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Show WffiMM Elf K , I II I "ft ) Mil . I"""""! OMAN has emancipated herself In j J Once she did all the drudgery, now W Bhe makes lels of flowers for the T T men to wear about their heads f while they do the hard work necessary nec-essary to support the family. At best the Polynesian woman will only work with her husband, but never for him. The beautiful results re-sults of her industry of long ago in the South Seas, when man was master, are almost things of the past, to be found nowadays as priceless price-less relics In the museums of the world. In the good old days before a Hawaiian queen celebrated the death of her warrior husband by declaring nothing taboo or forbidden to her sex, the Hawaiian woman lived on a slim diet. She might make nets and catch fish for her husband, but she could not eat them, nor could she dine off the same mat, made by her hands, from which her lord and master ate, nor could she even eat In the presence of her own son whom she brought Into the world. Once the "taboo" was removed, the woman became be-came the equal of the man, and the arts languished. lan-guished. When kings could command and kill the disobedient,, rulers of Hawaii wore a robe of feathers that took many women a century to complete, com-plete, and thousands of men as long to gather the few feathers thatach wild bird of he mountains Ws-i4v vf K but ai1 over the suth Seaa the nandiraft f 109 ftif jf$f'v-' v1 t native workmen is becoming more and more a rOf" fr$ XvJ"1 rarity to be snapped up for preservation In the 1 imfl SA worids great museus- fiV fcJt I In New Zealand it is a penal offense to attempt 1 'l-'vlC" 5jSjfi. I t0 export a bit of Maori carving, no living Maori liwfi Jf $f C v4 may be employed upon a bit of native art work for a foreigner, no matter what the price offered VsA. 'Si AiHfc ( "ftt sv" 'Tl ' the workman may De' ne must seU to the gov- Vw4; M W ernment. In the New Hebrides, wood carving is hQJj 1 4 A 4W a11 but a ,ost art- Today in the native villages, -J1 iSJ-ii. ?t ,n tne nome ot a chief where the old filigree iS3Sf i-is' x "k woodwork dividing the hut In two rooms still -tffe-! .-Vv f stands, only the very oldest workers in the vil- tP ''pJt' S- lages can repair it properly, Where there are no i 'rffrf!, 7 "1 4 old men, clumsy patchwork is made of it, and frvlfei-MWj. 'wJJa as for the young men, they know nothing what- WO7&LrrJPZjHrfOJZF0J ever of the art. Practically it has already died 1 wove some of the most yTA''"X v GCV wonderful feather robes V fs h " ever worn by royalty, and II 4$$& XCU1 to this day the few old na- U M P'V" VV?" Y- tlves o still preserve t ?1 ff'N V $ alive tne art of beating ) A H ! J JI tapa cloth' turn out de" $-y ,xVv IpM xf signs the llke of which 13 v qi J 'A 4; A 4 l5Cx mi t0 be found nowhere else rf TitZ4?yM in the Pacific, real works - VVtVf fla waiian mats that are still I JW "T fP fi " ' V i' 3 woven rank above any I &&kir' 4 made in the South Seas. I lt VjJ Modern aniline dyes have W-sKj d Wi-?2 htened the labors of HY ?& I"$Sr VlL idfl "' the Hawaiian remnant of bXnrS - fes2Yi Vh native loth makers' but iWVv r fW Ail. 1 havernJ-a time com ' "kW women in their forests V -j, - working all day long with ZZ- a will digging roots and 7 . ' J ' herbs from which to ex- Je3IVZSm7JaJCir . tract colors. The time has supplied for the royal robe of yellow, valued at not yet quite come in Fiji when all the population a million dollars, the most costly royal robe in may sit with hands folded, waiting for the end, existence, and the handiwork of savage women out. , I had seen the Pandanus tree growing in Hawaii, I have even sat down and watched the Hawaiians who, in spite of their childhood spent In the public schools, still preserve the art of mat making, and seated upon the flooring of their modern piazzas, their legs under them, keep their fingers busy with the long strips of leaves that some one else has dried and cured for them. It was not until I had spent some time among the "Vv Fijians that I met those who collect their own A-leaves A-leaves and follow the process of mat making from start to finish. The woman's work in the South Seas Is to help the man. He builds the canoe, she helps to paddle pad-dle it; she creates pottery, he takes It to a market; mar-ket; he climbs to cut down the ripened cocoanut, she weaves the baskets that carry the dried kernel or copra to the trader.' If tapa is to be made the man helps to gather the bark. And so it goes, the South Sea island woman has. nearly everywhere in the Pacific achieved her emancipation, emanci-pation, owns her own sewing machine and bids a cheerful "kofa" (farewell) to the industries at which her mother was an artist. She has attained equality with man, but the world has lost something some-thing that she might gain everything. who have long forgotten the art that once was theirs, when their fingers creatsd feather robes for their husband chiefs to wear. Today when a royal personage dies in Hawaii, ancient kahilis, or wands of feathers, are carefully care-fully reconstructed by those who still preserve the art of putting them together, and after the royal interment they are again taken apart and put carefully away. In days of old even queens worked on these, and even the present ex-Queen Liliuokalani worked with her own hands a feather wand that preceded to the grave poor Queen Emma, last descendant of the first American to make Hawaii his home. Again this kahili was carried before the funeral cortege of Prince David, and will In time precede Liliuokalani herself her-self to the last resting place of Hawaiian kings and (jueens, the royal mausoleum. Sometimes one may still observe a family of women in Hawaii wearing one of the old-time, all but priceless mats, but it Is tedious work and the over-educated college-bred girl of Hawaii does not take toil kindly. Besides the art must be learned in childhood when the fingers are supple, and nowadays the public schools have truant officers of-ficers and every family a sewing machine. Every Hawaiian girl, however, is an adept at weaving wreaths andchains of flowers. The lei women are one of the sights of Honolulu. For the man she loves the Hawaiian girl will still weave a hat of native fibre around which she will make a band of feathers to express her "aloha" or love for the wearer. As the native arts and industries in the South Seas are abandoned one by one before the onward on-ward march of civilization, the aboriginal of the tropics are left idle, quickly forget how to work and pass away. In the good old days it took a muscular cannibal full six months to chop out with primitive stone implements his log canoe. In New Zealand the most expert wood carvers were employed for years at a stretch fashionfng with stone hatchets the headpiece for a war canoe In every South Sea village the sound of the women beating out tapa cloth was heard from morning till night, but nowadays all these things are done in a twinkling by machinery in civilized lands, sold to the Suth Sea Islanders for the cocoanuts they pick jp under the trees. There Is no further incentive for them to work, so nature seems to say to them. "Then why live?" Civilization Civiliza-tion has clothed the savage and robbed him of his handicrafts, but It has not yet succeeded In making him work for the white man, as the white man wishes him to work. In the good old days of the great king Kame-hameha. Kame-hameha. some ninety odd years ago, every K.nwaiinn man was a warrior, skilled In the construction con-struction of artistic war clubs and double canops nlmost as large as modern ships. The women |