written on the theory that autobiographical writing should be inspired, not by any idea of the apparent merits of those things which the author may feel that he has done well, but from his indwelling regret over the many things which he has never succeeded in doing at all. I imagine that it is so easy to convince the world of our faults and so difficult to interest it by putting down on paper those virtues65 we all secretly hope we possess. However that may be, my reader XIIIcan rest assured that my memoirs66 are based on my happy meditations67 over all the great, worldly things that I have never succeeded in doing, and so, whatever interest my book lacks, is not lacking through any fault of my own.
I feel that it is necessary to admit here that I have been obliged to dig deep whilst resuscitating68 from the legendary dark the old mummies, the gods and goddesses which I found buried in the pyramids of heathen mythology. It is I who have breathed the new breath of life into their dusty nostrils69 as I unrolled their spiced, rotting swathings so that they might have some resemblance to the time when they had true visionary existence before the wondering eyes of those wild, savage peoples of a mythological past. I have placed them, with a little diffidence, on their crumbling70 feet, refashioning them with their unsewn eyelids71 and mouths somewhat awry72, on show in the temple of my memoirs, in full view, standing73 along the aisles74 of dim remembrance, faintly lit up, I hope, by the light of my own imagination.
As books of an autobiographical nature usually devote a chapter or so to incidents connected with the author’s birth and childhood, and as some of the critics of my previous books wished to know something of my genesis, I am pleased to say that I am still full of go, still following the sea-birds and land-birds on my vagabond travels. Through my parentage I can claim the blood of three nations—English, Scottish, and a strain of Italian—my mother being a descendant of Thomas Haynes Bayly, the English ballad-writer; my father, a literary man, a descendant of Charles, the second Earl of Middleton, and a lady of the Italian Court: I believe this lady wrote some revolutionary songs, which were the direct cause of her enforced flight from her own country. Having said this much, XIVI will retire as gracefully75 as possible by saying that I have only stepped on the stage of this book as one of its humblest actors, as a hollow-voiced prompter who would bolster76 up the reputations of his old friends of the past with the weight of his fleshly self. And so I am here in the spirit of good comradeship, the far-away echo of my violin on the South-Sea buskin march assisting those who are scattered or dead, and no longer able to help themselves on this new stage of a shadowy drama in which I have placed them.
A. S.-M.
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1
advent
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| n.(重要事件等的)到来，来临 | |
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redress
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| n.赔偿，救济，矫正；v.纠正，匡正，革除 | |
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maidens
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| 处女( maiden的名词复数 )； 少女； 未婚女子； （板球运动）未得分的一轮投球 | |
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ardent
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，强烈的，烈性的 | |
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adventurous
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| adj.爱冒险的；惊心动魄的，惊险的，刺激的 | |
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portray
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| v.描写，描述；画(人物、景象等) | |
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recording
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| n.录音，记录 | |
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8
lore
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| n.传说；学问，经验，知识 | |
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9
legendary
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| adj.传奇（中）的，闻名遐迩的；n.传奇（文学） | |
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10
primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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poetic
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| adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的 | |
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transformation
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| n.变化；改造；转变 | |
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yearning
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| a.渴望的；向往的；怀念的 | |
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embellished
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| v.美化( embellish的过去式和过去分词 )；装饰；修饰；润色 | |
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epic
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| n.史诗，叙事诗；adj.史诗般的，壮丽的 | |
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superstition
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| n.迷信，迷信行为 | |
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creed
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| n.信条；信念，纲领 | |
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mythologies
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| 神话学( mythology的名词复数 )； 神话（总称）； 虚构的事实； 错误的观点 | |
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creeds
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| （尤指宗教）信条，教条( creed的名词复数 ) | |
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missionary
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| adj.教会的，传教(士)的；n.传教士 | |
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mythology
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| n.神话，神话学，神话集 | |
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missionaries
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| n.传教士( missionary的名词复数 ) | |
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24
cannibalism
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| n.同类相食；吃人肉 | |
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scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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survivors
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| 幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 ) | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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banyan
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| n.菩提树，榕树 | |
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superstitious
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| adj.迷信的 | |
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reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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supplication
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| n.恳求，祈愿，哀求 | |
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relentless
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| adj.残酷的，不留情的，无怜悯心的 | |
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bigotry
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| n.偏见，偏执，持偏见的行为[态度]等 | |
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martyrs
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| n.martyr的复数形式；烈士( martyr的名词复数 )；殉道者；殉教者；乞怜者（向人诉苦以博取同情） | |
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lurking
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| 潜在 | |
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conspicuous
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| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
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constellations
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| n.星座( constellation的名词复数 )；一群杰出人物；一系列（相关的想法、事物）；一群（相关的人） | |
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warriors
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| 武士，勇士，战士( warrior的名词复数 ) | |
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crabs
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| n.蟹( crab的名词复数 )；阴虱寄生病；蟹肉v.捕蟹( crab的第三人称单数 ) | |
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tawny
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| adj.茶色的，黄褐色的；n.黄褐色 | |
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aspirations
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| 强烈的愿望( aspiration的名词复数 )； 志向； 发送气音； 发 h 音 | |
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42
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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43
deities
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| n.神，女神( deity的名词复数 )；神祗；神灵；神明 | |
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phenomena
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| n.现象 | |
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savages
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| 未开化的人，野蛮人( savage的名词复数 ) | |
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bugles
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| 妙脆角，一种类似薯片但做成尖角或喇叭状的零食； 号角( bugle的名词复数 )； 喇叭； 匍匐筋骨草； （装饰女服用的）柱状玻璃（或塑料）小珠 | |
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47
hues
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| 色彩( hue的名词复数 )； 色调； 信仰； 观点 | |
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touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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49
longings
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| 渴望，盼望( longing的名词复数 ) | |
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50
transmuting
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| v.使变形，使变质，把…变成…( transmute的现在分词 ) | |
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51
barbarian
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| n.野蛮人；adj.野蛮(人)的；未开化的 | |
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52
instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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resounding
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| adj. 响亮的 | |
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54
derived
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| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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55
materialistic
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| a.唯物主义的，物质享乐主义的 | |
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armour
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| （=armor）n.盔甲；装甲部队 | |
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spines
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| n.脊柱( spine的名词复数 )；脊椎；（动植物的）刺；书脊 | |
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mythological
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| adj.神话的 | |
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machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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sects
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| n.宗派，教派( sect的名词复数 ) | |
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mumble
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| n./v.喃喃而语，咕哝 | |
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dubious
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| adj.怀疑的，无把握的；有问题的，靠不住的 | |
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divested
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| v.剥夺( divest的过去式和过去分词 )；脱去（衣服）；2。从…取去…；1。（给某人）脱衣服 | |
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virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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memoirs
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| n.回忆录；回忆录传( mem,自oir的名词复数) | |
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meditations
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| 默想( meditation的名词复数 )； 默念； 沉思； 冥想 | |
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resuscitating
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| v.使（某人或某物）恢复知觉，苏醒( resuscitate的现在分词 ) | |
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nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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crumbling
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| adj.摇摇欲坠的 | |
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eyelids
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| n.眼睑( eyelid的名词复数 )；眼睛也不眨一下；不露声色；面不改色 | |
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awry
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| adj.扭曲的，错的 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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aisles
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| n. (席位间的)通道, 侧廊 | |
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gracefully
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| ad.大大方方地；优美地 | |
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bolster
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| n.枕垫；v.支持，鼓励 | |
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