8. The two sisters dressed up and went to tell her
    All about their handsome brother.
    But they were slighted and shamefully treated by Sina.
      etc.

    9. Sina did not know they were the sisters of Maluafiti.
    She had heard of his beauty and longed for his coming.
      etc.

    10. The sisters were still ill-treated by Sina; their anger rose,
    And off they went to the water where Sina was bathing.
    They threw out from the bottle on to the water the shadow of
      their brother.
      etc.
    11. Sina looked at the shadow and was struck with its beauty.
    "That is my husband," said she, "wherever I can find him."
      etc.

    12. Then Sinaleuuna wept and uttered in soliloquy:
    "Oh, Sinaleuuna, Sinaeteva, you are enraged!
    Where is our brother? 'Tis for him we are here and slighted."
      etc.

    13. Sina called out to the villagers for all to come,
    All the beautiful young men to assemble and find out
    Of whom the figure in the water was the image.
      etc.

    14. They sought in vain, they could not find.
    The shadow was bright and beautiful and compared with no one.
    When Maluafiti turned about in his own land,
    The shadow wheeled round and round in the water.
      etc.

    15. But Sina heard not the weeping of the sisters of Maluafiti.
    Again their song rang out, "Where is our brother?
    'Tis for him we are here and slighted."
      etc.

    16. "Oh, Maluafiti! rise up, it is day;
    Your shadow prolongs our ill-treatment.
    Maluafiti come and talk with her face to face,
    Instead of that image in water."
      etc.

    17. Sina had listened, and now she knew 'twas the shadow of Maluafiti.
    These are his sisters too, and I've been ill-using them.
      etc.

    18. Sina reproached herself: "Oh! I fear these ladies;
    I knew not they were seeking a wife for their brother Maluafiti.
      etc.

    19. "Come, oh come," said Sina, "forgive me, I've done you wrong."
    Sina begged pardon in vain, the ladies were angry still.
      etc.

    20. The canoe of Maluafiti arrived.
    He came to court Lady Sina, and also to fetch his sisters.
      etc.

    21. He came, he heard the tale of his sisters,
    And then up flew implacable rage.
      etc.

    22. Sina longed to get Maluafiti;
    He was her heart's desire, and long she had waited for him.
      etc.

    23. Maluafiti frowned and would return,
    And off he went with his sisters.
    Sina cried and screamed, and determined to follow swimming.
      etc.

    24. The sisters pleaded to save and to bring her,
    Maluafiti relented not, and Sina died in the ocean.
      etc.

In a story about another lady called Sinasengi, we are told about her
wonderful pool. She had "caught the shadows" of a variety of scenes,
and imprinted them on the _water_. A problem this for the
photographers! Night-dances, races, club exercise, battles, public
meetings, and some of the ordinary employments of daily life were all
there. The pool was covered over, but by the removal of a stone this
"chamber of imagery" could be all seen. Everything seemed so real
that a man one day was so enraptured with the sight of one of his
favourite sports that he jumped in to join a dancing party. But, alas!
he bruised his head and broke his arm on the _stones_ which he found
under the surface, instead of the gambols of living men.

Stories also of wifely and husband affection and the reverse are
preserved in song. Take the following as a specimen. The original runs
through twenty-six verses, but I abbreviate and give the substance:--

There was a youth called Siati noted for his singing. A serenading god
came along, threw down a challenge, and promised him his fair daughter
if he was the better singer. They sung, Siati beat, and off he went to
the land of the god, riding on a shark belonging to his aunt.

They reached the place. The shark went in to the shore, set him down,
and told him to go to the bathing-place, where he would find the
daughters of the god, the one was called Puapae, "White Fish," and the
other Puauli, "Dark Fish."

Siati went and sat down at the bathing-place. The girls had been
there, but had gone away. Puapae had forgotten her comb, returned to
get it, and there she found Siati. "Siati," said she, "however have
you come here?" "I've come to seek the song-god and get his daughter
to wife." "My father," said she, "is more of a god than a man--eat
nothing he hands you, never sit on a high seat lest death should
follow, and now let us unite." Siati and Puapae were united in
marriage, but they were sent off to live elsewhere.

The god sent his daughter Puauli to Puapae to tell her husband to
build him a house, and that it must be finished that very day, under a
penalty of death and the oven. Siati cried, but his wife Puapae
comforted him, said she could do it, and off she went and built the
house, and by the evening was weeding all around it.

In came another order, and that was for Siati to fight with the dog.
The fight took place and Siati conquered. Next the god had lost his
ring, and Siati must go to the sea and find it. Again Siati wept, and
again his wife cheered him. "I'll find the ring," said she; "only do
what I tell you. Cut my body in two, throw me into the sea, and stand
still on the beach till I come." He did so, cut her in two, threw her
into the sea, she was changed into a fish, and away she went to seek
for the ring.

Siati stood, and stood, sat and lay down, stood again, and then lay
down, and went off to sleep. Puapae returned, she was thrown up by the
fish and stood on the shore. Siati awoke by the splash of the sea on
his face. She scolded him for not keeping awake, and then said, "There
is the ring, go with it in the early morning," and in the morning off
the two went to her father.

That very morning the god called his daughter Puauli and said, "Come,
take me on your back, and let us seek Siati that I may eat him."
Presently they started back, Siati and Puapae were coming. Puapae and
Siati threw down the comb and it became a bush of thorns in the way to
intercept the god and Puauli. But they struggled through the thorns. A
bottle of earth was next thrown down, and that became a mountain; and
then followed their bottle of water, and that became a sea and drowned
the god and Puauli.

Puapae said to Siati, "My father and sister are dead, and all on
account of my love to you; you may go now and visit your family and
friends while I remain here, but see that you do not behave unseemly."
He went, visited all his friends, and then he forgot his wife Puapae.
He tried to marry again, but Puapae came and stood on the other side.
The chief called out, "Which is your wife, Siati?" "The one on the
right side." Puapae then broke silence with, "Ah Siati, you have
forgotten all I did for you;" and off she went. Siati remembered it
all, darted after her crying, and then fell down and died.

CHAPTER VIII.

FOOD--COOKING--LIQUORS.

_Animal and Vegetable Food._--Bread-fruit, taro, yams, bananas, and
cocoa-nuts formed the staff of life in Samoa. The lagoons and reefs
furnish a large supply of fish and shell-fish, of which the natives
are very fond; and occasionally all, but especially persons of rank,
regaled themselves on pigs, fowls, and turtle. A detailed account of
the flora and fauna in this and other groups in Central and Eastern
Polynesia will be found in the published volumes of the United States
Exploring Squadron of 1838-1842.

Taro, cocoa-nuts, and 'ava were said to have been brought from the
heavens by a chief called Losi. When on a visit there he was pleased
with the taste of taro, and tried to get some to take down with him.
He found a young shoot about the cooking-house, concealed it under his
clothing, but the Tangaloans were on the watch. They made him take off
his roundabout, snatched the plant from him, pulled his hair,
scratched and cut his skin, and back he came to the earth in a great
rage.

He engaged six of the gods to go up with him again and be avenged on
Tangaloa and his people. He proposed to take up a present of fish.
They caught ten, and were up before daybreak, and laid down a fish on
the doorstep of ten of the houses. When the people came out of their
houses they stumbled over the slippery fish, fell and cut their
foreheads. They cooked the fish, but ate it with bruised heads. And
hence the proverb in times of difficulty, "To eat with a bruise."

Then followed a number of schemes on the part of the Tangaloans to
kill Losi and his party similar to those described (p. 250). But all
failed, and then up jumped Losi and his party, and ran at the
Tangaloans, who fled and called out as they ran, "What do you want?"
"Cocoa-nuts," said Losi. "Take them all," was the reply. Losi again
called to his party to _chase_, and they rushed after the Tangaloans,
who again shouted back, "What do you want?" "Taro," said Losi, "to
compensate for ill usage and the tearing of my skin." "Take it, your
claim is just; take it and be off." Losi ordered still to pursue, and
again the call came from the frightened Tangaloans, "What else do you
want?" "I want 'ava," replied Losi. "Take it, all kinds of it, and be
off." Losi conquered, had his revenge, and got what he wanted, and so
came down from the heavens with taro, cocoa-nuts, and 'ava, and
planted them all about.

For about half the year the Samoans have an abundant supply of food
from the bread-fruit trees. During the other half they depend
principally on their taro plantations. Bananas and cocoa-nuts are
plentiful throughout the year. While the bread-fruit is in season
every family lays up a quantity in a pit lined with banana and
cocoa-nut leaves, and covered in with stones. It soon ferments; but
they keep it in that state for years, and the older it is they relish
it all the more. They bake this in the form of little cakes, when the
bread-fruit is out of season, and especially when there is a scarcity
of taro. The odour of these cakes is offensive in the extreme to a
European; but a Samoan turns from a bit of English cheese with far
more disgust than we do from his fermented bread-fruit.

