Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before

Articles Of Manufacture.

Fishing-nets of various kinds were in use, and were all manufactured on the islands. Several of the Polynesian tribes excel in this branch of industry. A captain of a ship of war, who was buying curiosities lately at Savage Island, actually refused their fine small fishing-nets, thinking that they must be articles of European manufacture. In Samoa, net-making is the same now as it was of old. It is the work of the women, and confined principally to the inland villages. One would have thought that it would be the reverse, and that the coast districts would have made it their principal business. The trade being confined to the interior, is probably occasioned by its proximity to the raw material which abounds in the bush, viz. the bark of the hibiscus, already referred to in describing "fine mats."

After the rough outer surface of the bark has been scraped off with a shell on a board, the remaining fibres are twisted with the mere palm of the hand across the bare thigh into a strong whip-cord, or finer twine, according to the size of the meshes of the net. As the good lady's cord lengthens, she fills her netting-needle, and when that is full, works it into her net. Their wooden netting-needles are exactly the same in form as those in common use in Europe. One evening, in taking a walk, Mrs. Turner and I stood for a few minutes and looked at a woman working a net. Mrs. Turner begged to be allowed to do a bit, took the needle, and did a few loops, to the no small amazement of the woman, who wondered how a European lady could know how to handle a Samoan netting-needle, and do Samoan work.

They make nets of all sizes, from the small one of eighteen inches square to the seine of a hundred feet long. A net forty feet long and twelve feet deep can be had for native mats, or white calico, to the value of twenty shillings. A hundred men may be able to muster some twenty nets. These they unite together, and, in the lagoon off their settlement, take large quantities of mullet and other fish.

The pearl-shell fish-hook is another article long in use, and in the manufacture of which the Samoans show some ingenuity. They cut a strip off the shell, from two to three inches long, and rub it smooth on a stone, so as to resemble a small fish. On the under side, or what may be called the belly, of this little mock fish, they fasten a hook made of tortoise-shell, or, it may be, nowadays, an English steel one. Alongside of the hook, concealing its point, and in imitation of the fins of a little fish, they fasten two small white feathers. Without any bait, this pearl-shell contrivance is cast adrift at the stern of a canoe, with a line of twenty feet, and from its striking resemblance to a little fish it is soon caught at, and in this way the Samoans secure a large quantity of their favourite food. No European fish-hook has yet superseded this purely native invention. They bait and use the steel fish-hook, however, and in some cases use it on their pearl-shells, as we have just remarked, instead of the tortoise-shell fish-hook.

A curious native drill is seen in connection with the manufacture of these little shell fish-hooks. Fine holes are drilled through the shell for the purpose of making fast the hook as well as the line, and the instrument to which we refer answers the purpose admirably. For the sake of comparison with other parts of the world, this simple contrivance is worth a few lines of description. Take a piece of wood, eighteen inches long, twice the thickness of a cedar pencil. Fasten with a strong thread a fine-pointed nail, or a sail-needle, to the end of this sort of spindle. Get a thick piece of wood, about the size of what is called in England a "hot cross bun," and in Scotland a "cookie," bore a hole in the centre of it, run the spindle through it, and wedge it fast about the middle of the spindle. At the top of the spindle fasten two strings, each nine inches long, to the ends of these strings attach the ends of a common cedar pencil, forming a triangle with a wooden base and string sides. Stand up the machine with your left hand, place the iron point where you wish to bore a hole, and steady the spindle with your left hand. Take hold of the pencil handle of the upper triangle, twirl round the spindle with your left hand, which will coil on the strings at the top to the spindle, pull down the pencil handle quickly, and then the machine will spin round. Work the handle in this way up and down, like a pump, the cord will alternately run off and on to the spindle, and the machine will continue to whirl round, first one way and then the other, until the pearl-shell, or whatever it may be, is perforated.

There is hardly anything else in the department of manufacture requiring particular notice. When speaking of garments, we referred to native cloth and mats. Large quantities of cinnet are plaited by the old men principally. They sit at their ease in their houses, and twist away very rapidly. At political meetings also, where there are hours of formal palaver and speechifying, the old men take their work with them, and improve the time at the cleanly, useful occupation of twisting cinnet. It is a substitute for twine, and useful for many a purpose, and is now sold to the merchants at about a shilling per pound. Baskets and fans are made as of old of the cocoa-nut leaflet, floor mats and a finer kind of baskets from the pandanus leaf. Twenty or thirty pieces of the rib of the cocoa-nut leaflet, fastened close together with a thread of cinnet, form a comb. Oval tubs are made by hollowing out a block of wood. Clubs, three feet long, from the iron-wood, or something else that is heavy. Spears, eight feet long, were made from the cocoa-nut tree, and barbed with the sting of the ray-fish; a wicked contrivance, for it was meant to break off from the spear in the body of the unhappy victim. In nine cases out of ten there was no way of cutting it out, and the poor creature died in agony.

The Samoans are an agricultural rather than a manufacturing people. In addition to their own individual wants, their hospitable custom in supplying, without money and without stint, the wants of visitors from all parts of the group, was a great drain on their plantations. The fact that a party of natives could travel from one end of the group to the other without a penny of expense for food and lodging, was an encouragement to pleasure excursions, friendly visits, and all sorts of travelling. Hardly a day passed without there being some strangers in the "guest house" of the village, to be provided for by a contribution from every family in the place. After meeting fully, however, all home wants, large quantities of yams, taro, and bananas, with pigs and poultry, were still to spare, and were sold to the ships which called for water and supplies.

