142 THE LAND OF THE CHAGALELEGAT. [DEC. the doors being openings in the roof about three feet high. They are always built along the bank of a navigable creek or river, and, on account of the marshy ground, are raised on posts ten feet high. Long platforms erected alongside give entrance to the interior, and reach, by steps, to the bank of the river. There is one large apartment for common use, and a narrow passage from this leads through the middle of the house: on either side of which small pens, disposed in great number, serve as the sleeping and cooking places of the different families. Dwelling by the water-side, they spend a great part of the day on the water, from which they draw a large portion of their subsistence. Their canoes, hollowed out of the stem of a thick tree by a common chopping knife and chisel, are of different lengths, from twelve to fiftysix feet. The largest, which are covered, have one or two masts, to which palm-leaf sails are fastened, and can carry forty persons. Children nine or ten years old have their small sampans, in which they venture fearlessly into the midst of the breakers. Rowing is performed by men and women with equal dexterity, and in a kneeling posture. Like the Polynesian islanders, their dress and adornment consist of bark, leaves, and tattooing. The tattooing, which is performed with a copper or iron needle, is a painful operation. Their clothing consists of prepared bark, coloured yellow with turmeric. For protection against sun and rain they wear a hat made of the outer bark of the sago palm, light, but of formidable size, with a very broad brim, and running to a point. Both sexes are fond of adorning the hair, forehead, and ears, with flowers and leaves, while around the throat and arms are disposed various kinds of small chain and bands. They prefer corals of a dull blue colour, which the women hang from their necks to the weight of six or eight pounds. Copper rings are also worn all along the fore arm by the women, and by the men on the upper arm. The waist is also ornamented with different kinds of bands. Both in their persons and houses they are very uncleanly. Their weapons are bow and arrow, spears, short swords, daggers, and shields: firearms they have none. The blades of the swords and spears, &c., are brought over from Sumatra in a roughly wrought state, and they bestow much labour on polishing and sharpening them. The point of the arrow is always smeared with poison. They believe in a great number of malevolent spirits, who dwell everywhere in the forests and caves, in the air, in the waters, and below the ground. Thunder and lightning, heavy winds and rains, conflagrations, inundations, and earthquakes, are supposed to be caused by these demons. These poor people are under continual fear, and in various ways endeavour to ward the evil influences which they consider to be so thickly around them. They never undertake any thing of importance without first consulting a kind of oracle, which consists in killing a fowl and cutting out the stomach from which the chief divines. Should a snake creep along or across the path when they are engaged in dragging home a large tree, which with much labour they have felled for some necessary purpose, they immediately abandon it where it lies. They have village festivals, which are held periodically, or on the occurrence of any event of importance, such as the 1856.] SHALL WE GIVE, OR SHALL WE NOT GIVE? 143 death of a chief, on the completion of a house, &c. They often last one or two months, the people eating to excess during the day-they have no intoxicating drinks-and dancing, singing, and talking during the night. In these festivals there is one point, which brings out the dark character of this people, and identifies the Mantawe islands as amongst the dark places of the earth which are full of the habitations of cruelty. To bring the feast to a proper conclusion, the killing of one or more men is thought necessary. Hence their murder voyages. The largest canoe of the village is fitted out for a distant voyage, and manned with a crew often amounting to one hundred. The people of the southern islands steer to the northern ones, and of the northern to the southward. Hence the bitter hatred which the inhabitants of different parts of these islands bear to each other. When they reach their destination, the canoe is anchored by heavy stones. The crew land, and conceal themselves in the forest, and shoot down the first persons they can surprise. Having effected their purpose, they put to sea as quickly as possible. Here is sequestered man. He is not corrupted by communication with other nations. He is left to the development of his own natural tendencies. Is he virtuous, innocent, inoffensive? or is the Scripture. true-"living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another?" The poison of sin is rankling in their hearts. When shall they have the antidote? SHALL WE GIVE, OR SHALL WE NOT GIVE? GIVING is the law of