The first missionary to Samoa, John Williams, was struck by the contrast between the religion of the Samoans and the religion of the other Polynesian peoples whom he had studied. "The religious system of the Samoans," he says, "differs essentially from that which obtained at the Tahitian, Society, and other islands with which we are acquainted. They have neither maraes, nor temples, nor altars, nor offerings; and, consequently, none of the barbarous and sanguinary rites observed at the other groups. In consequence of this, the Samoans were considered an impious race, and their impiety became proverbial with the people of Rarotonga; for, when upbraiding a person who neglected the worship of the gods, they would call him 'a godless Samoan.' But, although heathenism was presented to us by the Samoans in a dress different from that in which we had been accustomed to see it, having no altars stained with human blood, no maraes strewed with the skulls and bones of its numerous victims, no sacred groves devoted to rites of which brutality and sensuality were the most obvious features, this people had 'lords many and gods many';—their religious system was as obviously marked as any other with absurdity, superstition, and vice."[70]
This account of the Samoan religion, written at a time when the islands were not yet fully opened up to Europeans, must be modified by the testimony of later writers, in particular with regard to the alleged absence of temples and offerings; but in its broad outlines it holds good, in so far as the Samoan ritual was honourably distinguished from that of many other islands in the Pacific by its freedom from human sacrifice and from the gross and licentious practices which prevailed in other branches of the Polynesian race. The notion of the Rarotongans that the Samoans were a godless people has proved to be totally mistaken. On closer acquaintance it was found that they lived under the influence of a host of imaginary deities who exercised their faith and demanded their obedience. Among these deities the most numerous and perhaps the most influential were the aitu, which were the gods of individuals, of families, of towns or villages, and of districts.[71] These gods were supposed to appear in some visible embodiment or incarnation, and the particular thing, or class of things, in which his god was in the habit of appearing, was to the Samoan an object of veneration, and he took great care never to injure it or treat it with contempt. In the great majority of cases the thing in which the deity presented himself to his worshippers was a class of natural objects, most commonly a species of animal, bird, or fish, less frequently a tree or plant or an inanimate object, such as a stone, the rainbow, or a meteor. One man, for example, saw his god in the eel, another in the shark, another in the turtle, another in the owl, another in the lizard, and so on throughout all the fish of the sea, the birds, the four-footed beasts, and creeping things. In some of the shell-fish, such as the limpets on the rocks, gods were supposed to be present. It was not uncommon to see an intelligent chief muttering prayers to a fly, an ant, or a lizard, which chanced to alight or crawl in his presence. A man would eat freely of the incarnation of another man's god, but would most scrupulously refrain from eating of the incarnation of his own particular god, believing that death would be the consequence of such sacrilege. The offended god was supposed to take up his abode in the body of the impious eater and to generate there the very thing which he had eaten, till it caused his death. For example, if a man, whose family god was incarnate in the prickly sea-urchin (Echinus), were to eat of a sea-urchin, it was believed that a prickly sea-urchin would grow in his body and kill him. If his family god were incarnate in the turtle, and he was rash enough to eat a turtle, the god would enter into him, and his voice would be heard from within the sinner's body, saying, "I am killing this man; he ate my incarnation." Occasionally, however, the penalty exacted by the deity was less severe. If, for instance, a man's god was in cockles, and he ate one of these shell-fish, a cockle would grow on his nose; if he merely picked up a cockle on the shore and walked away with it, the shell-fish would appear on some part of his person. But in neither case, apparently, would the kindly cockle take the life of the offender. It was not a bloodthirsty deity. Again, a man whose god was in coco-nuts would never drink the refreshing beverage which other people were free to extract from the nuts. But the worshipper who shrank from eating or drinking his god in the shape, say, of an octopus or of coco-nut water, would often look on with indifference while other people partook of these his divinities. He might pity their ignorance or envy their liberty, but he would not seek to enlighten the one or to restrain the other.[72] Indeed this indifference was sometimes carried to great lengths. For example, a man whose god was incarnate in the turtle, though he would not himself dare to partake of turtle, would have no scruple in helping a neighbour to cut up and cook a turtle; but in doing so he took the precaution to tie a bandage over his mouth to prevent an embryo turtle from slipping down his throat and sealing his doom by growing up in his stomach.[73] Sometimes the incarnate deity, out of consideration perhaps for the weakness of the flesh, would limit his presence to a portion of an animal, it might be the left wing of a pigeon, or the tail of a dog, or the right leg of a pig.[74] The advantages of such a restriction to a worshipper are obvious. A man, for instance, to whom it would have been death to eat the right leg of a pig, might partake of a left leg of pork with safety and even with gusto. And so with the rest of the divine menagery.