A crop of bread-fruit is sometimes shaken off the trees by a gale
before it is ripe, and occasionally taro plantations are destroyed by
drought and caterpillars; but the people have wild yams in the bush,
preserved bread-fruit, cocoa-nuts, and fish to fall back upon; so that
there is rarely, if ever, anything like a serious famine. A scarcity
of food, occasioned by any of the causes just named, they were in the
habit of tracing to the wrath of one of their gods, called _O le Sa_
(or the Sacred One). The sun, storms, caterpillars, and all
destructive insects were said to be his _au ao_, or servants, who
were commissioned to go forth and eat up the plantations of those with
whom he was displeased. In times of plenty as well as of scarcity the
people were in the habit of assembling with offerings of food, and
poured out drink-offerings of _'ava_ to _Le Sa_, to propitiate his
favour.

A story is told of a woman and her child, who in a time of great
scarcity were neglected by the family. One day they cooked some wild
yams, but never offered her a share. She was vexed, asked the child to
follow her, and when they reached a precipice on the rocky coast,
seized the child and jumped over. It is said they were changed into
turtles, and afterwards came in that form at the call of the people of
the village.

_Cannibalism._--During some of their wars, a body was occasionally
cooked by the Samoans; but they affirm that, in such a case, it was
always some one of the enemy who had been notorious for provocation or
cruelty, and that eating a part of his body was considered the climax
of hatred and revenge, and was not occasioned by the mere relish for
human flesh, such as obtained in the Fiji, New Hebrides, and New
Caledonian groups. In more remote heathen times, however, they may
have indulged this savage appetite. To speak of roasting him is the
very worst language that can be addressed to a Samoan. If applied to a
chief of importance, he may raise war to avenge the insult. It is the
custom on the submission of one party to another to bow down before
their conquerors each with a piece of firewood and a bundle of leaves,
such as are used in dressing a pig for the oven; as much as to say,
"Kill us and cook us, if you please." Criminals, too, are sometimes
bound hand to hand and foot to foot; slung on a pole put through
between the hands and feet, carried and laid down before the parties
they have injured, like a pig about to be killed and cooked. So deeply
humiliating is this act considered that the culprit who consents to
degrade himself so far is almost sure to be forgiven.

From such references to cannibalism as we have at pp. 47, 48, and also
the following fragments from old stories, it is further apparent that
the custom was not unknown in Samoa.

During a great scarcity occasioned by a gale cannibalism prevailed.
When a light was wanted in the evening, two or three went to fetch
it--it was not safe for one to go alone. If a child was seen out of
doors, some one would entice it by holding up something white and
calling the child to get a bit of cocoa-nut kernel, and so kidnap and
cook.

A story is also told of a woman who had a child who was playing on the
surf on the beach. Three of her brothers came along and begged her to
let them have the child. She said that if a _bloody_ surf should
suddenly appear they might have the child, but not otherwise.
Presently the surf dashed red and bloody on the shore. She kept to
her word, and let the heartless fellows carry off the boy to the oven.

Here is another piece about Ae a Tongan, who attached himself to the
Samoan chief Tinilau. Tinilau travelled from place to place on two
turtles. Ae wished to visit Tonga, and begged from his master the loan
of the turtles. He got them, with the caution to be very careful of
them. As soon as he reached Tonga he called his friends to take on
shore the turtles, kill them, and have a feast, and this they gladly
did.

Tinilau, after waiting long for the return of the turtles, suspected
they had been killed. This was confirmed in his mind by the appearance
on the beach of a bloody wave. He called a meeting of all the avenging
gods of Savaii, and put the case into their hands. They went off to
Tonga, found Ae at midnight in a sound sleep, picked him up, brought
him back to Samoa, and laid him down in the front room of the house of
Tinilau.

At cock-crowing Ae woke up and said aloud, "Why, you cock! you crow
like the one belonging to the _pig_ I lived with." Tinilau called out
from his room, "Had the fellow you lived with such a fowl?" "Yes, the
_pig_ had one just like it." "Tell us more about him," and so Ae went
on chattering, and still using the abusive epithet _pig_ when speaking
of his master, and talked about the turtles, what a fine feast they
had, etc. As it got lighter, he looked up to the roof and said, "This
too is just like the house the _pig_ lived in." By-and-by he woke up,
as it got light, to the full consciousness that somehow or other he
was again in the very house of Tinilau, and that his cannibal master
was in the next room. He was dumb and panic-stricken. Orders were
given to kill him, and he was despatched accordingly, and his body
dressed for the oven. And hence the proverb for any similar action, or
if any one takes by mistake or intention what belongs to another, he
says in making an apology, "I am like Ae."

Another curious fragment goes from cannibalism to the origin of pigs.
A cannibal chief had human victims taken to him regularly, and was in
the habit of throwing the heads into a cave close by. A great many
heads had been cast in, and he thought no more about them. One day,
however, he was sitting on a rock outside the cave when he heard an
unusual noise. On looking in, the place was full of _pigs_, and hence
the belief that pigs had their origin in the heads of men, or, as some
would call it, a humbling case of evolution _downwards_!

_Cooking._--The Samoans had and still have, the mode of cooking with
hot stones which has been often described as prevailing in the South
Sea Islands. Fifty or sixty stones about the size of an orange, heated
by kindling a fire under them, form, with the hot ashes, an ordinary
oven. The taro, bread-fruit, or yams, are laid among the stones, a
thick covering of bread-fruit and banana leaves is laid over all, and
in about an hour all is well cooked. In the same oven they bake other
things, such as fish, done up in leaves and laid side by side with the
taro or other vegetables. Little bundles of taro leaves, too, mixed
with the expressed juice of the cocoa-nut kernel, and some other
dishes, of which cocoa-nut is generally the chief ingredient, are
baked at the same time, and used as a relish in the absence of animal
food. Salt water is frequently mixed up with these dishes, which is
the only form in which they use salt. They had no salt, and were not
in the habit of preserving fish or pork otherwise than by repeated
cooking. In this way they kept pork for a week, and fish for three
weeks or a month. However large, they cooked the entire pig at once;
then, using a piece of split bamboo as a carving-knife, cut it up and
divided it among the different branches of the family. The duties of
cooking devolved on the men; and all, even chiefs of the highest rank,
considered it no disgrace to assist in the cooking-house occasionally.

_Forbidden Food._--Some birds and fishes were sacred to particular
deities, as has been described, and certain parties abstained from
eating them. A man would not eat a fish which was supposed to be under
the protection and care of his household god; but he would eat,
without scruple, fish sacred to the gods of other families. The dog,
and some kinds of fish and birds, were sacred to the greater
deities--the _dii majorum gentium_ of the Samoans; and, of course, all
the people rigidly abstained from these things. For a man to kill and
eat anything he considered to be under the special protection of his
god, was supposed to be followed by the god's displeasure in the
sickness or death of himself, or some member of the family. The same
idea seems to have been a check on cannibalism, as there was a fear
lest the god of the deceased would be avenged on those who might cook
and eat the body.

_Liquors._--The young cocoa-nut contains about a tumblerful of a
liquid something resembling water sweetened with lump-sugar, and very
slightly acid. This is the ordinary beverage of the Samoans. A young
cocoa-nut baked in the oven yields a hot draught, which is very
pleasant to an invalid. They had no fermented liquors; but they made
an intoxicating draught from an infusion of the chewn root of the 'ava
plant (_Piper methysticum_). A bowl of this disgustingly-prepared
stuff was made and served out when a party of chiefs sat down to a
meal. At their ordinary meals few partook of it but the father, or
other senior members of the family. It was always taken before, and
not after the meal. Among a formal party of chiefs it was handed round
in a cocoa-nut shell cup with a good deal of ceremony. When the cup
was filled the name, or title rather, of the person for whom it was
intended was called out; the cup-bearer took it to him, he received
it, drank it off, and returned the cup to be filled again, as the
"portion" of another chief. The most important chiefs had the first
cups, and, following the order of rank, all had a draught. The liquor
was much diluted; few drank to excess; and, upon the whole, the
Samoans were perhaps among the most temperate 'ava drinkers in the
South Seas. The old men considered that a little of it strengthened
them and prolonged life; and often they had a cup the first thing in
the morning.

_Hospitality._--The Samoans were remarkable for hospitality.
Travelling parties never needed to take food for any place beyond the
first stage of their journey. Every village had its "large house,"
kept in good order, and well spread with mats for the reception of
strangers. On the arrival of a party some of the members of every
family in the village assembled and prepared food for them. It was the
province of the head of one particular family to decide, and send word
to the rest, how much it would be necessary for each to provide. After
all was cooked, it was taken and laid down in front of the house, and,
on presenting it, one of them would make a speech, welcoming them to
their village; and, although a sumptuous repast had been provided, an
apology would be made that there was nothing better. The strangers
replied, returned thanks, and exchanged kind words. In the event of
there being a chief of high rank among the party, it would probably be
decided that every man, woman, and child of the place turn out, dress
themselves in their best, walk in single file, each carrying a fish, a
fowl, a lobster, a yam, or something else in the hand, and, singing
some merry chant as they went along, proceed to the place, and there
lay down in a heap what they had provided for their guests. An evening
ball or night-dance was also considered an indispensable accompaniment
to the entertainment. A travelling party rarely spent more than one
night at a place.