Government And Laws.

A hurried glance, from a European stand-point, has caused many passing visitors to conclude that the Samoans had nothing whatever in the shape of government or laws. In sailing along the coast of any island of the group, you can hardly discern anything but one uninterrupted mass of bush and vegetation, from the beach to the top of the mountains; but, on landing, and minutely inspecting place after place, you find villages, plantations, roads, and boundary walls, in all directions along the coast. It is the same with their political aspect. It is not until you have landed, lived among the people, and for years closely inspected their movements, that you can form a correct opinion of the exact state of affairs. To any one acquainted with the aborigines of various parts of the world, and especially those of the Papuan groups in Western Polynesia, the simple fact that the Samoans have had but one dialect, and free intercourse with each other all over the group, is proof positive that there must have long existed there some system of government.

A good deal of order was maintained by the union of two things, viz. civil power and superstitious fear.

I. As to the first of these, their government had, and still has, more of the patriarchal and democratic in it, than of the monarchical. Take a village, containing a population, say, of three to five hundred, and there will probably be found there from ten to twenty titled heads of families, and one of the higher rank called chiefs. The titles of the heads of families are not hereditary. The son may succeed to the title which his father had, but it may be given to an uncle, or a cousin, and sometimes the son is passed over, and the title given, by common consent, to a perfect stranger, merely for the sake of drawing him in, to increase the numerical strength of the family. What I now call a family is a combined group of sons, daughters, uncles, cousins, nephews, nieces, etc., and may number fifty individuals. They have one large house, as a common rendezvous, and for the reception of visitors, and four or five other houses, all near each other.

The chiefs, on the other hand, are a most select class, whose pedigree is traced most carefully in the traditionary genealogies to the ancient head of some particular clan. One is chosen to bear the title, but there may be other individuals, who trace their origin to the same stock, call themselves chiefs too, and any of whom may succeed to the title on the death of the one who bears it. A chief, before he dies, may name some one to succeed him, but the final decision rests with the heads of families as to which of the members of the chief family shall have the title and be regarded as the village chief. In some cases the greater part of a village is composed of parties who rank as chiefs, but, as a general rule, it consists of certain families of the more common order, which we have just mentioned, and some titled chief, to whom the village looks up as their political head and protector. It is usual, in the courtesies of common conversation, for all to call each other chiefs. If you listen to the talk of little boys even, you will hear them addressing each other as chief this, that, and the other thing. Hence, I have heard a stranger remark, that the difficulty in Samoa is, not to find who is a chief, but to find out who is a common man.

As the chief can call to his aid, in any emergency, other chiefs connected with the same ancient stock from which he has sprung, and as he looks upon the entire village as his children, and feels bound to avenge their wrongs, it is thought essential to have some such head in every settlement. If anything in the clubbing way is to be done, no one but the chief, or his brother, or his son, dare do it. With few exceptions, he moves about, and shares in every-day employments, just like a common man. He goes out with the fishing party, works in his plantation, helps at house-building, and lends a hand at the native oven. There are still, however, although not at first sight to a European eye, well-defined marks of his chieftainship. If you listen to the conversation of the people, or attend a meeting of the heads of families for any village business, you hear that he is addressed with such formalities as might be translated into our English Earl, Duke, Prince, or King So-and-so; and, instead of the plebeian you, it is, your Highness, your Grace, your Lordship, or your Majesty. When the ava-bowl is filled, and the cup of friendship sent round, the first cup is handed to him. The turtle, too, the best joint, and anything choice, is sure to be laid before the chief. Then again, if he wishes to marry, the heads of families vie with each other in supplying him with all that is necessary to provide for the feasting, and other things connected with the ceremonies. He, on the other hand, has to give them ample compensation for all this, by distributing among them the fine mats which he gets as the dowry by his bride. A chief is careful to marry only in the family of a chief, and hence he has, by his wife, a portion worthy of the rank of a chief's daughter. To some extent, these heads of families are the bankers of the chief. His fine mats almost all go to them, and other property too. They, again, are ready with a supply whenever he wishes to draw upon them, whether for fine mats, food, or other property.

No lover of money was ever fonder of gold than a Samoan was of his fine mats. Hence the more wives the chief wished to have, the better the heads of families liked it, as every marriage was a fresh source of fine mat gain. To such an extent was this carried on, that one match was hardly over before another was in contemplation. If it did not originate with the chief, the heads of families would be concocting something, and marking out the daughter of some one as the object of the next fine mat speculation. The chief would yield to them, have the usual round of ceremonies, but without the remotest idea of living with that person as his wife. In this way a chief, in the course of his lifetime, might be married well on to fifty times; he would not, however, probably have more than two living with him at the same time. As the heads of families were on the look-out to have the sons and daughters of the chief married as often as they could also, it can be imagined that the main connecting links between the heads of families and their chief, and that which marked him out most prominently as a superior, was this marriage, or rather polygamy business.