However, even if the worst had happened, that is to say, if the deity had been killed, cooked and eaten, the consequences were not necessarily fatal to his worshippers; there were modes of redeeming the lives of the sinners and of expiating their sin. Suppose, for example, that the god of a household was the cuttle-fish, and that some visitor to the house had, either in ignorance or in bravado, caught a cuttle-fish and cooked it, or that a member of the family had been present where a cuttle-fish was eaten, the family would meet in conclave to consult about the sacrilege, and they would select one of their number, whether a man or a woman, to go and lie down in a cold oven and be covered over with leaves, just as in the process of baking, all to pretend that the person was being offered up as a burnt sacrifice to avert the wrath of the deity. While this solemn pretence was being enacted, the whole family would engage in prayer, saying, "O bald-headed cuttle-fish, forgive what has been done. It was all the work of a stranger." If they did not thus abase themselves before the divine cuttle-fish, they believed that the god would visit them and cause a cuttle-fish to grow internally in their bodies and so be the death of some of them.[75] Similar modes of appeasing the wrath of divine eels, mullets, stinging ray fish, turtles, wild pigeons, and garden lizards were adopted with equal success.[76]
Apparently the Samoans were even more concerned to defend their village gods or district gods against injury and insult than to guard the deities of simple individuals. We are told that all the inhabitants of a district would thus unite for the protection of the local divinity.[77] For example, it happened that in a village where the first native Christian teachers settled one of them caught a sea-eel (Muraena) and cooked it, and two of the village lads, who were their servants, ate some of the eel for their supper. But the eel was the village god, and when the villagers heard that the lads had eaten the god, they administered a sound thrashing to the culprits, and dragged them off to a cooking-house where they laid them down in the oven pit and covered them with leaves in the usual way, as if the lads had been killed and were now to be cooked as a peace-offering to avert the wrath of the deity.[78] When John Williams had caused some Christian natives to kill a large sea-snake and dry it on the rocks to be preserved as a specimen, the heathen fishermen of the island at sight of it raised a most terrific yell, and, seizing their clubs, rushed upon the Christian natives, saying, "You have killed our god! You have killed our god!" It was with difficulty that Mr. Williams restrained their violence on condition that the reptile should be immediately carried back to the boat from which the missionary had landed.[79] The island in which this happened belonged to the Tongan group, but precisely the same incident might have occurred in Samoa. In some parts of Upolu a goddess was believed to be incarnate in bats, and if a neighbour chanced to kill one of these creatures, the indignant worshippers of the bat might wage a war to avenge the insult to their deity.[80] If people who had the stinging ray fish for the incarnation of their god heard that their neighbours had caught a fish of that sort, they would go and beg them to give it up and not to cook it. A refusal to comply with the request would be followed by a fight.[81]
Accordingly, when the Samoans were converted to Christianity, they gave the strongest proof of the genuineness of their conversion by killing and eating their animal gods. Thus when a chief named Malietoa renounced heathenism, he caused an eel to be publicly caught, cooked, and eaten by many persons who had hitherto regarded the eel as their god. His own sons had a different sort of fish, called anae, for their private deity, and to demonstrate their faith in the new religion they had a quantity of the fish caught, cooked, and served up in the presence of a large party of friends and relations. There, with trembling hearts, they partook of the once sacred morsel; but, their fears getting the better of them, they immediately retired from the feast and swallowed a powerful emetic, lest the divine fish should lie heavy on their stomachs and devour their vitals.[82] As nothing particular happened after these daring innovations, the people took heart of grace, and concerted further plans for the destruction of their ancient deities. Among these was a certain Papo, who was nothing more or less than a piece of old rotten matting, about three yards long and four inches wide; but being a god of war and, in that capacity, always attached to the canoe of the leader when they went forth to battle, he was regarded with great veneration by the people. At the assembly convoked to decide on his fate, the first proposal was to throw him into the fire. But the idea was too shocking to the general sense of the community, and by way of making death as little painful as possible to the deity, they decided to take him out to sea in a canoe and there consign him to a watery grave. Even from this mitigated doom Papo was rescued by the efforts of the missionaries, and he now adorns a museum.[83]
But even when the career of one of these animal gods was not prematurely cut short by being killed, cooked, and eaten, he was still liable to die in the course of nature; and when his dead body was discovered, great was the sorrow of his worshippers. If, for example, the god of a village was an owl, and a dead owl was found lying beside a road or under a tree, it would be reverently covered up with a white cloth by the person who discovered it, and all the villagers would assemble round the dead god and burn their bodies with firebrands and beat their foreheads with stones till the blood flowed. Then the corpse of the feathered deity would be wrapped up and buried with as much care and ceremony as if it were a human body. However, that was not the death of the god. He was supposed to be yet alive and incarnate in all the owls in existence.[84]
The offerings to these deities consisted chiefly of cooked food,[85] which was apparently deemed as essential to the sustenance of gods as of men, and that even when the gods were not animals but stones. For example, two oblong smooth stones, which stood on a platform of loose stones near a village, were regarded as the parents of the rain-god, and when the people were making ready to go off to the woods for the favourite sport of pigeon-catching, they used to lay offerings of cooked taro and fish on the stones, accompanied by prayers for fine weather and no rain. These stone gods were also believed to cause yams to grow; hence in time of dearth a man would present them with a yam in hope of securing their favour.[86]
At the feasts the first cup of kava was dedicated to the god, the presiding chief either pouring it out on the ground or waving it towards the sky. Afterwards all the chiefs drank from the same cup according to their rank; then the food brought as an offering was divided and eaten there before the god.[87] Even within the circle of the family it was customary to pour out on the ground a little kava as an offering to the family god before any one else drank of it.[88]