_Meals._--The Samoans had a meal about 11 A.M., and their principal
meal in the evening. At the evening meal every family was assembled;
and men, women, and children all ate together. They had no tables, but
seated themselves cross-legged round the circular house on mats. Each
had his portion laid down before him on a bread-fruit leaf; and thus
they partook, in primitive style, without knife, fork, or spoon.
Should any strangers be present, due respect was shown to them by
laying before them "a worthy portion." After the meal, water to wash
was handed round, and a _rub_ on the post of the house was the usual
table-napkin.

The head of the family, in taking his cup of 'ava at the commencement
of the evening meal, would pour out a little of it on the ground, as a
drink-offering to the gods, and, all being silent, he would utter
aloud the following prayer:--

     "Here is 'ava for you, O gods! Look kindly towards this family; let
     it prosper and increase; and let us all be kept in health. Let our
     plantations be productive; let fruit grow; and may there be
     abundance of food for us, your creatures.

     "Here is 'ava for you, our war gods! Let there be a strong and
     numerous people for you in this land.

     "Here is 'ava for you, O sailing gods![1] Do not come on shore at
     this place; but be pleased to depart along the ocean to some other
     land."

It was also very common to pray with an offering of "flaming fire,"
just before the evening meal. Calling upon some one to blow up the
fire and make it blaze, and begging all to be silent, a senior member
of the family would pray aloud as follows:--

     "This light is for you, O king[2] and gods superior and inferior!
     If any of you are forgotten do not be angry, this light is for you
     all. Be propitious to this family; give life to all; and may your
     presence be prosperity. Let our children be blessed and multiplied.
     Remove far from us fines and sicknesses. Regard our poverty; and
     send us food to eat, and cloth to keep us warm. Drive away from us
     sailing gods, lest they come and cause disease and death. Protect
     this family by your presence, and may health and long life be given
     to us all."

It is related of an old chief in Savaii, that one night at the evening
meal he ordered a sea-crab to be reserved for his breakfast. In the
night some lads of the family got up and ate it. Next morning the old
man was in a great rage, rose, and said to his daughter that he was
going off to commit suicide, he could bear no longer the unkindness of
the family. He seized his staff and went off to the mountain, where
there is a deep ravine. When he reached the edge of the precipice he
called to his daughter, who had followed him, that he would jump over,
and cause a storm to arise and destroy the place--and over he went.
The daughter thought it was of no use to go home, and so she lay down
on the edge of the ravine, and became a mountain to shut up the storm
and save the people from the threatened wrath of her father.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Gods supposed to come in Tongan canoes and foreign
vessels.]

[Footnote 2: The principal god of the family.]

CHAPTER IX.

CLOTHING.

In our last chapter we alluded to the food of the Samoans, and now
proceed to a description of their clothing, the materials of which it
is made, their modes of ornament, etc.

During the day a covering of _ti_ leaves _(Dracæna terminalis_) was
all that either sex thought necessary. "They sewed" _ti_ "leaves
together, and made themselves aprons." The men had a small one about a
foot square, the women had theirs made of longer _ti_ leaves, reaching
from the waist down below the knee, and made wide, so as to form a
girdle covering all round. They had no regular covering for any other
part of the body. Occasionally, during rain, they would tie a banana
leaf round the head for a cap, or hold one over them as an umbrella.
They made shades for the eyes of a little piece of plaited cocoa-nut
leaflet; and sometimes they made sandals of the plaited bark of the
_Hibiscus tiliaceus_, to protect the feet while fishing among the
prickly coral about the reef.

_Native Cloth._--At night they slept on a mat, using as a covering a
mat or a sheet of native cloth, and inclosed all round by a curtain of
the same material to keep out musquitoes. In sickness, also, they
wrapped themselves up in native cloth. Their native cloth was made of
the inner bark of the paper mulberry (_Morus papyrifera_) beaten out
on a board, and joined together with arrow-root, so as to form any
width or length of cloth required.

The juice of the raspings of the bark of trees, together with red
clay, turmeric, and the soot of burnt candle-nut, furnished them with
colouring matter and varnish, with which they daubed their native
cloth in the form of squares, stripes, triangles, etc., but, with a
few exceptions, perhaps, devoid of taste or regularity.

Tutunga is the native name of the paper mulberry. A fabulous story is
told of it and a stinging tree called Salato. As the tale goes, they
were two brothers, and had each his plot of ground and a distinct
boundary. One morning Tutunga stretched over his boundary and crossed
to Salato. Salato was displeased and complained to Tutunga, but he was
sullen and made no reply. The affair was referred to the parents; who
decided that the two should separate, and that Salato should go
further inland, and be sacred and respected; and so it is, no one
dares to touch it. On the other hand, Tutunga was severely punished
for having proudly crossed his boundary. He was to be cut, and
skinned, and beaten, and painted, and made to cover the bodies of men.
Then to rot, and then to be burned. And so it is--thus ends Tutunga
the proud.

_Fine Mats._--Their fine mats were, and are still, considered their
most valuable clothing. These mats are made of the leaves of a species
of pandanus scraped clean and thin as writing-paper, and slit into
strips about the sixteenth part of an inch wide. They are made by the
women; and, when completed, are from two to three yards square. They
are of a straw and cream colour, are fringed, and, in some instances,
ornamented with small scarlet feathers inserted here and there. These
mats are thin, and almost as flexible as a piece of calico. Few of the
women can make them, and many months--yea, years, are sometimes spent
over the making of a single mat. These fine mats are considered their
most valuable property, and form a sort of currency which they give
and receive in exchange. They value them at from two to forty
shillings each. They are preserved with great care; some of them pass
through several generations, and as their age and historic interest
increase, they are all the more valued.

Another kind of fine mats for clothing they weave out of the bark of a
plant of the nettle tribe, which is extensively spread over these
islands without any cultivation. They are shaggy on the one side, and,
when bleached white, resemble a prepared fleecy sheep-skin. These
they sometimes dye with red clay found in the mountains. From the
strength and whiteness of the fibre manufactured from this plant, it
is capable of being turned to great use.

_Cleanliness._--As the native cloth cannot be washed without
destroying it, it is generally filthy in the extreme before it is laid
aside. This has induced a habit of carelessness in washing cotton and
other garments, which is very offensive and difficult to eradicate.
They are cleanly, however, in other habits beyond most of the natives
of Polynesia. Their floor and sleeping mats are kept clean and tidy.
They generally use the juice of the wild orange in cleansing, and
bathe regularly every day. It is worth remarking, too, that, while
bathing, they have a girdle of leaves or some other covering round the
waist. In this delicate sense of propriety it would be well for some
more civilised parts of the world to learn a lesson from the Samoans.

_Special Occasions._--At marriages and on other gala days, the women,
and many of the men, laid aside the leaves and girded themselves with
fine mats. Gay young men and women decorated themselves with garlands
of flowers or shells. The nautilus shell, broken into small pieces,
and strung together, was a favourite head-dress. They oiled themselves
from head to foot with scented oil, and sometimes mixed turmeric with
the oil to give their skin a tinge of yellow.

Both sexes kept uncovered the upper part of the body, and wore
shells, beads, or other trinkets round the neck. They prided
themselves also in dressing their children in a similar style. The
women wore the hair short, and, on occasions, sometimes had it raised
and stiffened with a mixture of scented oil and the gum of the
bread-fruit tree. It was fashionable, also, for young women to have a
small twisted lock of hair, with a curl at the end of it, hanging from
the left temple. The men wore their hair long and gathered up in a
knot on the crown of the head, a little to the right side. In company,
however, and when attending religious services, they were careful to
untie the string, and let their hair flow behind, as a mark of
respect. Gay young men occasionally cut their hair short, leaving a
small twisted lock hanging down towards the breast from either temple.
Their hair is naturally black; but they were fond of dyeing it a light
brown colour, by the application of lime, which they made by burning
the coral. To dye hair, and also to rub and blind the eyes of pigs
which trespassed into neighbouring plantations, were the only uses to
which they applied lime in the time of heathenism.

The beard they shaved with the teeth of the shark. Armlets of small
white shells were worn by the men above the elbow-joint. Some pierced
their ears with a thorn, and wore a small flower for an earring; but
this was not very common. A long comb, made from the stem of the
cocoa-nut leaflet, was a common ornament of the women, and worn in the
hair behind the ear. For a looking-glass, they sometimes used a tub of
water; but in arranging the head-dress, they were more frequently
guided by the eyes and taste of others. The tattooing, which we
described in a previous chapter, was also considered one of their
principal ornaments.

There is a story told of a Fijian chief called Fulualela,
_Feathers-of-the-Sun_, who came with his daughter to visit Samoa. He
had heard of the beauty of the islands and their handsome inhabitants,
and thought he might find here a husband chief for his daughter. He
was greatly surprised, however, to discover that while the islands
were lovely, and the people attractive, they had no mats in their
houses, but slept on dried grass like the pigs. He could not think of
leaving his daughter; but when he returned to Fiji he made up a
present of fine mats, native cloth, and scented oil, as if it were his
daughter's dowry, and went back to Samoa with the generous gift,
adding also pandanus and paper mulberry plants with which to stock
Samoa with material for making such household comforts as mats and
native cloth. And hence it is said that ever since the gift of
Feathers-of-the-Sun from Fiji, Samoa has had the luxuries of mats to
sleep on, and sheets of native cloth to cover them.