The land in Samoa is owned alike by the chiefs and these heads of families. The land belonging to each family is well known, and the person who, for the time being, holds the title of the family head, has the right to dispose of it. It is the same with the chiefs. There are certain tracts of bush or forest land which belong to them. The uncultivated bush is sometimes claimed by those who own the land on its borders. The lagoon also, as far as the reef, is considered the property of those off whose village it is situated. Although the power of selling land, and doing other things of importance affecting all the members of the family, is vested in the titled head of the family, yet the said responsible party dare not do anything without formally consulting all concerned. Were he to persist in attempting to do otherwise, they would take his title from him, and give it to another. The members of a family can thus take the title from their head, and heads of families can unite and take the title from their chief, and give it to his brother, or uncle, or some other member of the chief family, who, they think, will act more in accordance with their wishes.

The chief of the village and the heads of families formed the legislative body of the place, and the common court of appeal in all cases of difficulty. One of these heads of families was the sort of Prime Minister of the chief. It was his special business to call a meeting, and it was also his province to send notice to the other heads of families, on the arrival of a party of strangers, and to say what each was to provide towards entertaining hospitably the village guests. Having no written language, of course they had no written laws; still, as far back as we can trace, they had well understood laws for the prevention of theft, adultery, assault, and murder, together with many other minor things, such as disrespectful language to a chief, calling him a pig, for instance, rude behaviour to strangers, pulling down a fence, or maliciously cutting a fruit-tree. Nor had they only the mere laws; the further back we go in their history, we find that their penalties were all the more severe. Death was the usual punishment for murder and adultery; and, as the injured party was at liberty to seek revenge on the brother, son, or any member of the family to which the guilty party belonged, these crimes were all the more dreaded and rare. In a case of murder, the culprit, and all belonging to him, fled to some other village of the district, or perhaps to another district; in either case it was a city of refuge. While they remained away, it was seldom any one dared to pursue them, and risk hostilities with the village which protected them. They might hear, however, that their houses had been burned, their plantations and land taken from them, and they themselves prohibited, by the united voice of the chief and heads of families, from ever again returning to the place. Fines of large quantities of food, which provided a feast for the entire village, were common; but there were frequently cases in which it was considered right to make the punishment fall exclusively on the culprit himself. For adultery, the eyes were sometimes taken out or the nose and ears bitten off. I was called into a house one day to doctor the nose of a young dame who had just suffered from the incisors of a jealous woman. A story is told of a husband and wife who made up their minds to end their jealousies by a separation. When all was ready, and the woman was about to leave the house with her share of the mat and other property, she said to the man: "Now, let us again salute noses and part in peace." The simpleton yielded, but instead of the friendly touch and smell, the vixen fastened on to the poor fellow's gnomon, and disfigured him for life.

For other crimes they had some such punishments as tying the hands of the culprit behind his back, and marching him along naked, something like the ancient French law of "amende honorable;" or, tying him hand to hand and foot to foot, and then carrying him suspended from a prickly pole run through between the tied hands and feet, and laying him down before the family or village against whom he had transgressed, as if he were a pig to be killed and cooked; compelling the culprit to sit naked for hours in the broiling sun; to be hung up by the heels; or to beat the head with stones till the face was covered with blood; or to play at handball with the prickly sea-urchin; or to take five bites of a pungent root, which was like filling the mouth five times with cayenne pepper. It was considered cowardly to shrink from the punishment on which the village court might decide, and so the young man would go boldly forward, sit down before the chiefs, bite the root five times, get up and walk away with his mouth on fire.

If two families in a village quarrelled, and wished to fight, the other heads of families and the chief stepped in and forbad; and it was at the peril of either party to carry on the strife contrary to the decided voice of public opinion.

These village communities, of from two to five hundred people, considered themselves perfectly distinct from each other, quite independent, and at liberty to act as they pleased on their own ground, and in their own affairs.

Then, again, these villages, in numbers of eight or ten, united by common consent, and formed a district, or state, for mutual protection. Some particular village was known as the capital of the district; and it was common to have a higher chief than any of the rest, as the head of that village, and who bore the title of King. Just as in the individual villages the chief and heads of families united in suppressing strife when two parties quarrelled, so it was in the event of a disturbance between any two villages of the district, the combined chiefs and heads of families of all the other villages united in forbidding strife. When war was threatened by another district, no single village acted alone; the whole district, or state, assembled at their capital, and had a special parliament to deliberate as to what should be done.