Annual feasts were held in honour of the gods, and the season of the feast was often in May, but sometimes in April or June.[89] In some cases the feasts were regulated by the appearance of the bird which was believed to be the incarnation of the god. Whenever the bird was seen, the priest would say that the god had come, and he would fix upon a day for the entertainment of the deity.[90] At these festivals all the people met in the place of public assembly, where they had collected heaps of cooked food. First, they made their offerings to the god and prayed to him to avert calamity and grant prosperity; then they feasted with and before their god, and after that any strangers present might eat. Some of the festivals included games, such as wrestling, spear-throwing, club exercises, sham-fights, and nocturnal dances; and they lasted for days.[91] At one of these annual festivals held in the month of June, the exercise with clubs assumed a serious and indeed sanguinary form. All the people, old and young, men, women, and children, took part in it, and battered their scalps till the blood streamed down over their faces and bodies. This proof of their devotion was supposed to be acceptable to the deity, who, gratified by the sight of their flowing blood, would answer their prayers for health, good crops, and victory in war.[92] At the feast of the cockle god in May prayers were offered up to the divine shell-fish that he would be pleased to cure the coughs and other ailments usually prevalent at that season, which in Samoa forms the transition from the wet to the dry months.[93] At the festival of an owl god, which fell about the month of April, the offerings and prayers were particularly directed towards the removal of caterpillars from the plantations; for these insects were believed to be the servants of the owl god, who could send them as his ministers of vengeance to lay waste the fields and orchards of the impious.[94] Elsewhere the owl was a war god, and at the beginning of the annual fish festivals the chiefs and people of the village assembled round the opening of the first oven and gave the first fish to the god.[95] A family, who had the eel for their household god, showed their gratitude to him for his kindness by presenting him with the first fruits of their taro plantation.[96] Another family believed their deity to be incarnate in centipedes; and if a member of the family fell ill or was bitten by a centipede, they would offer the divine reptile a fine mat and a fan, with a prayer for the recovery of the patient.[97] The utility of a fine mat and a fan to a centipede is too obvious to be insisted on. Sometimes offerings were made to a god, not to persuade him to come, but to induce him to go away. For example, where gods or spirits were believed to voyage along the coast, offerings of food were often set down on the beach as an inducement to the spirits to take the victuals and pass on without calling at that particular place.[98]
Formal prayers were offered to the god by the head of a family, and public prayer was put up when the men were setting out for war. On such occasions they prayed that stones, stumps of trees, and other obstacles might be taken out of the way of the warriors, and that their path might be wet with the blood of their foes. All their prayers were for temporal benefits, such as protection against enemies, plenty of food, and other desirable objects. They attached great importance to confession of wrongdoing in times of danger, but, so far as appears, they expressed no repentance, promised no amendment, and offered no prayer for forgiveness. If, for example, a canoe, crossing the channel between Savaii and Upolu, were caught in a squall and seemed likely to be swamped, the steersman would head the canoe to the wind, and every man on board would make a clean breast of his sins. One would say, "I stole a fowl at such and such a village." Another would confess an intrigue with a married woman somewhere else; and so on. When all had either confessed their guilt or declared their innocence, the helmsman would put the helm about and scud before the wind, in perfect confidence of bringing the canoe and crew safe to land.[99]
When a god was believed to be incarnate in a species of birds or animals or fish, omens were naturally drawn from the appearance and behaviour of the creatures. This happened particularly in time of war, when hopes and fears were rife among the people. Thus, if their war god was an owl, and the bird fluttered above the troops on the march, the omen was good; but if the owl flew away in the direction of the enemy, it was an evil omen, the god had deserted them and joined the foe;[100] if it crossed the path of the warriors or flew back on them, it was a warning to retreat.[101] So in places where the war-god was a rail-bird, if the bird screeched and flew before the army, the people marched confidently to battle; but if it turned and flew back, they hesitated. If the plumage of the rail showed glossy red, it was a sign to go to war; but if the feathers were dark and dingy, it was a warning to stay at home. And if the bird were heard chattering or scolding, as they called it, at midnight, it prognosticated an attack next day, and they would at once send off the women and children to a place of safety.[102] In like manner omens were drawn from the flight of herons, kingfishers, the Porphyris Samoensis, and flying-foxes, where these creatures were supposed to incarnate the war god.[103] People who saw their war god in the lizard used to take omens from a lizard before they went forth to fight. They watched the movements of a lizard in a bundle of spears. If the creature ran about the outside of the bundle and the points of the spears, the omen was favourable; but if it crept into the bundle for concealment, it was an evil sign.[104] The inhabitants of several villages looked upon dogs, especially white dogs, as the incarnation of their war god; accordingly if the dog wagged his tail, barked, and dashed ahead in sight of the enemy, it was a good omen; but if he retreated or howled, their hearts failed them.[105] Again, where the cuttle-fish was the war god, the movements of that fish at sea were anxiously observed in time of war. If the fish swam inshore while the people were mustering for battle, it augured victory; but if it swam far away, it portended defeat.[106]
When a god was supposed to dwell in some inanimate object, the art of divination was similarly employed to elicit a knowledge of the future from an observation of the object, whatever it might be. In several villages, for example, the people viewed a rainbow as the representative of their war god. If, when they were going to battle by land or sea, a rainbow appeared in the sky right in front of them, with the arch, as it were, straddling across the line of march or the course that the fleet was steering, it was a warning to turn back. But if the bow shone on the right or left of the army or of the fleet, it meant that the god was marching with them, and cheering on the advance.[107] Another village revered its god in the lightning. When lightning flashed frequently in time of war, it was believed that the god had come to help and direct his people. A constant play of lightning over a particular spot was a warning that the enemy was lurking there in ambush. A rapid succession of flashes in front meant that the foe was being driven back; but if the lightning flashed from front to rear, it was a signal to retreat.[108] In one large village the war god resided in two teeth of the sperm whale, which were kept in a cave and observed by a priest in time of war. If the teeth were found lying east and west, it was a good omen; but if they lay north and south, it prognosticated defeat.[109] In another place the war god was present in a bundle of shark's teeth, and the people consulted the bundle before they went out to fight. If the bundle felt heavy, it foreboded ill; but if it was light, it was an omen of victory, and the troops marched with hearts correspondingly light.[110]
When the god was incarnate in a live creature, it was an obvious advantage to ensure his constant presence and blessing by owning a specimen of his incarnation and feeding it. Hence some folk kept a tame god on their premises. For instance, some people possessed a war god in the shape of a pet owl;[111] others had a divine pigeon, which was carefully kept and fed by the different members of the family in turn.[112] Yet others were so fortunate as to capture the thunder god and to keep him in durance, which effectually prevented him from doing mischief. Having caught him, they tied him up with pandanus leaves and frightened him by poking firebrands at him. And lest, as an old offender, he should attempt to break prison and relapse into his former career of crime, they filled a basket with pandanus leaves and charred firebrands and hung it up on a tree in terrorem, to signify what he might expect to get if he took it into his head to strike houses again.[113]