CHAPTER X.

AMUSEMENTS.

Under the head of _amusements_, dancing, wrestling, boxing, fencing,
and a variety of games and sports, call for description, and to these
we shall briefly advert.

_Dancing_ was a common entertainment on festive occasions, such as a
marriage. Some of their dances were in the daytime, and, like
dress-balls of other countries, were accompanied with a display of
fancy mats and other Samoan finery. At the night assemblies the men
dressed in their short leaf aprons. Sometimes only the men danced, at
other times women, and occasionally the parties were mixed. They
danced in parties of two, three, and upwards, on either side. If the
one party moved in one direction, the other party took the opposite.
They had also various gesticulations, which they practised with some
regularity. If, for example, the one party moved along with the right
arm raised, the other did precisely the same. It was posturing rather
than saltation.

Singing, clapping the hands, beating time on the floor-mats, and
drumming, were the usual musical accompaniments. Their music, on these
occasions, was a monotonous chant of a line or two, repeated over and
over again, with no variety beyond two or three notes. They sought
variety rather in _time_. They began slow, and gradually increased
until, at the end of ten or twenty minutes, they were full of
excitement, the perspiration streaming down, and their tongues
galloping over the rhyme at breathless speed. For a drum, they had two
or three contrivances. One, a log of wood six or eight feet long,
hollowed out from a narrow elongated opening on the upper surface; and
this they beat with a short stick or mallet. Another was a set of
bamboos, four feet long and downwards, arranged like a Pan's pipe,
having the open ends inclosed in a mat bag, and this bag they beat
with a stick. A third kind of drumming was effected by four or five
men, each with a bamboo open at the top and closed at the bottom, with
which, holding vertically, they beat the ground, or a stone or any
hard substance, and as the bamboos are of various lengths, they
emitted a variety of sounds. At these night-dances all kinds of
obscenity in looks, language, and gesture prevailed; and often they
danced and revelled till daylight.

_Court buffoons_ furnished some amusement at dancing and other
festivals, and also at public meetings. If a chief of importance went
to any of these assemblies he had in his train one or two humourists,
who, by oddity in dress, gait, or gesture, or by lascivious jokes,
tried to excite laughter.

_Boxing and fencing_ were common on festive days, and often led to
serious quarrels. In fencing, they used the stalk of the cocoa-nut
leaf as a substitute for a club. _Women_, as well as men, entered the
ring, and strove for the fame of a pugilist.

_Wrestling_ was another amusement. Sometimes they chose sides, say
four against four; and the party who had the most thrown had to
furnish their opponents with a cooked pig, served up with taro, or
supply any other kind of food that might be staked at the outset of
the game. A supply of some kind of food was the usual forfeit in all
their games.

_Clasp and undo_ was another kind of wrestling. One man clasped a
second tightly round the waist, and this second does the same to a
third. The three thus fastened together lay down and challenged any
single man to separate them. If he succeeded, they paid the forfeit;
if not, he did.

_Throwing the spear_ was also common. The young men of one street or
village matched against those of another; and, after fixing a mark in
the distance, threw a small wooden javelin so that it might first
strike the ground, and then spring upwards and onwards in the
direction of the mark. They who threw farthest won the game, and had a
repast of food at the expense of those who lost it. In more direct
spear-throwing they set up the stem of a young cocoa-nut tree, with
the base upwards, which is soft and spongy. One party threw at it, and
filled it with spears. The other party threw, and tried to knock them
down. If any remained after all had thrown they were counted until
they reached the number fixed for the game. In another of these
amusements a man stood in the distance and allowed another to throw
spears at him. He had no shield, but merely a club; and with this he
showed surprising dexterity in hitting off spear after spear as it
approached him.

_Fishing matches_ were in vogue at particular seasons. The party who
took the most fish won, and were treated with cooked pigs and other
viands by those who lost.

_Pigeon-catching_ was another amusement, and one, like our English
falconry of other days, in which the chiefs especially delighted. The
principal season set in about June. Great preparations were made for
it; all the pigs of a settlement were sometimes slaughtered and baked
for the occasion; and, laden with all kinds of food, the whole
population of the place went off to certain pigeon-grounds in the
bush. There they put up huts, and remained sometimes for months at the
sport.

The ground being cleared, the chiefs stationed themselves at distances
all round a large circular space, each concealed under a low shed or
covering of brushwood, having by his side a net attached to a long
bamboo, and in his hand a stick with a tame pigeon on a crook at the
end of it. This pigeon was trained to fly round and round, as directed
by its owner, with a string at its foot thirty feet long, attached to
the end of his stick. Every man flew his pigeon, and then the whole
circle looked like a place where pigeons were flocking round food or
water. The scene soon attracted some wild pigeon; and, as it
approached the spot, whoever was next to it raised his net and tried
to entangle it. He who got the greatest number of pigeons was the hero
of the day, and honoured by his friends with various kinds of food,
with which he treated his less successful competitors. Some of the
pigeons were baked, others were distributed about and tamed for
further use. Taming and exercising them for the sporting season was a
common pastime.

_Spinning the cocoa-nut_ was another amusement. A party sat down in a
circle, and one in the centre spinned a cocoa-nut. When it rested they
saw to whom the three black marks or eyes on the end of the shell
pointed, and imposed upon him some little service to the whole, such
as unhusking chestnuts, or going for a load of cocoa-nuts. This is
especially worthy of remark, as it was the Samoan method of _casting
lots_. If a number of people were unwilling to go a message or do a
piece of work, they decided the matter by wheeling round the
cocoa-nut to see to whom it turned its _face_, as they called it, when
it rested. Sometimes they appealed to this lot, and fixed the charge
of stealing on a person towards whom the _face_ of the cocoa-nut
pointed.

They had also a game of _hide-and-seek_, with the addition that those
who hid tried to escape those who sought, and ran to a given post or
mark. All who reached the post were counted towards making up the
game.

_Pitching_ small cocoa-nut shells to the end of a mat was a favourite
amusement of the chiefs. They tried to knock each other's shells off
the given spot. They played in parties of two and two, with five
shells each. They who had most shells left on the place after all had
thrown won.

They had also _guessing_ sports. One party hid, the other bundled up
one of their number in a large basket covered over with a mat or
cloth. Then they too hid, all but three, who carried the basket to the
other party for them to guess who was in it. If they guessed
correctly, then they in turn got the basket to do the same. The
successful guesses were counted for the game.

They were in the habit of amusing themselves with _riddles_, of which
the following are a specimen:--

     "1. A man who continues standing out of doors with a burden on his
     back.--_Explanation._ A banana tree, with a bunch of bananas.

     "2. There are twenty brothers, each with a hat on his
     head.--_Explan._ A man's fingers and toes; the nails of which are
     represented as hats.

     "3. A man who stands between two ravenous fish.--_Explan._ The
     tongue, as being placed between the teeth of the upper and lower
     jaws.

     "4. There are four brothers, who are always bearing about their
     father.--_Explan._ The Samoan pillow, formed by four legs and a
     bamboo; the legs being the four brothers, the bamboo the father.

     "5. There is a man who calls out continually day and
     night.--_Explan._ The surf on the reef, which never rests.

     "6. There is a man who, when he leaves the bush, is very little;
     but when he has reached the sea-shore, becomes very
     great.--_Explan._ The bark of the paper-mulberry, which, when first
     taken off the wood, is very narrow; but, when beaten out to make
     the native cloth, becomes very broad.

     "7. A man who has a white head stands above the fence, and reaches
     to the heavens.--_Explan._ The smoke rising from the oven.

     "8. The person who sleeps on a bed of whales' teeth.--_Explan._ A
     fowl sitting on her eggs.

     "9. Many brothers, but only one intestine.--_Explan._ A string of
     beads. The beads being the brothers, and the string the intestine.

     "10. A long house with one post.--_Explan._ The nose; the septum
     being the post."

They had also games at _rhyming_. One party would choose the names of
trees and another the names of men. Those who sided with the trees
would say: "There is the _Fau_ tree, tell us a name which will rhyme
with it." The reply would perhaps be _Tulifau_.

Again, there is the _Toa_, and the other party would reply
_Tuisamoa_. And so on they went till one party had exhausted all the
names they could think of, owned the defeat, and paid the forfeit.

In a similar game one party would name a bird or beast, and the other
a fish with a corresponding rhyme. For example, for the birds:

    Lupe, they would give the name of the fish, Une.
    Ngongo,      Do.     do.       do.          Alongo.
    Tiotala,     Do.     do.       do.          Ngatala.

Here, too, there was a forfeit if beaten. They had _tripping and
stammering_ games also. One party would say to the other--you repeat

     "O lo matou niu afaafa lava le la i tuafale,
     Sasa, ma fili, ma faataa, ma lafo i fongavai."

If any one tripped when repeating it he had to pay a forfeit.

Another might be in rhyme and run as follows:

    "Na au sau mai Safata,
    Ou afe i le ngatai ala,
    E fafanga i si au tiaa,
    Fafanga, fafanga, pa le manava.
    Fafanga, fafanga, pa le manava."