the universe. To cease giving is almost to cease being. The apparent exception in the system-accumulation-is only a process preparatory to more abundant and more useful giving. The sun gives light and heat to the globe; gives life, vigour, health, joy, beauty, to the whole planetary system. The clouds give rain in due season, and in the frosty nights of autumn they give a warm covering to the earth. The ocean gives moisture to the air, a path for our ships, fish for our tables, salt for our daily wants. The forest gives timber for our buildings, fuel for our fires, furniture for our houses, ships for our commerce, homes for birds and beasts. The air gives us the elements of life. The flowers give pleasure to a refined taste, and, by absorbing injurious gases, and emitting healthful ones, they give health to our frames. The snow gives to the fields the fertilizing principles which it has received and brought down from the air. The fields of grain give us bread. The bowels of the earth give us precious stones and gems, valuable metals and fuel. The dead stone walls around the fields collect from the atmosphere fertilizing qualities, and, as they are decomposed in the process of ages, give these elements again to the soil near them. Wire, properly arranged and stretched, gives music to cheer the soul, and to raise it in devotion to God. Every drop of water gives itself in its evaporation to become fructifying rain, or gentle dew, or the glorious rainbow, or the splendid array of summer clouds, or the garniture of the rising and setting sun. God gives, and He has constituted the whole unintelligent creation to give. The bee gives his honey. The ox gives his strength and his 144 SHALL WE GIVE, OR SHALL WE NOT GIVE? [DEC. flesh. The turtle gives his shell and his meat. The marten, and the elk, and the seal, give their fur. The elephant gives his tusks, the wolf his skin, the monkey his amusing tricks. Even the sluggish metals give us their various qualities, which fit them to be manufactured into useful implements-the gold and silver their preciousness; the iron, its adaptation for our ten thousand uses, the great helper and guard of civilization; the steel and the brass, for our watches; the lead, for our pipes and our coverings; the copper, for sheathing our ships; the mixture of metals, for our bells and our types. A thing is valuable in proportion as it has the capacity of giving. When it ceases to give, it is of no further utility, and is cast away. Nay, what, that God has made, does not continue to give as long as it exists? Even the cinders from our furnaces give us hard paths, or fill for us unsightly excavations, or extend our wharves into the harbours, and our cities into the sea. Of the army of givers, some are voluntary, some involuntary, in their giving. But God has made them to give. And they give, in fulfilling voluntarily or involuntarily the purpose of their creation. God, the prince of givers, made them that they might give, and He made them competent to give. If the whole unintelligent creation gives, and if God, the perfection of intelligence, gives, ought not man, the moral agent-man, the constant recipient of these gifts-man, on whom all things wait, and to whom they all minister, and for whom they are formed, that they may give-man, to whom God gives continually-ought not man to give?" Shall we give, or shall we not give?" If we have nothing of this world's goods, but live stintedly on charity-if all our earnings are necessarily consumed in meeting the just demands of society, and no reasonable economy would enable us to impart to others—then we have only the influence of a holy life, and our prayers, to give. But these we can give, and we must not withhold them. But most men have something more to give; the produce of a field, the income of a certain sum of money, the rent of an estate, a tithe of the profits of certain prosperous projects, a thank-offering for mercies-given not in empty words, but in substantial forms, which men can appreciate, and by which men shall be blessed-gifts that should be constant as our demands upon a giving universe are constant; and constant as our receipts from a giving universe and from God, the greatest of all givers, are constant. In this giving universe, and from this giving God, what have we received? The body, "curiously wrought," and "fearfully and wonderfully made;" the soul, with its mysterious powers and capacities; the blessings of this life, adapted to our double nature, and consonant with our destiny; the gospel, with all the benefits springing out of and attendant on a Christian civilization; the propitiatory sacrifice of the Son of God; a hope, full of immortality. Let a Christian man write out the several things included in this catalogue; and then, when a call is made on his generosity, and the question forces itself upon him, "Shall we give, or shall we not give ?" we make no doubt that he will find an answer ready. ["The Macedonian," May 1856. |