Vegetable gods were much less plentiful than animal gods in Samoa. Still they occurred. Thus, the god of one family lived in a large tree (Hernandia peltata); hence no member of the family dared to pluck a leaf or break a branch of that tree.[114] The household deity of another family dwelt in a tree of a different sort (Conanga odorata), which has yellow and sweet-scented flowers.[115] In Savaii the special abode of a village god called Tuifiti or "King of Fiji" was a grove of large and durable trees (Afzelia bijuga). No one dared to cut that timber. It is said that a party of natives from another island once tried to fell one of these trees; but blood flowed from the trunk, and all the sacrilegious strangers fell ill and died.[116] One family saw their god in the moon. On the appearance of the new moon all the members of the family called out, "Child of the moon, you have come." They assembled also, presented offerings of food, feasted together, and joined in praying, "Oh, child of the moon! Keep far away disease and death." And they also prayed to the moon before they set out on the war path.[117] But in Samoa, as in Tonga, there seems to be no record of a worship of the sun, unless the stories of human sacrifices formerly offered to the great luminary be regarded as reminiscences of sun-worship.[118]
The father of a family acted as the priest of the household god. He usually offered a short prayer at the evening meal, begging the deity to guard them all from war, sickness, death, and the payment of fines. Sometimes he would direct the family to hold a feast in honour of their god, and on these occasions a cup of kava was poured out as a libation to the divinity. Such simple domestic rites were celebrated in the house, where the whole family assembled; for the gods were believed to be present with men in a spiritual and invisible form as well as in the material objects which were regarded as their visible embodiments. Often the deity spoke through the father or other members of the family, telling them what to do in order to remove a present evil or avert a threatened one.[119]
But while every head of a family might thus act as a domestic priest and mouthpiece of the deity, there was also a professional class of priests set apart for the public worship of the gods, particularly of the war gods, who in their nature did not differ essentially from the gods of families, of villages, and of districts, being commonly embodied either in particular material objects or in classes of such objects, especially in various species of birds, animals, and fish, such as owls, rails, kingfishers, dogs, lizards, flying-foxes, and cuttle-fish. Sometimes the ruling chiefs acted as priests; but in general some one man in a particular family claimed the dignity of the priesthood and professed to declare the will of the god. His office was hereditary. He fixed the days for the annual feasts in honour of the deity, received the offerings, and thanked the people for them. He decided also whether the people might go to war.[120] The priests possessed great authority over the minds of the people, and they often availed themselves of their influence to amass wealth.[121] The gods were supposed from time to time to take possession of the priests and to speak through their mouths, answering enquiries and issuing commands. Thus consulted as an oracle the priest, or the god through him, might complain that the people had been slack in making offerings of food and property, and he would threaten them with vengeance if they did not speedily bring an ample supply to the human representative of the deity. At other times the god required a whole family to assemble and build him a large canoe or a house, and such a command was always obeyed with alacrity and a humble apology tendered for past neglect. The priests were also consulted oracularly for the healing of the sick, the recovery of stolen property, and the cursing of enemies. Thus they kept the people in constant fear by their threats and impoverished them by their exactions.[122]
The outward signs of divine inspiration or possession were such as priests or prophets have manifested in many lands and ages as conclusive evidence of their being the vehicles of higher powers. The approach or presence of the god was indicated by the priest beginning to gape, yawn, and clear his throat; but soon his countenance changed, his body underwent violent contortions, and in loud, unearthly tones, which the trembling and awe-stricken hearers interpreted as the voice of an indwelling deity, he delivered his message of exhortation or warning, of menace, or comfort, or hope.[123]
Spirit-houses (fale-aitu) or temples were erected for some, but not all, of the class of deities (aitu) which we are now considering. It was chiefly the war gods who were thus honoured. Such temples were built with the same materials and in the same style as the houses of men, with nothing to distinguish them from ordinary dwellings, except that they almost always stood on platforms of stones, which varied in height and size with the respect felt for the particular deity. They were usually situated on the principal public place or green (malae) of the village and surrounded by a low fence. Sometimes they were mere huts; yet being viewed as the abode of gods they were held sacred and regarded with great veneration by the Samoans in the olden time. Whatever emblems of deity were in possession of the village were always placed in these houses under the watchful care of keepers.[124] In one temple, for instance, might be seen a conch shell hung from the roof in a basket. This shell the god was supposed to blow when he wished the people to go to war. In another a cup made of the shell of a coco-nut was suspended from the roof, and before it prayers were uttered and offerings presented. The cup was also used in an ordeal for the detection of theft. In a trial before chiefs the cup would be sent for, and each of the suspected culprits would lay his hand on it and say, "With my hand on this cup, may the god look upon me, and send swift destruction, if I took the thing which has been stolen." They firmly believed that it would be death to touch the cup and tell a lie.[125]
The temples were always built by the united exertions of a whole family, village, or district.[126] For example, when the inhabitants of a village whose god was the cuttle-fish erected a new temple to that deity, every man, woman, and child in the village contributed something to it, if it was only a stick or a reed of thatch. While some of the villagers were drafted off to put up the house, the rest engaged in a free fight, which appears to have been considered as a necessary part of the proceedings. On this occasion many old scores were settled, and he who got most wounds was believed to have earned the special favour of the deity. With the completion of the temple the fighting ended, and ought not to be renewed for a year, till the anniversary of the building of the temple came round, when the worshippers were again at liberty to break each other's heads in honour of the divine cuttle-fish.[127]
At one place in Savaii there was a temple in which a priest constantly resided. The sick used to be carried to him in the temple and there laid down with offerings of fine mats. Thereupon the priest stroked the diseased part, and the patient was supposed to recover.[128] We hear of another temple in which fine mats were brought as offerings to the priests and stored up in large numbers among the temple treasures. Thus in time the temples might have amassed a considerable degree of wealth and might even, if economic progress had not been arrested by European intervention, have developed into banks. However, when the people were converted to Christianity, they destroyed this particular temple and dissipated the accumulated treasures in a single feast by way of celebrating their adhesion to the new faith.[129] Where the bat was the local deity, many bats used to flock about the temple in time of war.[130] Where the kingfisher received the homage of the people as the god of war, the old men of the village were wont to enter his temple in times of public emergency and address the kingfisher; and people outside could hear the bird replying, though, singularly enough, his voice was that of a man, and not that of a bird. But as usual the god was invisible.[131] In one place a temple of the great god Tangaloa was called "the House of the Gods," and it was carefully shut up all round, the people thinking that, if this precaution were not taken, the gods would get out and in too easily and be all the more destructive.[132] Such a temple might be considered rather as a prison than a house of the gods.