Another as his puzzle to repeat correctly would give:

    "Na au sau mai Mali'oli'o,
    Lou ala i umu,
    Lou ala i paito,
    Lou ala i puto pute,
    Lou ala i pute puto."

If any one slipped in repeating he paid the forfeit.

In some of their evening sports _theatricals_ were in vogue.
Illustrations would be given of selfish schemes to take things easy at
the expense of others, clownish processions to create laughter, or
marriage ceremonies in which, when it came to the point, the bride
rebelled and would not have her husband. Ventriloquism also was
attempted, in which, as they say, "voices spoke to them without
bodies."

They amused each other also by stories of _hoodwinking and trickery_,
such as the following:--A Samoan and a Tongan made friends with each
other. When the latter went away on a visit to Tonga the former begged
him to bring back one of their large cocoa-nuts, which are prized as
water-bottles. He promised to do it on condition that the Samoan would
look out for him a fine white fowl.

The Samoan got ready the fowl, and made a basket in which to put it.
The Tongan returned with a large unhusked nut, but on the voyage he
split up the husk, took out the nut, and closed all up again. The
Samoan had the gift of _second sight_, knew what the Tongan had done,
and so he let loose the white fowl, and put an _owl_ in its place in
the basket.

The Tongan on his arrival gave him the large _mock_ nut, _minus_ the
real nut and kernel, and the Samoan handed him the basket with the
pretended white fowl.

The Tongan jumped into his canoe again, and went off in high glee
singing:

    "Niu niu, pulu!
    Niu niu, pulu!"

    "Cocoa-nut, cocoa-nut,
    Only a _husk_!"

But the wind was taken out of his sail by the laughter and antics of
his friend on the beach shouting after him:

    "Moa, moa, lulu!"
    "Fowl, fowl, only an _owl_!"

They had _sundry other amusements_. Swimming in the surf on a board,
and steering little canoes while borne along on the crest of a wave
towards the shore, were favourite juvenile sports. Canoe-racing, races
with one party in a canoe and another along the beach, races with both
parties on land, climbing cocoa-nut trees to see who can go up
quickest, reviews and sham-fighting, cock-fighting, tossing up oranges
and keeping three, four, or more of them on the move: these and many
other things were of old and are still numbered among Samoan sports.
The teeth and jaws, too, are called into exercise. One man would
engage to unhusk with his teeth and eat five large native chesnuts
(_Tuscapus edulis_) before another could run a certain distance and
return. If he failed, he paid his basket of cocoa-nuts, or whatever
might be previously agreed upon.

Our juvenile friends will be sure to recognise some of their
favourite amusements in this description, and will, perhaps, feel
inclined to try the novelty of some of these Samoan variations. What a
surprising unity of thought and feeling is discoverable among the
various races of mankind from a comparison of such customs as these!

CHAPTER XI.

MORTALITY, LONGEVITY, DISEASES, ETC.

Mortality, longevity, diseases, and the treatment of the sick, will
now form the subject of a few observations; and here we begin with--

_Infants._--Before the introduction of Christianity probably not less
than two-thirds of the Samoan race died in infancy and childhood. This
mortality arose principally from carelessness and mismanagement in
nursing; evils which still prevail to a great extent. Even now,
perhaps, one-half of them die before they reach their second year. The
poor little things are often carried about with their bare heads
exposed to the scorching rays of a vertical sun. Exposure to the
night-damps also, and above all stuffing them with improper food, are
evils which often make us wonder that the mortality among them is not
greater than it is. The Samoans were always fond of their children,
and would have done anything for them when ill; but, with the
exception of external applications for skin diseases, they had no
proper remedies for the numerous disorders of children. Were their
care in preventing disease equal to their anxiety to observe a cure
when the child is really ill, there would probably be less sickness
among them, and fewer deaths.

_Adults._--The universal opinion of the natives is that the mortality
is now greater among young and middle-aged people than it was
formerly. "It was common," they say, "to see three or four old men in
a house, whereas you rarely see more than one now." Among a people
destitute of statistics or records of any kind, it is difficult to
speak correctly of an earlier date than 1830. Since that time,
however, the population has been remarkably stationary. We have not
observed any marked disproportion in the deaths of adults of any
particular age compared with other parts of the world. A person died
in 1847 who was present at the massacre of M. de Langle and others
connected with the exploring expedition of La Perouse in 1787, and who
was then a youth of about fourteen years of age. Judging from his
appearance, we may suppose that there are some in every village who
must be sixty, seventy, and even eighty years of age.

They have stories of a _giant race_, and tell particularly of one
called _Tafai_. He was very tall and strong, but not cruel to any one.
He could throw a long cocoa-nut tree at the rocks as if he were but
hurling a thin spear. He plucked up by the roots a great Malili tree,
eighty feet high, carried it off on his shoulder, branches and all,
and could throw it up and catch it again as if he were playing with a
small crab. It is said, too, that so great was his weight, if he put
his foot on a rock it left a footprint as if the rock had been soft
sand.

_Diseases._--Pulmonary affections, paralysis, diseases of the spine
producing humpback, ophthalmia, skin diseases, scrofulous, and other
ulcers, elephantiasis, and a species of leprosy, are among the
principal diseases with which they were afflicted. Ophthalmia and
various diseases of the eye were very prevalent. There were few cases
of total blindness; but many had one of the organs of vision
destroyed. Connected with diseases of the eye, pterygium is common;
not only single, but double, triple, and even quadruple are
occasionally met with. The leprosy of which we speak has greatly
abated. The natives say that formerly many had it, and suffered from
its ulcerous sores until all the fingers of a hand or the toes of a
foot had fallen off. Elephantiasis, producing great enlargement of the
legs and arms, has, they think, somewhat abated too; only, they say,
it prevails among the _young_ men more now than it did formerly.
Insanity is occasionally met with. It was invariably traced in former
times to the immediate presence of an evil spirit. If furious, the
party was tied hand to hand and foot to foot until a change for the
better appeared. Idiots are not common. Consumption they call
"Moomoo;" and there were certain native doctors who were supposed to
be successful in spearing the disease, or rather the spirit causing
it. The doctor when sent for would come in, sit down before the
patient, and chant as follows:--

    "Moomoo e! Moomoo e!
    O le a ou velosia atu oe;"

which in English is--

    "O Moomoo! O Moomoo!
    I'm on the eve of spearing you."

Then he would rise up, flourish about with his spear over the head of
the patient, and leave the house. No one dared speak or smile during
the ceremony. Influenza is a new disease to the natives. They say that
the first attack of it ever known in Samoa was during the Aana war in
1830, just as the missionaries Williams and Barff, with Tahitian
teachers, first reached their shores. The natives at once traced the
disease to the foreigners and the new religion; the same opinion
spread through these seas, and especially among the islands of the New
Hebrides. Ever since there have been returns of the disease almost
annually. It is generally preceded by unsettled weather, and westerly
or southerly winds. Its course is generally from east to west. It
lasts for about a month, and passes off as fine weather and steady
trade-winds set in. In many cases it is fatal to old people and those
who have been previously weakened by pulmonary diseases. There was an
attack in May 1837, and another in November 1846, both of which were
unusually severe and fatal. They have a tradition of an epidemic,
answering the description of cholera, which raged with fearful
violence probably about eighty years ago. In 1849 hooping-cough made
its appearance, and prevailed for several months, among adults as well
as children. A good many of the children died. In 1851 another new
disease surprised the natives--viz. the mumps. It was traced to a
vessel from California collecting pigs, and soon spread all over the
group. Scarcely a native escaped. It answered the usual description of
the attack given in medical works, and passed off in ten days or a
fortnight. Hitherto they have been exempt from small-pox. Some years
ago the missionaries vaccinated all the natives, and continue to do so
as often as a supply of vaccine lymph is obtained.

_Medicine._--The Samoans in their heathenism seldom had recourse to
any internal remedy except an emetic, which they used after having
eaten a poisonous fish. Sometimes juices from the bush were tried; at
other times the patient drank on at water until it was rejected; and,
on some occasions, mud, and even the most unmentionable filth, was
mixed up and taken as an emetic draught. Latterly, as their
intercourse with Tongans, Fijians, Tahitians, and Sandwich Islanders
increased, they made additions to their _pharmacopoeia_ of juices from
the bush. Each disease had its particular physician. Shampooing and
anointing the affected part of the body with scented oil by the native
doctors was common; and to this charms were frequently added,
consisting of some flowers from the bush done up in a piece of native
cloth and put in a conspicuous place in the thatch over the patient.

The advocates of _kinnesipathy_ would be interested in finding, were
they to visit the South Seas, that most of their friction, percussion,
and other manipulations, were in vogue there ages ago, and are still
practised. Now, however, European medicines are eagerly sought after;
so much so, that every missionary is obliged to have a dispensary, and
to set apart a certain hour every day to give advice and medicine to
the sick.

As the Samoans supposed disease to be occasioned by the wrath of some
particular deity, their principal desire, in any difficult case, was
not for medicine, but to ascertain the cause of the calamity. The
friends of the sick went to the high priest of the village. He was
sure to assign some cause; and, whatever that was, they were all
anxiety to have it removed, as the means of restoration. If he said
they were to give up a canoe to the god, it was given up. If a piece
of land was asked, it was passed over at once. Or, if he did not wish
anything particular from the party, he would probably tell them to
assemble the family, "confess, and throw out." In this ceremony each
member of the family confessed his crimes and any judgments which, in
anger, he had invoked on the family or upon the particular member of
it then ill; and, as a proof that he revoked all such imprecations, he
took a little water in his mouth, and spurted it out towards the
person who was sick.