These meetings were held out of doors. The heads of families were the orators and members of parliament. The kings and chiefs rarely spoke. The representatives of each village had their known places, where they sat, under the shade of bread-fruit trees, and formed groups all round the margin of an open space, called the malæ (or forum), a thousand feet in circumference. Strangers from all parts might attend; and on some occasions there were two thousand people and upwards at these parliamentary gatherings. The speaker stood up when he addressed the assembly, laid over his shoulder his fly-flapper, or badge of office similar to what is seen on some ancient Egyptian standards. He held before him a staff six feet long, and leaned forward on it as he went on with his speech. A Samoan orator did not let his voice fall, but rather gradually raised it, so that the last word in a sentence was the loudest. It is the province of the head village to have the opening or king's speech, and to keep order in the meeting; and it was the particular province of another to reply to it, and so they went on. To a stranger the etiquette and delay connected with such meetings was tiresome in the extreme. When the first speaker rose, other heads of families belonging to his village, to the number of ten or twenty, rose up, too, as if they all wished to speak. This was to show to the assembly that the heads of families were all at their post, and who they were. They talked among themselves for a while, and it ended in one after another sitting down, after having passed on his right to speak to another. It was quite well known, in most cases, who was to speak, but they must have this preliminary formality about it. At last, after an hour or more all had sat down but the one who was to speak; and, laden by them with the responsibility of speaking, he commenced. He was not contented with a mere word of salutation, such as, "Gentlemen," but he must, with great minuteness, go over the names and titles, and a host of ancestral references, of which they were proud. Another half-hour was spent with this. Up to this time conversation went on freely all round the meeting; but whenever he came to the point of his address, viz., the object of the meeting and an opinion on it, all was attention. After the first speech, it was probably mid-day, and then food was brought in. The young men and women of the family, decked off in their best, came in a string of ten or twenty to their chief, each carrying something, and, naming him, said it was food for him. He told them to take it to So-and-so, and then they marched off to that chief, and said that it was food from such a one. This person would return the compliment by-and-by, and in this way there was, for hours, a delightful flow of friendship all over the place. On such occasions parties who had been living at variance had a fine opportunity of showing kindness to each other. Amid all this feasting the speechifying went on. As the debate advanced, the interest increased. They generally broke up at sundown; but if it was something of unusual interest and urgency, they went on speechifying in the dark, or in the moonlight, and might not adjourn till long after midnight. Unless all were pretty much agreed, nothing was done. They were afraid to thwart even a small minority.

Throughout the Samoan group there were, in all, ten of these separate districts such as I have described. In war some of the districts remained neutral, and of those engaged in the strife there might be two against one, or three against five, or, as in a late prolonged war, five against two. The district which was conquered, was exposed to the taunts and overbearing of their conquerors. But a subdued district seldom remained many years with the brand of "conquered." They were up and at it as soon as they had a favourable opportunity, and were probably themselves in turn the conquerors.

II. But I hasten to notice the second thing which I have already remarked was an auxiliary towards the maintenance of peace and order in Samoa, viz. superstitious fear. If the chief and heads of families, in their court of inquiry into any case of stealing, or other concealed matter, had a difficulty in finding out the culprit, they would make all involved swear that they were innocent. In swearing before the chiefs the suspected parties laid a handful of grass on the stone, or whatever it was, which was supposed to be the representative of the village god, and, laying their hand on it, would say, "In the presence of our chiefs now assembled, I lay my hand on the stone. If I stole the thing may I speedily die." This was a common mode of swearing. The meaning of the grass was a silent additional imprecation that his family might all die, and that grass might grow over their habitation. If all swore, and the culprit was still undiscovered, the chiefs then wound up the affair by committing the case to the village god, and solemnly invoking him to mark out for speedy destruction the guilty mischief-maker.

But, instead of appealing to the chiefs, and calling for an oath, many were contented with their own individual schemes and imprecations to frighten thieves and prevent stealing. When a man went to his plantation and saw that some cocoa-nuts, or a bunch of bananas, had been stolen, he would stand and shout at the top of his voice two or three times, "May fire blast the eyes of the person who has stolen my bananas! May fire burn down his eyes and the eyes of his god too!" This rang throughout the adjacent plantations, and made the thief tremble. They dreaded such uttered imprecations. Others cursed more privately when a thing was stolen, and called in the aid of a priest. In common disputes also, affecting the veracity of each other, it was customary for the one to say to the other, "Touch your eyes, if what you say is true." If he touched his eyes, the dispute was settled. It was as if he had said, "May I be cursed with blindness if it is not true what I say." Or the doubter would say to his opponent, "Who will eat you? Say the name of your god." He whose word was doubted would then name the household god of his family, as much as to say, "May god So-and-so destroy me, if what I have said is not true." Or the person whose word was doubted might adopt the more expressive course still of taking a stick and digging a hole in the ground, which was as if he said, "May I be buried immediately if what I say is not true." But there was another and more extensive class of curses, which were also feared, and formed a powerful check on stealing, especially from plantations and fruit-trees, viz. the silent hieroglyphic taboo, or tapui (tapooe), as they call it. Of this there was a great variety, and the following are specimens:—

1. The sea-pike taboo.—If a man wished that a sea-pike might run into the body of the person who attempted to steal, say, his bread-fruits, he would plait some cocoa-nut leaflets in the form of a sea-pike, and suspend it from one or more of the trees which he wished to protect. Any ordinary thief would be terrified to touch a tree from which this was suspended, he would expect that the next time he went to the sea, a fish of the said description would dart up and mortally wound him.

2. The white shark taboo was another object of terror to a thief. This was done by plaiting a cocoa-nut leaf in the form of a shark, adding fins, etc., and this they suspended from the tree. It was tantamount to an expressed imprecation, that the thief might be devoured by the white shark the next time he went to fish.

3. The cross-stick taboo.—This was a piece of any sort of stick suspended horizontally from the tree. It expressed the wish of the owner of the tree, that any thief touching it might have a disease running right across his body, and remaining fixed there till he died.

4. The ulcer taboo.—This was made by burying in the ground some pieces of clam-shell, and erecting at the spot three or four reeds, tied together at the top in a bunch like the head of a man. This was to express the wish and prayer of the owner that any thief might be laid down with ulcerous sores all over his body. If a thief transgressed, and had any subsequent swellings or sores, he confessed, sent a present to the owner of the land, and he, in return, sent back some native herb, as a medicine, and a pledge of forgiveness.