To the rule that Samoan temples were built of the same perishable materials as ordinary houses a single exception is known. About ten miles inland from the harbour of Apia, in the island of Upolu, are the ruins of a temple, of which the central and side posts and the rafters were all constructed of stone. The ground plan seems to have resembled that of an ordinary Samoan house of the best style, forming an ellipse which measured fifty feet in one direction by forty feet in the other. Two central pillars appear to have supported the roof, each fashioned of a single block of stone some thirteen feet high, twelve inches thick one way and nine inches the other. The rafters were in lengths of twelve feet and six feet, by four inches square. Of the outside pillars, which upheld the lower edge of the sloping roof, eighteen were seen standing by Pritchard, who has described the ruins. Each pillar stood three feet high and measured nine inches thick in one way by six inches in the other. Each had a notch or shoulder on the inner side for supporting the roof. Pillars and rafters were quarried from an adjoining bluff, distant only some fifty yards from the ruins. Some squared stones lying at the foot of the bluff seem to show that the temple was never completed. The site of the ruins is a flat about three acres in area. The natives call the ruins Fale-o-le-Fe‛e, that is, the House of the Fe‛e. This Fe‛e was a famous war god of A‛ana and Faleata, two native towns of Upolu; he was commonly incarnated in the cuttle-fish. As the Samoans were unacquainted with the art of cutting stones, and had no tools suitable for the work, they thought that this temple, with its columns and rafters of squared stone, must have been built by the gods, and they explained its unfinished state by alleging that the divine builders had quarrelled among themselves before they had brought the work to completion.[133]
For the sake of completeness I will mention another stone monument, of more imposing dimensions, which has been discovered in Samoa, though its origin and meaning are unknown. It stands on a tableland in the high mountainous interior of Upolu and appears to be not altogether easy of access. The discoverer, Mr. H. B. Sterndale, reached it by clambering up from what he describes as a broad and dangerous ravine. In making his way to the tableland he passed through a gap which from a distance he had supposed to be a natural fissure in the rocks; but on arriving at it he discovered, to his surprise, that the gap was in fact a great fosse formed by the hand of man, being excavated in some places and built up at others, while on one side, next to the rise of the hill, it was further heightened by a parapet wall. When, passing through the fosse, he issued upon the tableland, which is a level space of some twenty acres in extent, he perceived the monument, "a truncated conical structure or Heidenmauer of such huge dimensions as must have required the labour of a great multitude to construct. So little did I expect," he says, "in this neighbourhood to meet with any example of human architecture, and so rudely monstrous was the appearance of this cyclopean building, that from its peculiar form, and from the vegetation with which it was overgrown, I might have passed it by, supposing it to have been a volcanic hillock, had not my attention been attracted by the stonework of the fosse. I hastened to ascend it. It was about twenty feet high by one hundred in diameter. It was circular with straight [perpendicular?] sides; the lower tiers of stone were very large, they were lava blocks, some of which would weigh at least a ton, which must have been rolled or moved on skids to their present places. They were laid in courses; and in two places near the top seemed to have been entrances to the inside, as in one appeared a low cave choked with rocks and tree roots. If there had been chambers within, they were probably narrow and still existing, as there was no sign of depression on the crown of the work, which was flat and covered with flat stones, among which grew both trees and shrubs. It is likely that it was not in itself intended as a place of defence, but rather as a base or platform upon which some building of importance, perhaps of timber, had been erected, no doubt in the centre of a village, as many foundations of a few feet high were near it. The fosse, when unbroken, and its inner wall entire, was probably crossed by a foot-bridge, to be withdrawn on the approach of an enemy; and the little gap, by which I had entered, closed, so that this must have been a place of great security. The Samoan natives, as far as I have been able to learn, have no tradition of what people inhabited this mountain fastness."[134]
On an adjoining tableland, approached by a steep and narrow ridge, Mr. Sterndale saw a great number of cairns of stone, apparently graves, disposed in rows among huge trees, the roots of which had overturned and destroyed very many of the cairns. Here, within the numerous trunks of a great spreading banyan tree, Mr. Sterndale found what he calls an inner chamber, or cell, about ten feet square, the floor being paved with flat stones and the walls built of enormous blocks of the same material, while the roof was composed of the twisted trunks of the banyan tree, which had grown into a solid arch and, festooned by creepers, excluded even the faint glimmer of twilight that dimly illuminated the surrounding forest. Disturbed by a light which the traveller struck to explore the gloomy interior, bats fluttered about his head. In the centre of the chamber he discovered a cairn, or rather cromlech, about four feet high, which was formed of several stones arranged in a triangle, with a great flat slab on the top. On the flat slab lay a large conch shell, white with age, and encrusted with moss and dead animalculae. The chamber or cell, enclosed by the trunks of the banyan-tree, might have been inaccessible, if it were not that, under the pressure of the tree-trunks, several of the great slabs composing the wall had been displaced, leaving a passage.[135]
What were these remarkable monuments? Mr. Sterndale believed the stone chamber to be the tomb of some man of authority in ancient days, the antiquity of the structure being vouched for by the great banyan-tree which had so completely overgrown it. This view is likely enough, and is confirmed by the large number of cairns about it, which appear to be sepulchral. But what was the massive circular monument or platform, built of huge blocks of lava laid in tiers? From Mr. Sterndale's description it would seem that the structure closely resembled the tombs of the sacred kings of Tonga, though these tombs are oblong instead of circular. But they often supported a house or hut of wood and thatch; and Mr. Sterndale may well be right in supposing that the circular Samoan monument in like manner served as a platform to support a wooden building. In this connexion we must not forget that the typical Samoan house was circular or oval in contrast to the typical Tongan house, which was oblong. The openings, which seemed to lead into the interior of the monument, may have given access to the sepulchral chamber where the bodies of the dead were deposited.