In _surgery_, they lanced ulcers with a shell or a shark's tooth, and,
in a similar way, bled from the arm. For inflammatory swellings they
sometimes tried local bleeding; but shampooing and rubbing with oil
were the more common remedies in such cases. Cuts they washed in the
sea, and bound up with a leaf. Into wounds in the scalp they blew the
smoke of burnt chestnut wood. To take a barbed spear from the arm or
leg they cut into the limb from the opposite side and pushed it right
through. Amputation they never attempted.

The _treatment of the sick_ was invariably humane, and all that could
be expected. They wanted for no kind of food which they might desire,
night or day, if it was at all in the power of their friends to
procure it. In the event of the disease assuming a dangerous form,
messengers were despatched to friends at a distance that they might
have an opportunity of being in time to see and say farewell to a
departing relative. The greater the rank the greater the stir and
muster about the sick of friends from the neighbourhood and from a
distance. Every one who went to visit a sick friend supposed to be
near death took with him a present of a fine mat, or some other kind
of valuable property, as a farewell expression of regard, to aid in
paying native doctors or conjurors, and to help also in the cost of
pigs, etc., with which to entertain the friends who were assembled.
The following story illustrates the ideas and doings of the people at
such a time:--

Tuitopetope and Tuioleole were two brother conjurors belonging to
Upolu who had been on a visit to Tutuila. On their return they landed
at night at Aleipata just as messengers were running from place to
place to inform the friends of the dangerous illness of the chief
Puepuemai. The two looked into the house, and there they saw a number
of gods from the mountain called Fiso sitting in the doorway. They
were handing from one to another the soul of the dying chief. It was
wrapped up in a leaf, and had been passed by the gods inside the house
to those sitting in the doorway. One of them said to Tuitopetope, "You
take this," and handed the soul to him. He took it. The god mistook
him in the dark for another of their god party. Then all the gods went
off, but Tuitopetope remained in the village and kept the soul of the
chief.

Next morning some women of the family were sent off with a present of
fine mats to fetch a noted priest doctor. Tuitopetope and his
brother, who were sitting on the beach as they passed along, asked
where they were going with that bundle of property. "To fetch a doctor
to Puepuemai," was the reply. "Leave it here," said they, "and take
_us_." "Lads! you are joking," said the women. "No, we are not; _we_
can heal him." The women went back to the house to consult again with
the friends assembled around the dying man. All agreed to let the
young men come and do what they could.

Tuitopetope and his brother were accordingly sent for. The chief was
very ill, his jaw hanging down, and apparently breathing his last.
They undid the leaf, let the soul into him again, and immediately he
brightened up and lived. It was blazed abroad that Puepuemai was
brought to life again by Tuitopetope and his brother, and they gained
a wonderful celebrity. It was supposed they knew everything and could
do anything; and so they were sent for by chiefs all over the group to
heal the sick and find out the guilty in thieving and other
criminalities.

CHAPTER XII.

DEATH AND BURIAL.

Whenever the eye was fixed in death the house became a scene of
indescribable lamentation and wailing. "Oh, my father, why did you not
let me die, and you live here still?" "Oh, my brother, why have you
run away and left your only brother to be trampled upon?" "Oh, my
child, had I known you were going to die! Of what use is it for me to
survive you; would that I had died for you!" These and other doleful
cries might have been heard two hundred yards from the house; and they
were accompanied by the most frantic expressions of grief, such as
rending garments, tearing the hair, thumping the face and eyes,
burning the body with small piercing firebrands, beating the head with
stones till the blood ran, and this they called an "offering of blood"
for the dead.

After an hour or so the more boisterous wailing subsided, and, as in
such a climate the corpse must be buried in a few hours, preparations
were made without delay. The body was laid out on a mat, oiled with
scented oil, and, to modify the cadaverous look, they tinged the oil
for the face with a little turmeric. The body was then wound up with
several folds of native cloth, the chin propped up with a little
bundle of the same material, and the face and head left uncovered,
while, for some hours longer, the body was surrounded by weeping
relatives. If the person had died of a complaint which carried off
some other members of the family, they would probably open the body to
"search for the disease." Any inflamed substance they happened to find
they took away and burned, thinking that this would prevent any other
members of the family being affected with the same disease. This was
done when the body was laid in the grave.

While a dead body was in the house no food was eaten under the same
roof; the family had their meals outside, or in another house. Those
who attended the deceased were most careful not to handle food, and
for days 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 if they violated the rule. Fasting was common at
such times, and they who did so ate nothing during the day, but had a
meal in the evening. The fifth day was a day of "purification." They
bathed the face and hands with hot water, and then they were "clean,"
and resumed the usual time and mode of eating.

The death of a chief of high rank was attended with great excitement
and display; all work was suspended in the settlement; no stranger
dared to pass through the place. For days they kept the body unburied,
until all the different parties connected with that particular clan
assembled from various parts of the islands, and until each party had,
in turn, paraded the body, shoulder high, through the village, singing
at the same time some mournful dirge. The body, too, was wrapped up in
the most valuable fine mat clothing which the deceased possessed.

_The burial_ generally took place the day after death. As many of the
friends as could be present in time attended. Every one brought a
present, and the day after the funeral these presents were all so
distributed again as that every one went away with something in return
for what he brought. The body was buried without a coffin, except in
the case of chiefs, when a log of wood was hollowed out for the
purpose. The body being put into this rude encasement, all was done up
again in some other folds of native cloth, and carried on the
shoulders of four or five men to the grave. The friends followed, but
in no particular order; and at the grave again there was often further
wailing and exclamations, such as, "Alas! I looked to you for
protection, but you have gone away; why did you die? would that I had
died for you!"

_The grave_ was called "the fast resting-place," and in the case of
chiefs, "the house thatched with the leaves of the sandal wood,"
alluding to the custom of planting some tree with pretty foliage near
the grave. There was no village burying-ground all preferred laying
their dead among the ashes of their ancestors on their own particular
ground. They carried the skulls of their dead from a land where they
had been residing during war back to the graves of their fathers as
soon as possible after peace was proclaimed. The grave was often dug
close by the house. They made it about four feet deep, and after
spreading it with mats, like a comfortable bed, there they placed the
body with the head to the rising of the sun, and the feet to the west.
With the body they deposited several things which may have been used
during the person's illness, such as his clothing, his drinking-cup,
and his bamboo pillow. The sticks used to answer the purpose of a
pick-axe in digging the grave were also carefully buried with the
body. Not that they thought these things of use to the dead; but it
was supposed that if they were left and handled by others further
disease and death would be the consequence. Other mats were spread
over the body, on these a layer of white sand from the beach, and then
they filled up the grave. The spot was marked by a little heap of
stones a foot or two high. The grave of a chief was neatly built up in
an oblong slanting form, about three feet high at the foot and four
at the head. White stones or shells were intermixed with the top
layer, and if it had been a noted warrior his grave might be
surrounded with spears, or his club laid loosely on the top.

_Embalming_ was known and practised with surprising skill in one
particular family of chiefs. Unlike the Egyptian method, as described
by Herodotus, it was performed in Samoa exclusively by women. The
viscera being removed and buried, they, day after day, anointed the
body with a mixture of oil and aromatic juices. To let the fluids
escape, they continued to puncture the body all over with fine
needles. In about two months the process of desiccation was completed.
The hair, which had been cut and laid aside at the commencement of the
operation, was now glued carefully on to the scalp by a resin from the
bush. The abdomen was filled up with folds of native cloth; the body
was wrapped up with the same material, and laid out on a mat, leaving
the hands, face, and head exposed. A house was built for the purpose,
and there the body was placed with a sheet of native cloth loosely
thrown over it. Now and then the face was oiled with a mixture of
scented oil and turmeric, and passing strangers were freely admitted
to see the remains of the departed. Until about twenty years ago there
were four bodies laid out in this way in a house belonging to the
family to which we refer, viz. a chief, his wife, and two sons. They
were laid on a platform raised on a double canoe. They must have been
embalmed upwards of thirty years, and although thus exposed, they were
in a remarkable state of preservation. They assigned no particular
reason for this embalming, further than that it was the expression of
their affection to keep the bodies of the departed still with them as
if they were alive. None were allowed to dress them but a particular
family of old ladies, who all died off; and, as there was a
superstitious fear on the part of some, and an unwillingness on the
part of others, to handle them, it was resolved at last to lay them
underground.

_Burnings for the dead._--On the evening after the burial of any
important chief his friends kindled a number of fires at distances of
some twenty feet from each other, near the grave; and there they sat
and kept them burning till morning light. This was continued sometimes
for ten days after the funeral; it was also done before burial. In the
house where the body lay, or out in front of it, fires were kept
burning all night by the immediate relatives of the departed. The
common people had a similar custom. After burial they kept a fire
blazing in the house all night, and had the space between the house
and the grave so cleared as that a stream of light went forth all
night from the fire to the grave. The account the Samoans give of it
is, that it was merely a light burning in honour of the departed, and
a mark of tender regard.