5. The tic-doloureux taboo.—This was done by fixing a spear in the ground close by the trees which the owner wished to guard. It was expressive of a wish that the thief might suffer from the face and head agonies of the disease just named.

6. The death taboo.—This was made by pouring some oil into a small calabash, and burying it near the tree. The spot was marked by a little hillock of white sand. The sight of one of these places was also effectual in scaring away a thief.

7. The rat taboo.—This was a small cocoa-nut leaf basket, filled with ashes from the cooking-house, and two or three small stones, and suspended from the tree. It signified a wish that rats might eat holes in the fine mats of the thief, and destroy any cloth, or other property which he might value.

8. The thunder taboo.—If a man wished that lightning might strike any who should steal from his land, he would plait some cocoa-nut leaflets in the form of a small square mat, and suspend it from a tree, with the addition of some white streamers of native cloth flying. A thief believed that if he trespassed he, or some of his children, might be struck with lightning, or, perhaps his own trees struck and blasted from the same cause. They were not, however, in the habit of talking about the effects of lightning. It was the thunder they thought did the mischief; hence they called that to which I have just referred, the thunder taboo.

From these few illustrations it will be observed that Samoa formed no exception to the remarkably widespread system of superstitious taboo; and the extent to which it preserved honesty and order among a heathen people will be readily imagined. At the present day the belief in the power of these rude hieroglyphics is not yet eradicated. In passing along you still see something with streamers flying, dangling from a tree in one place, a basket suspended in another, and some reeds erect in a third. The sickness, too, and dying hours of some hardened thief still bring out confessions of his guilt. Facts such as these which have just been enumerated still further show the cruelties of the reign of superstition, and exhibit, in striking contrast, the better spirit and the purer precepts taught by that blessed volume which is now received, read, and practised by many in Samoa. In days of heathenism there was no good rendered for evil there, and the only prayers for injurers and enemies were curses for their hurt and destruction.

Wars.

The murder of a chief, a disputed title, or a desire on the part of one, two, or more of the districts, to be considered stronger and of more importance than the rest, were frequent causes of war in Samoa. Hostilities were often prevented by such acts as giving up the culprit, paying a heavy fine, or by bowing down in abject submission, carrying firewood and small stones used in baking a pig, or, perhaps, a few bamboos. The firewood, stones, and leaves, were equivalent to their saying, "Here we are, your pigs, to be cooked if you please; and here are the materials with which to do it." Taking bamboos in the hand was as if they said, "We have come, and here are the knives to cut us up." A piece of split bamboo was, of old, the usual knife in Samoa. If, however, the chiefs of the district were determined to resist, they prepared accordingly. The boundary which separated one district from another was the usual battlefield; hence the villages next to that spot, on either side, were occupied at once by the troops. The women and children, the sick and the aged, were cleared off to some fortified place in the bush, or removed to some other district which was either neutral, or could be depended upon as an ally. Movable property was either buried, or taken off with the women and children. The wives of the chiefs and principal men generally followed their husbands wherever they might be encamped, to be ready to nurse them if sick or wounded. A heroine would even follow close upon the heels of her husband in actual conflict, carrying his club or some other part of his armour.

It was common for chiefs to take with them a present of fine mats when they went to another district to solicit help in war, but there was no standing army or regularly paid soldiers anywhere. When the chiefs decided on war, every man and boy under their jurisdiction old enough to handle a club had to take his place as a soldier, or risk the loss of his lands and property, and banishment from the place.

In each district there was a certain village, or cluster of villages, known as "the advance troops." It was their province to take the lead, and in battle their loss was double the number of that of any other village. Still they boasted of their right to lead, would on no account give it up to others, and talked in the current strain of other parts of the world about the "glory" of dying in battle. In a time of peace the people of these villages had special marks of respect shown to them, such as the largest share of food at public feasts, flattery for their bravery, etc.

While war was going on the chiefs and heads of families united in some central spot, and whatever they decided on, either for attack or defence, the young men endeavoured implicitly to carry out. Their weapons were clubs, spears, and slings. Subsequently, as iron was introduced, they got hatchets, and with these they made their most deadly weapon, viz. a sharp tomahawk, with a handle the length of a walking-stick. After that again they had the civilised additions of swords, pistols, guns, and bayonets. Around the village where the war party assembled they threw a rough stockade, formed by any kind of sticks or trees cut into eight feet lengths, and put close to each other, upright, with their ends buried two feet in the ground. The hostile parties might be each fortified in this way not more than a mile from each other, and now and then venture out to fight in the intervening space, or to take each other by surprise at weak or unguarded points. In their war canoes they had some distinguishing badge of their district hoisted on a pole, a bird it might be, or a dog, or a bunch of leaves. And, for the bush-ranging land forces, they had certain marks on the body by which they knew their own party, and which served as a temporary watchword. One day the distinguishing mark might be blackened cheeks; the next, two strokes on the breast; the next, a white shell suspended from a strip of white cloth round the neck, and so on. Before any formal fight, they had a day of feasting, reviewing, and merriment. In action they never stood up in orderly ranks to rush at each other. According to their notions that would be the height of folly. Their favourite tactics were rather of the surprise and bush-skirmishing order. In some of their fights in recent times I have known of from two to fifty killed on each side in a battle, never more. Prisoners, if men, were generally killed; if women, distributed among the conquerors. In a battle which was fought in 1830 a fire was kindled and many of the prisoners were burned.