Slight as are these indications, they apparently point to the use of the monument as a tomb. There is nothing, except perhaps its circular shape, to suggest that it was a temple of the sun. As no such stone buildings have been erected by the Samoans during the time they have been under European observation, it may be, as Mr. Sterndale supposed, that all the ruins described by him were the work of a people who inhabited the islands before the arrival of the existing race.[136]
If we ask, What was the origin of the peculiar Samoan worship of animals and other natural objects? the most probable answer seems to be that it has been developed out of totemism. The system is not simple totemism, for in totemism the animals, plants, and other natural objects are not worshipped, that is, they do not receive offerings nor are approached with prayers; in short, they are not gods, but are regarded as the kinsfolk of the men and women who have them for totems. Further, the local distribution of the revered objects in Samoa, according to villages and districts, differs from the characteristic distribution of totems, which is not by place but by social groups or clans, the members of which are usually more or less intermixed with each other in every district. It is true that in Samoa we hear of family or household gods as well as of gods of villages and districts, and these family gods, in so far as they consist of species of animals and plants which the worshippers are forbidden to kill or eat, present a close analogy to totems. But it is to be observed that these family gods were, so to say, in a state of unstable equilibrium, it being always uncertain whether a man would inherit his father's or his mother's god or would be assigned a god differing from both of them. This uncertainty arose from the manner of determining a man's god at birth. When a woman was in travail, the help of several gods was invoked, one after the other, to assist the birth; and the god who happened to be invoked at the moment when the child saw the light, was his god for life. As a rule, the god of the father's family was prayed to first; so that generally, perhaps, a man inherited the god of his father. But if the birth was tedious and difficult, the god of the mother's family was next invoked. When the child was born, the mother would call out, "To whom were you praying?" and the god prayed to just before was carefully remembered, and his incarnation duly acknowledged throughout the future life of the child.[137] Such a mode of selecting a divine patron is totally different from the mode whereby, under pure totemism, a person obtains his totem; for his totem is automatically determined for him at birth, being, in the vast majority of cases, inherited either from his father or from his mother, without any possibility of variation or selection. Lastly, the Samoan system differs from most, though not all, systems of totemism, in that it is quite independent of exogamy; in other words, there is no rule forbidding people who revere the same god to marry each other.
Thus, while the Samoan worship of certain classes of natural objects, especially species of animals, is certainly not pure totemism, it presents points of analogy to that system, and might easily, we may suppose, have been developed out of it, the feeling of kinship for totemic animals and plants having been slowly transformed and sublimated into a religious reverence for the creatures and a belief in their divinity; while at the same time the clans, which were originally intermixed, gradually sorted out from each other and settled down in separate villages and districts. This gradual segregation of the clans may have been facilitated by a change from maternal to paternal descent of the totem; for when a man transmits his totem to his offspring, his descendants in the male line tend naturally to expand into a local group in which the totem remains constant from generation to generation instead of alternating with each successive generation, as necessarily happens when a man's children take their totem not from him but from their mother. That the Samoan worship of aitu was developed in some such way out of simple totemism appears to have been the view of Dr. George Brown, one of our best authorities on Samoan society and religion; for he speaks without reserve of the revered objects as totems.[138] A similar derivation of the Samoan aitu was favoured by Dr. Rivers, who, during a visit to Samoa, found some evidence confirmatory of this conclusion.[139]
But besides these totemic gods of Samoa, as we may term them, which were restricted in the circle of their worshippers to particular families, villages, or districts, there were certain superior deities who were worshipped by all the people in common and might accordingly be called the national divinities of Samoa; indeed the worship of some of them was not confined to Samoa, but was shared by the inhabitants of other groups of islands in Polynesia. These high gods were considered the progenitors of the inferior deities, and were believed to have formed the earth and its inhabitants. They themselves dwelt in heaven, in the sea, on the earth, or under the earth; but they were invisible and did not appear to their worshippers in the form of animals or plants. They had no temples and no priests, and were not invoked like their descendants.[140]
Among these high gods the chief was Tangaloa, or, as he was sometimes called, Tangaloa-langi, that is, Tangaloa of the Skies. He was always spoken of as the principal god, the creator of the world and progenitor of the other gods and of mankind.[141] It is said that after existing somewhere in space he made the heavens as an abode for himself, and that wishing to have also a place under the heavens he created this lower world (Lalolangi, that is, "Under the heavens"). According to one account, he formed the islands of Savaii and Upolu by rolling down two stones from the sky; but according to another story he fished them up from the depths of the sea on a fishing-hook. Next he made the Fee or cuttle-fish, and told it to go down under the earth; hence the lower regions of sea or land are called Sa he fee or "sacred to the cuttle-fish." In its turn the cuttle-fish brought forth all kinds of rocks, including the great one on which we live.[142] Another myth relates how Tangaloa sent down his son or daughter in the likeness of a bird called turi, a species of plover or snipe (Charadrius fulvus). She flew about, but could find no resting-place, for as yet there was nothing but ocean; the earth had not been created or raised above the sea. So she returned to her father in heaven and reported her fruitless search; and at last he gave her some earth and a creeping plant. These she took down with her on her next visit to earth; and after a time the leaves of the plant withered and produced swarms of worms or maggots, which gradually developed into men and women. The plant which thus by its corruption gave birth to the human species was the convolvulus. According to another version of the myth, it was in reply to the complaint of his daughter or son that the sky-god Tangaloa fished up the first islands from the bottom of the sea.[143]
Another of the national gods of Samoa was Mafuie, who was supposed to dwell in the subterranean regions and to cause earthquakes by shaking the pillar on which the earth reposes. In a tussle with the hero Ti'iti'i, who descended to the lower world to rob Mafuie of his fire, the earthquake god lost one of his arms, and the Samoans considered this as a very fortunate circumstance; for otherwise they said that, if Mafuie had had two arms, he would have shaken the world to pieces.[144] It is said that during a shock of earthquake the natives used to rush from their houses, throw themselves upon the ground, gnaw the grass, and shriek in the most frantic manner to Mafuie to desist, lest he should shake the earth to bits.[145]
It seems to be doubtful whether among the Samoan gods are to be numbered the souls of deceased ancestors. Certainly the evidence for the practice of a worship of the dead is far less full and clear in Samoa than in Tonga. On this subject Dr. George Brown writes as follows: "Traces of ancestor worship are few and indistinct. The word tupua is supposed by some to mean the deified spirits of chiefs, and to mean that they constituted a separate order from the atua, who were the original gods. The word itself is the name of a stone, supposed to be a petrified man, and is also generally used as the name of any image having some sacred significance, and as representing the body into which the deified spirit was changed. What appears certain is that ancestor worship had amongst the Samoans gradually given place to the worship of a superior order of supernatural beings not immediately connected with men, but having many human passions and modes of action and life. There are, however, some cases which seem to point to ancestor worship in olden days, as in the case of the town of Matautu, which is said to have been settled by a colony from Fiji. Their principal deity was called Tuifiti, the King of Fiji. He was considered to be the head of that family, and a grove of trees, ifilele (the green-heart of India), was sacred to him and could not be cut or injured in any way."[146] This god was supposed to be incarnate in a man who walked about, but he was never visible to the people of the place, though curiously enough he could be seen by strangers.[147]
However, another experienced missionary, J. B. Stair, who knew Samoa a good many years before Dr. Brown arrived in it, speaks apparently without hesitation of the tupua as being "the deified spirits of chiefs, who were also supposed to dwell in Pulotu," where they became posts in the house or temple of the gods. Many beautiful emblems, he says, were chosen to represent the immortality of these deified spirits; among them were some of the heavenly bodies, including the Pleiades and the planet Jupiter, also the rainbow, the marine rainbow, and many more. He adds that the embalmed bodies of some chiefs were worshipped under the significant title of "sun-dried gods"; and that people prayed and poured libations of kava at the graves of deceased relatives.[148]
Whether the Samoans practised the worship of the dead in a developed form or not, they certainly possessed the elements out of which the worship might under favourable circumstances be evolved. These elements are a belief in the survival of the human soul after death, and a fear of disembodied spirits or ghosts.