_The unburied_ occasioned great concern. No Roman was ever more
grieved at the thought of his unburied friend wandering a hundred
years along the banks of the Styx than were the Samoans while they
thought of the spirit of one who had been drowned, or of another who
had fallen in war, wandering about neglected and comfortless. They
supposed the spirit haunted them everywhere, night and day, and
imagined they heard it calling upon them in a most pitiful tone, and
saying, "Oh, how cold! oh, how cold!" Nor were the Samoans, like the
ancient Romans, satisfied with a mere "_tumulus inanis_" at which to
observe the usual solemnities; they thought it was possible to obtain
the soul of the departed in some tangible transmigrated form. On the
beach, near where a person had been drowned, and whose body was
supposed to have become a porpoise, or on the battlefield, where
another fell, might have been seen, sitting in silence, a group of
five or six, and one a few yards before them with a sheet of native
cloth spread out on the ground in front of him. Addressing some god of
the family he said, "Oh, be kind to us; let us obtain without
difficulty the spirit of the young man!" The first thing that happened
to light upon the sheet was supposed to be the spirit. If nothing came
it was supposed that the spirit had some ill-will to the person
praying. That person after a time retired, and another stepped
forward, addressed some other god, and waited the result. By-and-by
something came; grasshopper, butterfly, ant, or whatever else it
might be, it was carefully wrapped up, taken to the family, the
friends assembled, and the bundle buried with all due ceremony, as if
it contained the real spirit of the departed. The grave, however, was
not the hades of the Samoans, as we have already seen in Chapter III.
Prayers at the grave of a parent or brother or _chief_ were common.
Some, for example, would pray for health in sickness and might or
might not recover. A woman prayed for the death of her brother, he
died, but soon after she died also. A chief promised to give a woman
some fine mats, he deceived her, and off she went and prayed at the
grave of his predecessor in the title. The man took ill and died. She
confessed what she had done, but said she did not pray for death, but
only _pain_ to make him smart for his deceit. And so the custom was
carried on, but with fluctuating belief in its efficacy.

CHAPTER XIII.

HOUSES.

The Samoans have a tradition that of old their forefathers had no
houses. They say that in those days the people were "housed by the
heavens," and describe the ingenuity of a chief who first contrived to
build houses. He had two sons, and out of love to them built for each
of them a house. But leaving tradition let me describe the houses to
be seen at the present day in some of the villages, and the
counterpart of those which have been in use for ages. Imagine a
gigantic bee-hive, thirty-five feet in diameter, a hundred in
circumference, and raised from the ground by a number of short posts,
at intervals of four feet from each other all round, and you have a
good idea of the appearance of a Samoan house.

The spaces between these posts, which may be called open doors or
windows all round the house, are shut in at night by roughly-plaited
cocoa-nut leaf blinds. During the day the blinds are pulled up, and
all the interior exposed to a free current of air. The floor is raised
six or eight inches with rough stones, then an upper layer of smooth
pebbles, then some cocoa-nut leaf mats, and then a layer of finer
matting. Houses of important chiefs are erected on a raised platform
of stones three feet high. In the centre of the house there are two,
and sometimes three, posts or pillars, twenty feet long, sunk three
feet into the ground, and extending to and supporting the ridge pole.
These are the main props of the building. Any _Samson_ or giant
_Tafai_ pulling them away would bring down the whole house. The space
between the rafters is filled up with what they call _ribs_--viz. the
wood of the bread-fruit tree, split up into small pieces, and joined
together so as to form a long rod the thickness of the thumb, running
from the ridge pole down to the eaves. All are kept in their places,
an inch and a half apart, by cross pieces, made fast with cinnet. The
whole of this upper cagelike work looks compact and tidy, and at the
first glance is admired by strangers as being alike novel, ingenious,
and neat. The wood of the bread-fruit tree, of which the greater part
of the best houses are built, is durable, and, if preserved from wet,
will last fifty years.

The thatch also is laid on with great care and taste; the long dry
leaves of the sugar-cane are strung on to pieces of reed five feet
long; they are made fast to the reed by overlapping the one end of
the leaf, and pinning it with the rib of the cocoa-nut leaflet run
through from leaf to leaf horizontally. These reeds, thus fringed with
the sugar-cane leaves hanging down three or four feet, are laid on,
beginning at the eaves and running up to the ridge pole, each one
overlapping its fellow an inch or so, and made fast one by one with
cinnet to the inside rods or rafters. Upwards of a hundred of these
reeds of thatch will be required for a single row running from the
eaves to the ridge pole; then they do another row, and so on all round
the house. Two, three, or four thousand of these fringed reeds may be
required for a good-sized house. This thatching, if well done, will
last for seven years. To collect the sugar-cane leaves, and "sew," as
it is called, the ends on to the reeds, is the work of the women. An
active woman will sew fifty reeds in a day, and three men will put up
and fasten on to the roof of the house some five hundred in a day.
Corrugated iron, shingles, and other contrivances, are being tried by
European residents; but, for coolness and ventilation, nothing beats
the thatch. The great drawback is, that in gales it stands up like a
field of corn, and then the rain pours into the house. That, however,
may be remedied by a network of cinnet, to keep down the thatch, or by
the native plan of covering all in with a layer of heavy cocoa-nut
leaves on the approach of a gale.

These great circular roofs are so constructed that they can be lifted
bodily off the posts, and removed anywhere, either by land, or by a
raft of canoes. But in removing a house, they generally divide the
roof into four parts--viz. the two sides, and the two ends, where
there are particular joints left by the carpenters, which can easily
be untied, and again fastened. There is not a single nail in the whole
building; all is made fast with cinnet. As Samoan houses often form
presents, fines, dowries, as well as articles of barter, they are
frequently removed from place to place. The arrangement of the houses
in a village has no regard whatever to order. You rarely see three
houses in a line. Every one puts his house on his little plot of
ground, just as the shade of the trees, the direction of the wind, the
height of the ground, etc., may suit his fancy.

A house, after the usual Samoan fashion just described, has but _one_
apartment. It is the common parlour, dining-room, etc., by day, and
the bedroom of the whole family by night. They do not, however,
altogether herd indiscriminately. If you peep into a Samoan house at
midnight, you will see five or six low oblong _tents_ pitched (or
rather strung up) here and there throughout the house. They are made
of native cloth, five feet high, and close all round down to the mat.
They shut out the mosquitoes, and enclose a place some eight feet by
five; and these said tent-looking places may be called the _bedrooms_
of the family. Four or five mats laid loosely, the one on the top of
the other, form the _bed_. The _pillow_ is a piece of thick bamboo,
three inches in diameter, three to five feet long, and raised three
inches from the mat by short wooden feet. The sick are indulged with
something softer, but the hard bamboo is the invariable pillow of
health. The _bedding_ in old times was complete with a single mat or
sheet of native cloth. In the morning the tent was unstrung, mats,
pillow, and sheet rolled together, and laid up overhead on a shelf
between the posts in the middle of the house.

These rolls of mats and bedding, a bundle or two done up in native
cloth on the same shelf in the centre of the house, a basket, a fan or
two, and a bamboo knife stuck into the thatch within reach, a
fishing-net, a club, and some spears strung up along the rafters, a
few paddles, and a few cocoa-nut shell water-bottles, were about all
the things in the shape of furniture or property to be seen in looking
into a Samoan house. The fire-place was about the middle of the house.
It was merely a circular hollow, two or three feet in diameter, a few
inches deep, and lined with hardened clay. It was not used for
cooking, but for the purpose of lighting up the house at night. A
_flaming fire_, as we have already remarked (p. 75), was the regular
evening offering to the gods, as the family bowed the head, and the
fathers prayed for prosperity from the "gods great and small." The
women collected during the day a supply of dried cocoa-nut leaves,
etc., which, with a little management, kept up a continued blaze in
the evening, while the assembled family group had their supper and
prayer, and sat together chatting for an hour or two afterwards.

But about _house-building_: it was a distinct trade in Samoa; and
perhaps, on an average, you might find one among every three hundred
men who was a master carpenter. Whenever this person went to work he
had in his train some ten or twelve, who followed him, some as
journeymen, who expected payment from him, and others as apprentices,
who were principally anxious to learn the trade. When a young man took
a fancy to the trade he had only to go and attach himself to the staff
of some master carpenter, follow him from place to place for a few
years, until he thought he could take the lead in building a house
himself; and whenever he could point to a house which he had built,
that set him up as a professed carpenter, and he would from that time
be employed by others.

If a person wished a house built, he went with a fine mat, worth in
modern cash value 20s. or 30s. He told the carpenter what he wanted,
and presented him with the mat as a pledge that he should be well paid
for his work. If he accepted the mat, that was a pledge that he
undertook the job. Nothing was stipulated as to the cost; that was
left entirely to the honour of the employing party. At an appointed
time the carpenter came with his staff of helpers and learners. Even
now their only tools are a felling-axe, a hatchet, and a small adze;
and there they sit, chop, chop, chopping, for three, six, or nine
months it may be, until the house is finished. Their _adze_ reminds us
of ancient Egypt. It is formed by the head of a small hatchet, or any
other flat piece of iron, lashed on, at an angle of forty-five, to the
end of a small piece of wood, eighteen inches long, as its handle. Of
old they used stone and shell axes and adzes.