Their heroes were the swift of foot, like Achilles or Asahel; men who could dash forward towards a crowd, hurl a spear with deadly precision, and stand for a while tilting off with his club other spears as they approached him within an inch of running him through. They were ambitious also to signalise themselves by the number of heads they could lay before the chiefs. No hero at the Grecian games rejoiced more over his chaplet than did the Samoan glory in the distinction of having cut off a man's head. As he went along with it through the villages on the way to the place where the chiefs were assembled, awaiting the hourly news of the battle, he danced, and capered, and shouted, calling out every now and then the name of the village, and adding, "I am So-and-so, I have got the head of such an one." When he reached the spot where the chiefs were met, he went through a few more evolutions, and then laid down the head before them. This, together with the formal thanks of the chiefs before the multitude for his bravery and successful fighting, was the very height of a young man's ambition. He made some giddy, frolicsome turns on his heel, and was off again to try and get another victim. These heads were piled up in a heap in the malae or public assembly. The head of the most important chief was put on the top, and, as the tale of the battle was told, they would say, "There were so many heads, surmounted by the head of So-and-so," giving the number and the name. After remaining for some hours piled up they were either claimed by their relatives or buried on the spot. A rare illustration of this ambition to get heads occurred about thirty years ago. In an unexpected attack upon a village one morning a young man fell stunned by a blow. Presently he recovered consciousness, felt the weight of some one sitting on his shoulders and covering his neck, and the first sounds he heard was a dispute going on between two as to which of them had the right to cut off his head! He made a desperate effort, jostled the fellow off his back, sprang to his feet, and, with his head all safe in his own possession, soon settled the matter by leaving them both far behind him.

The headless bodies of the slain, scattered about in the bush after a battle, if known, were buried, if unknown, left to the dogs. In some cases the whole body was pulled along in savage triumph and laid before the chiefs. One day, when some of us were in a war-fort endeavouring to mediate for peace, a dead body of one of the enemy was dragged in, preceded by a fellow making all sorts of fiendish gestures, with one of the legs in his teeth cut off by the knee.

Connected with Samoan warfare several other things may be noted, such as consulting the gods, taking a priest to battle to pray for his people and curse the enemy, filling up wells, destroying fruit-trees, going to battle decked off in their most valuable clothing and trinkets, haranguing each other previous to a fight, the very counterpart of Abijah the king of Judah, and even word for word, with the filthy-tongued Rabshakeh.

If the war became general, and involving several districts, they formed themselves into a threefold division of highway, bush, and sea-fighters. The fleet might consist of three hundred men, in thirty or forty canoes. The bushrangers and the fleet were principally dreaded, as there was no calculating where they were, or when they might pounce unawares upon some unguarded settlement. The fleet met apart from the land forces, and concocted their own schemes. They would have it all arranged, for instance, and a dead secret, to be off after dark to attack a particular village belonging to the enemy. At midnight they would land at an uninhabited place some miles from the settlement they intended to attack. They took a circuitous course in the bush, surrounded the village from behind, having previously arranged to let the canoes slip on quietly, and take up their position in the water in front of the village. By break of day they rushed into the houses of the unsuspecting people before they had well woke up, chopped off as many heads as they could, rushed with them to their canoes, and decamped before the young men of the place had time to muster or arm. Often they were scared by the people, who, during war, kept a watch, night and day, at all the principal openings in the reef; but now and then the plot succeeded and there was fearful slaughter. It was in one of these early morning attacks from the fleet that the young man to whom I have referred had such a narrow escape. That morning many were wounded, and the heads of thirteen carried off. One of them was that of a poor old man, who was on his knees at his morning devotions, when off went his head at a blow. In another house that same morning there was a noble instance of maternal heroism, in a woman who allowed herself to be hacked from head to foot, bending over her son to save his life. It is considered cowardly to kill a woman, or they would have despatched her at once. It was the head of her little boy they wanted, but they did not get it. The poor woman was in a dreadful state, but, to the surprise of all, recovered.

It is now close upon a hundred years since the Samoans had their first serious quarrel with Europeans, and which ended in a fight. I refer to the massacre at Tutuila of M. de Langle and others belonging to the expedition under the unfortunate La Perouse in 1787, and which branded the people for well-nigh fifty years as a race of treacherous savages whose shores ought not to be approached. Had the native version of the tale been known, it would have considerably modified the accounts which were published in the voyages of La Perouse. The origin of the quarrel was not with the party who went on shore in the boats. A native who was out at the ship was roughly dealt with, for some real or supposed case of pilfering. He was fired at and mortally wounded, and when taken on shore bleeding and dying, his enraged friends roused all on the spot to seek instant revenge. Hence the deadly attack on the party in the boats at the beach, in which the stones flew like bullets and ended in the death of M. de Langle, his brother officer, and ten of the crew. The natives wound up the bodies of the Frenchmen in native cloth and decently buried them, as they were in the habit of burying their own dead. The only inference which ought to have been drawn from this tragic occurrence was that heathen natives have a keen sense of justice, and that if men will go on the disproportionate principle of a life for a tooth, and shoot a man for a perfect trifle, they must abide by the consequences. It is almost certain to be avenged, and, alas! it is often the case that vengeance falls not on the guilty, but on some unsuspecting visitor who may subsequently follow.