The Samoans believed that every man is animated by a soul, which departs from the body temporarily in faints and dreams and permanently at death. The soul of the dreamer, they thought, really visited the places which he saw in his dream. At death it departed to the subterranean world of the dead which the Samoans called Pulotu, a name which clearly differs only dialectically from the Tongan Bolotoo or Bulotu. Some people professed to see the parting soul when it had quitted its mortal body and was about to take flight to the nether region. It was always of the same shape as the body. Such apparitions at the moment of death were much dreaded, and people tried to drive them away by shouting and firing guns. The word for soul is anganga, which is a reduplicated form of anga, a verb meaning "to go" or "to come." Thus apparently the Samoans did not, like many people, identify the soul with the shadow; for in Samoan the word for shadow is ata.[149]
However, they seem to have in a dim way associated a man's soul with his shadow. This appears from a remarkable custom which they observed in the case of the unburied dead. The Samoans were much concerned for the lot of these unfortunates and stood in great dread of their ghosts. They believed that the spirits of those who had not received the rites of burial wandered about wretched and forlorn and haunted their relatives everywhere by day and night, crying in doleful tones, "Oh, how cold! oh, how cold!" Hence when the body of a dead kinsman was lost because he had been drowned at sea or slain on a battlefield, some of his relatives would go down to the seashore or away to the battlefield where their friend had perished; and there spreading out a cloth on the ground they would pray to some god of the family, saying, "Oh, be kind to us; let us obtain without difficulty the spirit of the young man!" After that the first thing that lighted on the cloth was supposed to be the spirit of the dead. It might be a butterfly, a grasshopper, an ant, a spider, or a lizard; whatever it might be, it was carefully wrapt up and taken to the family, who buried the bundle with all due ceremony, as if it contained the body of their departed friend. Thus the unquiet spirit was believed to find rest. Now the insect, or whatever it happened to be, which thus acted as proxy at the burial was supposed to be the ata or shadow of the deceased. The same word ata served to express likeness; a photographer, for example, is called pue-ata, "shadow-catcher." The Samoans do not appear to have associated the soul with the breath.[150]
They attributed disease and death to the anger of a god, to the agency of an evil spirit, or to the ghost of a dead relative who had entered into the body of the sufferer. Epilepsy, delirium, and mania were always thus explained by the entrance into the patient of a god or demon. The Samoan remedy for all such ailments was not medicine but exorcism. Sometimes a near relative of the sick person would go round the house brandishing a spear and striking the walls to drive away the spirit that was causing the sickness.[151] Hence when a member of a family fell seriously ill, his friends did not send for a doctor, but repaired to the high priest of the village to enquire of him the cause of the sickness, to learn why the family god (aitu) was angry with them, and to implore his mercy and forgiveness. Often the priest took advantage of their anxiety to demand a valuable piece of property, such as a canoe or a parcel of ground, as the best means of propitiating the angry deity and so ensuring the recovery of the patient. With all these demands the anxious and unsuspecting relatives readily complied. But if the priest happened not to want anything in particular at the time, he would probably tell the messengers to gather the family about the bed of the sufferer and there confess their sins. The command was implicitly obeyed, and every member of the family assembled and made a clean breast of his or her misdeeds, especially of any curse which he or she might have called down either on the family generally or on the invalid in particular. Curiously enough, the curse of a sister was peculiarly dreaded; hence in such cases the sister of the sick man was closely questioned as to whether she had cursed him and thus caused his illness; if so, she was entreated to remove the curse, that he might recover. Moved by these pleadings, she might take some coco-nut water in her mouth and spurt it out towards or upon the body of the sufferer. By this action she either removed the curse or declared her innocence; a similar ceremony might be performed by any other member of the family who was suspected of having cursed the sick man.[152]
When an illness seemed likely to prove fatal, messengers were despatched to friends at a distance that they might come and bid farewell to the dying man. Every one who came to visit the sufferer in his last moments brought a present of a fine mat or other valuable piece of property as a token of regard, and to defray the cost of the illness and funeral. The best of the mats would be laid on the body of the dying man that he might have the comfort of seeing them before he closed his eyes for ever. Dr. George Brown thought that the spirits of the mats thus laid on the body of the dying chief were supposed to accompany his soul to the other world. It is possible that their spirits did so, but it is certain that their material substance did not; for after the funeral all the mats and other valuables so presented were distributed among the mourners and friends assembled on the occasion, so that every one who had brought a gift took away something in return on his departure.[153]
If the dying man happened to be a chief, numbers crowded round him to receive a parting look or word, while in front of the house might be seen men and women wildly beating their heads and bodies with great stones, thus inflicting on themselves ghastly wounds, from which the blood poured as an offering of affection and sympathy to their departing friend or lord. It was hoped that, pleased and propitiated by the sight of their devotion, the angry god might yet stay his hand and spare the chief to his people. Above all the tumult and uproar would rise the voice of one who prayed aloud for the life then trembling in the balance. But if the prayer seemed likely to prove ineffectual, it was exchanged for threats and upbraiding. "O thou shameless spirit," the voice would now be heard exclaiming, "could I but grasp you, I would smash your skull to pieces! Come here and let us fight together. Don't conceal yourself, but show yourself like a man, and let us fight, if you are angry."[154]
Immediately after death, all the mats on the floor of the house were thrown outside, and the thatched sides of the house were either torn down or knocked in with clubs; while the relatives and assembled crowds wrought themselves up to frenzy, uttering loud shrieks, rending their garments, tearing out their hair by handfuls, burning their bodies with firebrands, beating their faces and heads with clubs and stones, or gashing themselves with shells and shark's teeth, till the blood ran freely down. This they called an offering of blood for the dead. In their fury some of the mourners fell on the canoes and houses, breaking them up and tearing them down, felling the bread-fruit trees, and devastating the plantations of yams and taro.[155]