The man whose house is being built provides the carpenters with board
and lodging, and is also at hand with his neighbours to help in
bringing wood from the bush, scaffolding, and other heavy work. As we
have just remarked, a Samoan house-builder made no definite charge,
but left the price of his work to the judgment, generosity, and means
of the person who employed him. It was a lasting disgrace to any one
to have it said that he paid his carpenter shabbily. It branded him as
a person of no rank or respectability, and was disreputable, not
merely to himself, but to the whole family or _clan_ with which he was
connected. The entire tribe or clan was his _bank_. Being connected
with that particular tribe, either by birth or marriage, gave him a
latent interest in all their property, and entitled him to go freely
to any of his friends to ask for help in paying his house-builder. He
would get a mat from one, worth twenty shillings; from another he
might get one more valuable still; from another some native cloth,
worth five shillings; from another, some foreign property; and thus he
might collect, with but little trouble, two or three hundred useful
articles, worth, perhaps, forty or fifty pounds; and in this way the
carpenter was generally well paid. Now and then there might be a
stingy exception; but the carpenter, from certain indications,
generally saw ahead, and decamped, with all his party, leaving the
house unfinished. It was a standing custom, that after the sides and
one end of the house were finished, the principal part of the payment
was made; and it was at this time that a carpenter, if he was
dissatisfied, would get up and walk off. A house with two sides and
but one end, and the carpenters away, was indicative. Nor could the
chief to whom the house belonged employ another party to finish it. It
was a fixed rule of the trade, and rigidly adhered to, that no one
would take up the work which another party had thrown down. The chief,
therefore, had no alternative but to go and make up matters with the
original carpenter, in order to have his house decently completed.
When a house was finished, and all ready for occupation, they had
their "house-warming," or, as they called it, its _oven consecration_;
and formerly it was the custom to add on to that a night dance, for
the purpose, they said, of "treading down the beetles."

The system of a common interest in each other's property, to which we
have referred, is still clung to by the Samoans with great tenacity.
They feel its advantages when they wish to raise a little. Not only a
house, but also a canoe, a boat, a fine, a dowry, and everything else
requiring an extra effort, is got up in the same way. They consider
themselves at liberty to go and take up their abode anywhere among
their friends, and remain without charge, as long as they please. And
the same custom entitles them to beg and borrow from each other to any
extent. Boats, tools, garments, money, etc., are all freely lent to
each other, if connected with the same tribe or clan. A man cannot
bear to be called stingy or disobliging. If he has what is asked, he
will either give it, or adopt the worse course of telling a lie about
it, by saying that he has it not, or that it is promised to some one
else. This communistic system is a sad hindrance to the industrious,
and eats like a canker-worm at the roots of individual or national
progress. No matter how hard a young man may be disposed to work, he
cannot keep his earnings: all soon passes out of his hands into the
common circulating currency of the clan to which all have a latent
right. The only thing which reconciles one to bear with it until it
gives place to the individual independence of more advanced
civilisation, is the fact that, with such a state of things, no "poor
laws" are needed. The sick, the aged, the blind, the lame, and even
the vagrant, has always a house and home, and food and raiment, as far
as he considers he needs it. A stranger may, at first sight, think a
Samoan one of the poorest of the poor, and yet he may live ten years
with that Samoan and not be able to make him understand what _poverty_
really is, in the European sense of the word. "How is it?" he will
always say. "_No food!_ Has he no friends? _No house to live in!_
Where _did_ he grow? Are there no houses belonging to his friends?
Have the people there no love for each other?"

CHAPTER XIV.

CANOES.

Next to a well-built house, Samoan ingenuity was seen in their canoes.
Any one could fell a tree, cut off the branches, and hollow out the
log some fifteen feet long, for a common fishing canoe in which one or
two men can sit. But the more carefully-built canoe, with a number of
separate planks raised from a keel, was the work of a distinct and not
very numerous class of professed carpenters. The keel was laid in one
piece, twenty-five to fifty feet long, as the size of the canoe might
be, and to that they added board after board, not by overlapping and
nailing, but by _sewing_ each close to its fellow, until they had
raised it some two, or, it might be, three feet from the ground. These
boards were not sawn, squared, and uniform, but were a number of
pieces, or _patches_, as they are called, varying in size from
eighteen inches to five feet long, as the wood split up from the log
with felling axes happens to suit; all, however, were well fastened
together, and, with the help of a little gum of the bread-fruit tree
for pitch, the whole was perfectly water-tight. In dressing each
board, they left a ledge, or rim, all round the edge, which was to be
inside, making it double the thickness at the edge to what it was in
the middle of the board. It is through this ledge or rim they bored
the holes, and with a few turns of cinnet sewed tight one board to the
other. The sewing only appeared on the inside. Outside all was smooth
and neat; and it was only on close inspection you could see that there
was a join at all. They had timbers, thwarts, and gunwale, to keep all
tight; and over a few feet at the bow and the stern they had a deck,
under which they could stow away anything. The decked part at the bow
was the seat of honour, and there you generally saw the chief of the
travelling party sitting cross-legged, at his ease, while the others
were paddling.

The width of a canoe varied from eighteen to thirty inches; the
length, from fifteen to fifty feet. But for an outrigger, it was
impossible to keep such a long, narrow thing steady in the water. The
outrigger may be described, in any boat, by laying oars across at
equal distances, say one right above a thwart. Make fast the handle of
each oar to the gunwale on the starboard side of the boat, and let the
oars project on the larboard side. To the end of each projecting oar
make fast four small sticks running down towards the water, and let
their ends also be fastened to a long thick piece of wood, sharp at
the one end to cut through the water, and floating on the surface
parallel to the boat. This being done will give any one an exact idea
of a Polynesian outrigger, by means of which long narrow canoes are
kept steady in the water.

Some people who sketch and engrave from imagination, err in
representing the natives of Samoa as _pulling_ their short paddles, as
the European boatman pulls his long oars. The paddle is about four
feet long, something like a sharp-pointed shovel; and when the natives
paddle, they sit with their faces in the direction in which the canoe
is going, "_dig_" in their paddles, send the water flying behind them,
and forward the canoe shoots at the rate of seven miles an hour. They
have always a sail for their canoe, as well as paddles, to take
advantage of a fair wind. The sail is triangular, and made of matting.
When set, the base is up, and the apex down, quite the reverse of what
we see in some other islands. The _mat_ sails, however, are giving
place to cloth ones, made in the form of European boat-sails.

Some two or three generations back the Samoans built large double
canoes like the Fijians. Latterly they seldom built anything larger
than a single canoe, with an outrigger, which might carry from fifteen
to twenty people. Within the last few years the native carpenters have
tried their hand at boat-building, and it is astonishing to see how
well they have succeeded in copying the model of an English or
American whaleboat, sharp at both ends, or having "two bows," as they
call it. Some of them are fifty feet long, and carry well on to one
hundred people. From stem to stern there is not a nail; everything is
fastened in their ancient style, with cinnet plaited from the fibre of
the cocoa-nut husk. Cinnet is likely long to prevail in _native_ canoe
and boat-building. Although it looks clumsy, it has the advantage of
not rotting the wood like an iron nail. It is durable also. With care,
and the sewing once or twice renewed, a Samoan canoe or boat will last
ten or twenty years.

They did not paint their canoes, but decorated them with rows of white
shells (_Cypræa ovula_) running along the middle of the deck at the
bow and stern, and also along the upper part of the outrigger. Now and
then they had a figure-head with some rude device of a human figure, a
dog, a bird, or something else, which had from time immemorial been
the "coat-of-arms" of the particular village or district to which the
canoe belonged. A chief of importance must also have one, or perhaps
two, large shells in his canoe, to answer the purpose of trumpets, to
blow now and then as the canoe passed along. It attracted the
attention of the villagers, and called them out to look and inquire,
"Who is that?" The ambition to see and to be seen was as common in
Polynesia as anywhere else. As the canoe approached any principal
settlement, or when it reached its destination, there was a special
too-too-too, or flourish of their shell trumpets, to herald its
approach. The paddlers at the same time struck up some lively chant,
and, as the canoe touched the beach, all was wound up with a united
shout, having more of the _yell_ in it, but the same in meaning as a
"hip, hip, hurrah!"

The French navigator Bougainville, seeing the Samoans so often moving
about in their canoes, named the group "The Navigators." A stranger in
the distance, judging from the name, may suppose that the Samoans are
noted among the Polynesians as enterprising navigators. This is not
the case. They are quite a domestic people, and rarely venture out of
sight of land. The group, however, is extensive, and gives them some
scope for travel. It numbers ten inhabited islands, and stretches east
and west about 200 miles. Within these bounds they have kept up an
intercourse from the earliest times in their history, which is fully
proved, not only by tradition, but by the uniformity of customs and
language which prevails from the one end of the group to the other.

CHAPTER XV.

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.

CHAPTER XVI.

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.

CHAPTER XVII.

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