The Heavens, And The Heavenly Bodies.

1. The Samoans say that of old the heavens fell down, and that people had to crawl about like the lower animals. After a time the arrow-root and another similar plant pushed up the heavens, and the place where these plants grew is still pointed out and called the Teengālangi, or heaven-pushing place; but the heads of the people continued to knock on the skies, and the place was excessively hot. One day a woman was passing along who had been drawing water. A man came up to her and said he would push up the heavens if she would give him some water to drink. "Push them up first," she replied. He pushed them up, and said, "Will that do?" "No," said she, "a little farther." He sent them up higher still, and then she handed him her cocoa-nut shell water-bottle. Another account says that the giant god Ti'iti'i pushed up the heavens, and that at the place where he stood there are hollow places in a rock nearly six feet long which are pointed out as his footprints.

2. Tradition says that in former times the people on earth had frequent intercourse with the heavens. We have already noticed some of these visits (pp. 13, 105). These stories are probably founded on the old idea that the heavens ended at the horizon. They thought that there was solidity there as well as extension; and therefore a distant voyage to some other island might be called a visit to some part of the heavens. When white men made their appearance, it was thought that they and the vessel which brought them had in some way broken through the heavens; and, to this day white men are called Papalangi, or Heaven-bursters.

But imagination required something more circumstantial, and hence the variety of traditionary schemes by which the people were supposed to go up and down on these visits to the heavens. One story speaks of a mountain, the top of which reached to the skies. Another says that a very dense column of smoke took people up. Another tells of a tree which, when it fell, was sixty miles in length. Another tree is mentioned which formed a sort of ladder, but on different sections of it there were repulsive or stinging insects, through which few but the very courageous persevered in forcing their way. First there was a part swarming with cockroaches; then a place full of ants; then a section covered with large venomous ants; beyond that again was a part of the tree overspread with centipedes, from which many turned and went down again to terra firma. The centipede region cleared, however, some finer branches were reached, and perched on them, the tourists waited for a high wind, which swung them up and down for a time, and then they were suddenly jerked in to the heavens.

3. Some curious stories are told about the sun. A woman called Mangamangai became pregnant by looking at the rising sun. Her son grew and was named "Child of the Sun." At his marriage he applied to his mother for a dowry. She sent him to his father, the sun, to beg from him, and told him how to go. Following her directions he went one morning with a long vine from the bush—which is the convenient substitute for a rope—climbed a tree, threw his rope with a noose at the end of it, and caught the sun. He made known his message, and (Pandora-like) got a present for his bride. The sun first asked him what was his choice—blessings or calamities? "Blessings," was his reply, and he came down with a store of them done up in a basket. There is another tale told about this Samoan Phaethon similar to what is related of the Hawaiian Maui. He and his mother were annoyed at the rapidity of the sun's course in those days—it rose, reached the meridian, and set, "before they could get their mats aired." He determined to make it go slower. He climbed a tree in the early morning, and with a rope and noose threw again and caught the sun as it emerged from the horizon. The sun struggled to get clear, but in vain. Then fearing lest he should be strangled he called out: "Have mercy on me—spare my life—what do you want?" "We wish you to go slower," was the reply, "we can get no work done." "Very well, let me go; for the future I will walk slowly." He let go the rope, and ever since the sun has gone slowly and given longer days.

The sun was the usual timekeeper of the day. The night was divided into three parts—midnight, and the first and second cock-crowing. Then came the sun. There was the rising—the half-way up—the standing straight overhead—turning over—making to go down—and, last of all, sinking. They thought the blazing sun went down into the ocean, passed through and came up next morning on the other side. The commotion among the waves at the horizon as he went down was supposed to be very great, and it was one of the worst curses to wish a person to sink in the ocean and the sun to go blazing down on the top of him.

Human sacrifices to the sun are spoken of in some of the more remote traditions. In this connection Papatea in the Eastward again comes up as the place where the sacrifices were offered. When the sun rose he called for a victim, and the same when he set. This continued for eighty days, and the population of the island was fast passing away. A lady called Ui, and her brother Luamaa, fled from Papatea and reached Manu'a, but alas! the sun there too was demanding his daily victims. It went the round of the houses, and when all had given up one of their number it was again the turn of the first house to supply an offering. The body was laid out on a Pandanus tree, and there the sun devoured it. It came to the turn of Luamaa to be offered, but his sister Ui compassionated him, and insisted on being offered in his stead. She lay down and called out: "Oh, cruel Sun! come and eat your victim, we are all being devoured by you." The sun looked at lady Ui, desired to live with her, and so he put an end to the sacrifices, and took her to wife. Another story makes out that Ui was the daughter of the King of Manu'a, and that he gave up his daughter as an offering to the sun, and so end the sacrifices by making her the saviour of the people.

4. Some of the planets are known and named. Fetū is the word used to designate all heavenly bodies except the sun and moon. Venus is called the morning and evening star. Mars is the Matamemea, or the star with the sear-leafed face. The Pleiades are called Lii or Mataalii, eyes of chiefs. The belt of Orion is the amonga, or burden carried on a pole across the shoulders. The milky way is ao lele, ao to'a, and the aniva. Ao lele, means flying cloud, and ao to'a, solid cloud. Meteors are called, fetū ati afi, or stars going to fetch a light; and comets are called pusa loa, or an elongated smoke.