As decomposition is rapid in the hot moist climate of Samoa, it was customary to bury commoners a few hours after death. The body was laid out on a mat, anointed with scented oil, and the face tinged with turmeric, to soften the cadaverous look. It was then wound up in several folds of native cloth and the chin propped up, the head and face being left uncovered, while for some hours longer the body was surrounded by weeping relatives, who kept constant watch over it, so long as it remained in the house. These watchers were always women, and none of them might quit her post under any pretext till she was relieved by another. A fire was kept burning brightly in the house all the time. If the deceased had died of a complaint which had previously carried off other members of the family, they would probably open the body to "search for the disease." Any inflamed substance which they happened to find they would take away and burn, thinking thus to prevent any other member of the family from being similarly afflicted. Such a custom betrays an incipient sense of death from natural, instead of supernatural, causes, and must have contributed to diffuse a knowledge of human anatomy.[156]
So long as a corpse remained in the house no food might be eaten under the roof; the family had their meals outside or in another house. Those who had attended to the deceased or handled the corpse were taboo: they might not feed themselves or touch food with their hands. For days they were fed by others as if they were helpless infants. Baldness and the loss of teeth were supposed to be the punishment inflicted by the household god for a breach of the rule. Many people fasted at such times, eating nothing during the day, but taking a meal in the evening. The fifth day was a day of purification. The tabooed persons then washed their faces and hands with hot water and were clean; after that they were free to eat at the usual time and in the usual manner.[157]
The ordinary mode of disposing of the dead was by interment either in a stone vault or in a shallow grave. But occasionally other modes were adopted, such as embalming, putting the corpse in a canoe and setting it adrift on the sea, or exposing it on a stage erected in the forest, where it was left to decay, the bones being afterwards collected and buried. Upon the death of a chief his body was generally deposited in a family vault, the sides and bottom of which were lined with large slabs of sandstone or basalt, while another large slab of the same material formed the roof. Such vaults were sometimes large and massive. The stones used in their construction were found in various parts of the islands. Commoners were buried in shallow graves.[158]
Ordinary people were usually buried the day after they died. As many friends as could be present attended the funeral. Every one brought a present, but on the day after the funeral all these presents, like those which had previously been made to the dying man, were distributed again, so that none went empty-handed away. The corpse was generally buried without a coffin; but chiefs were laid in hollow logs or canoes. However, even the bodies of common people were sometimes interred in rude coffins similarly constructed. There were no common burying-grounds; all preferred to bury their dead on their own land. Often the grave was dug close to the house. The body was laid in it with the head to the east and the feet to the west. When it had been thus committed to its last resting-place, a near relative of the deceased, a sister, if one survived, seated herself at the grave, and waving a white cloth over the corpse, began an address to the dead. "Compassion to you," she said, "go with goodwill, and without bearing malice towards us. Take with you all our diseases, and leave us life." Then pointing to the west, she exclaimed, "Misery there!" Next pointing to the east, she cried, "Prosperity there!" Lastly, pointing to the grave, she said, "Misery there; but leave happiness with us!" With the body they deposited in the grave several things which had been used by the deceased during his illness, such as his clothing, his drinking-cup, and his bamboo pillow. The wooden pickaxes and coco-nut shells employed as shovels in digging the grave were also carefully buried with the corpse. It was not, we are told, because the people believed these things to be of use to the dead; but because it was supposed that, if they were left and handled by others, further disease and death would be the consequence. Valuable mats and other articles of property were sometimes buried with the corpse, and the grave of a warrior was surrounded with spears stuck upright in the ground. Graves were sometimes enclosed with stones and strewn with sand or crumbled coral.[159]
The obsequies of a chief of high rank were more elaborate. The body was kept unburied for days until his clansfolk had assembled from various parts of the islands and paraded the body, shoulder high, through the village, chanting a melancholy dirge.[160] The mourning and ceremonies lasted from ten to fifteen days. All that time the house of death was watched night and day by men appointed for the purpose. After the burial, and until the days of mourning were ended, the daytime was generally spent in boxing and wrestling matches, and sham-fights, while the nights were occupied with dancing and practising a kind of buffoonery, which was customary at these seasons of mourning for the dead. The performance was called O le tau-pinga. The performers amused themselves by making a variety of ludicrous faces and grimaces at each other, to see who could excite the other to laugh first. Thus they whiled away the hours of night till the days of mourning were expired.[161] So long as the funeral ceremonies and feasts lasted no work might be done in the village, and no strangers might approach it. The neighbouring lagoon and reefs were taboo: no canoe might pass over the lagoon anywhere near the village, and no man might fish in it or on the reef.[162] For a chief or man of distinction fires were kept burning day and night in a line from the house to the grave; these fires were maintained for ten days after the funeral. The reason assigned for this custom, according to Ella, was to keep away evil spirits. Even common people observed a similar custom. After burial they kept a fire blazing in the house all night, and they were careful to clear the intervening ground so that a stream of light went forth from the house to the grave. The account which the Samoans gave of the custom, according to Turner, was that it was merely a light burning in honour of the departed, and a mark of their tender regard for him. Dr. George Brown believed that the original motive for the custom was to warm the ghost, and probably at the same time to protect the mourners against dangerous spirits.[163]