5. Tradition in Samoa, as in other parts of the world, has a good deal to say about the moon. We are told of the visit to it by two young men, the one named Punifanga and the other Tafaliu. The one went up by a tree, and the other on a column of dense smoke from a fire kindled by himself for the purpose. We are also told of the woman Sina, or white, who with her child has long been up there. She was busy one evening with mallet in hand beating out on a board some of the bark of the paper mulberry with which to make native cloth. It was during a time of famine. The moon was just rising, and reminded her of a great bread-fruit, looking up to it she said, "Why cannot you come down and let my child have a bit of you?" The moon was indignant at the thought of being eaten, came down forthwith, and took her up, child, board, mallet, and all. At the full of the moon young Samoa still looks up, and traces the features of Sina, the face of the child, and the board and mallet, in verification of the old story.

The moon was the timekeeper of the year. The year was divided into twelve lunar months, and each month was known by a name in common use all over the group. To this there were some local exceptions, and a month named after the god, who on that month was specially worshipped. It is said that of old it was universal to name the month after the god whose worship at that particular time was observed. Among a people who had no fixed astronomical dates intercallation was easy, and the names of the twelve moons kept uniform.

January.

1. This was called Utu va mua, first yam digging. And so named from their then digging wild yams before the cultivated ones were ripe, and also from early yam digging.

2. Others say that the origin of Utu va mua was in two brothers, the one called Utuvamua and the other Utuvamuli, who, when there was war in heaven, and their party beaten, fled to the earth and brought the January storms with them.

3. A third account says that Utuvamua was the elder brother and Utuvamuli the younger, and that during a great war on earth they escaped to the heavens. That the hills are the heaps of slain covered over by earth dug up from the valleys, and that when the two brothers look down upon them their weeping and wailing and maddening exasperation occasion the storm and the hurricane.

4. The month was also called Aitu tele, great god, from the principal worship of the month. At another place it was named Tangaloa tele, for a similar reason.

February.

1. This month was called Toe utu va, or digging again, and so named from the yam crop.

2. The name is also explained as the further digging up of the winds to raise storms.

3. Aitu iti, or small gods, is another name, from the worship of the inferior household gods in that month.

March.

1. Called Faaafu, or withering, from the withering of the yam vine and other plants, which become coloured "like the shells."

2. Taafanua is another name of the month, which means, roam or walk about the land, being the name of a god worshipped in that month.

3. Called also Aitu iti, or small gods, from the household gods then worshipped, and who were specially implored to bless the family for the year "with strength to overcome in quarrels and in battle."

April.

1. This month was called Lo, from the name of a small fish which comes in plentiful shoals at that time.

2. Called also Fanonga, or destruction, the name of a god worshipped at the eastern extremity of the group during that month.

May.

1. Called Aununu, or stem crushed, from the crushed or pulverised state of the stem of the yam at that time. Others say it was so named from multitudes of malicious demons supposed to be wandering about at that time. Even the fish of the sea were supposed to be possessed and unusually savage in this month. May is often an unhealthy month, being the time of transition from the wet season to the dry, and hence the crushing sickness and superstitious vagaries.

2. Called also on one island Sina, or white, from the worship of a goddess of that name there.

June.

This month was called Oloamanu, or the singing of birds, it was thus named from the unusual joy among the birds over a plentiful supply of favourite buds and berries. The bright scarlet flowers of the "Erythrina indica" begin then to come out and attract a host of parrakeets and other happy chirpers.

July.

Called Palolo mua, or the first of Palolo. This is the first month of the half year, called the Palolo season in contradistinction to the other half, which is called the Trade-wind season. Palolo (Palolo virides) is that singular worm which swarms out from certain parts of the barrier reefs for three days in the course of a year, of which the natives are very fond, and all the more so from its rareness. If the last quarter of the moon is late in October palolo is found the day before, the day of, and the day after, that quarter. If the last quarter of the moon is early in October palolo does not come till the last quarter of the November moon. The middle day, or the day of the quarter, is the principal day for gathering these swarms of marine worms.

August.

This month was called Palolo muli, or after Palolo. Pa means to burst, and lolo, fatty or oily, and hence probably the origin of the name in the fatty or oily appearance of the worms as they break, burst, and are mixed up in the heaps directly after they are taken. They are only found for about half an hour before sunrise, after sunrise they disappear.

September.

1. Mulifā was the name given to this month which means end of the stem of the talo, or "arum esculentum." The month being unusually dry and parching, the scorching rays of the sun left little of the talo stem but a small piece at the end.

2. The end of the season for catching the fish called Fā, is another derivation of Mulifā given by some.

October.

This month was called Lotuaga, or rain prayers. It was so called from the special prayers which were then offered to the gods for rain.

November.

Taumafamua was the name of this month, the first of plenty, that means, fish and other food became plentiful, and then followed what were called the palolo and fly-hook feasts. Public dinners in the houses of the leading men of the village were the order of the day.

December.

This month was named Toetaumafa, or the finish of the feasting. Food now was less plentiful, and after some of the December gales or cyclones there was a great scarcity.