Samians

“ I ever misliked that Polycrates or any other man should lord it over men like to himself. Polycrates has fulfilled his destiny; for myself, I call you to share all power, and I proclaim equality; only claiming as my own such privilege that six talents of Polycrates’ wealth be set apart for my use, and that I and my descendants have besides the priesthood of Zeus the Liberator, whose temple I have founded, and I now give you freedom.” Such was Maeandrius’ promise to the Samians. ”

“ Milo had perceived the momentary weakness. Taking advantage of it, he clasped the youth in a deadly embrace; a full black stream of blood welled from Lysander’s beautiful lips, and he sank lifeless to the earth from the wearied arms of the giant. Democedes, the most celebrated physician of our day, whom you Samians will have known at the court of Polycrates, hastened to the spot, but no skill could now avail the happy Lysander,—he was dead.
“Milo was obliged to forego the victor’s wreath”; and the fame of this youth will long continue to sound through the whole of Greece. ”

“ I said. “I have heard indeed lately that he has said this—that if he and his friends should be elected to sit in the Ecclesia, he will not propose a law taxing Megarian imports without first consulting the citizens; and he has invited Askoïthios to do the same thing, and not to give autonomy to the Samians without first consulting the citizens. Is that the dreadful thing?”
“So dreadful, Socrates, that even now I can scarcely believe it: for it aims at the destruction of the democracy. But I can tell him that Askoïthios will certainly not do what he is invited to do.” ”

“ Again, Plato in the Republic compares those who strip the dead to curs, which bite stones, but do not touch those who throw them; he also says that the people is like a ship's captain who is vigorous, but rather deaf; that poets' verses resemble those who are in the bloom of youth but lack beauty; for neither the one after they have lost their bloom, nor the others after they have been broken up, appear the same as before. Pericles said that the Samians were like children who cry while they accept the scraps. ”

“ Paeans were sung at the festivals of Apollo (especially the Hyacinthia) , at banquets, and later even at public funerals. In later times they were addressed not only to the gods, but to human beings. In this manner the Rhodians celebrated Ptolemy I. of Egypt, the Samians Lysander of Sparta, the Athenians Demetrius, the Delphians Craterus of Macedon. The word “paean” is now used in the sense of any song of joy or triumph.
See A. Fairbanks, “A Study of the Greek Paean.” No. ”

“ But the Semites were not the first occupants of Babylonia. The civilisation of the country had been founded by a race which spoke an agglutinative language, like that of the modern Finns or Turks, and which scholars have now agreed to call Sumerian. The Sumerians had been the builders of the cities, the reclaimers of the marshy plain, the inventors of the picture-writing which developed into the cuneiform [pg 200] or wedge-shaped characters, and the pioneers of a culture which profoundly affected the whole of western Asia. ”

“ Here, in Samoa, there were very few idols, and no blood-stained maraes, altars, or temples; human sacrifice, or indeed any sort of sacrifice, was not required; hence the expression, "Godless as a Samoan," by which the men of other groups described any one who neglected the service of the temples. The Samoans, however, were diligent in the worship of their own ancestors, and, moreover, supposed that the spirit of their gods animated divers birds, fishes, or reptiles. ”

“ Each primitive people has selected one set of human gifts, one set of human values, and fashioned for themselves an art, a social organisation, a religion, which is their unique contribution to the history of the human spirit.
Samoa is only one of these diverse and gracious patterns, but as the traveller who has been once from home is wiser than he who has never left his own door step, so a knowledge of one other culture should sharpen our ability to scrutinise more steadily, to appreciate more lovingly, our own. ”

“ However, they become slightly broad in the nose as they get older and the lips become sensual-looking; the skin, which in youth is of a golden hue, deepens to a tawny hue with age, the complexion becoming swarthy, something akin to that of the Spanish, Italian, Southern French, and the darker types of British. Of course, these remarks refer to the true-blooded types of over twenty years ago. Through intermarriage with Mongolians, Negroes, Malays, Papuans, and low-caste British, the herculean Samoan is becoming a very rare individual indeed. ”

“ He was not a full-blooded Samoan. I have never seen a Samoan who had once accepted your friendship turn traitor afterwards. But even the true Samoans are not so trustworthy when they have got the religious mania on them; they are a superstitious people, and the solemn-voiced missionaries chanting into their childish ears create extraordinary illusions in their minds. Some go raving mad and others go off to the other Isles and live a life of isolation and devote all their remaining days to begging the one great white God to save them from hell fire. ”

“ The Babylonian civilisation, with which we are best acquainted, was the result of this amalgamation of Sumerian and Semitic elements.
Out of this mixture of Sumerians and Semites there arose a mixed people, a mixed language, and a mixed religion. The language and race of Babylonia were thus like those of England, probably also like those of Egypt. Mixed races are invariably the best; it is the more pure-blooded peoples who fall behind in the struggle for existence. ”

“ 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. ”

“ On sterile Savaii I have seen them carrying farm produce on their backs, mile after mile; it was the old way, and they were working their own land. If Samoan racial pride seems to you to be no more than backwoods vanity, remember the Polynesian brain, one of humanity’s best. And remember that in both Samoas, Western and American, there are as many people, perhaps, as you’ll find in one of New York’s longer streets. The old days are done for; the days of brave canoe-voyaging over uncharted blue waters. Among their ancestors were baffled Alexanders, weeping for more worlds to conquer. ”

“ So, high up in our list of explanations we must place the lack of deep feeling which the Samoans have conventionalised until it is the very framework of all their attitudes toward life.
And next there is the most striking way in which all isolated primitive civilisation and many modern ones differ from our own, in the number of choices which are permitted to each individual. Our children grow up to find a world of choices dazzling their unaccustomed eyes. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But I think there's more than luck or German wisdom at the bottom of the happy condition of Samoa. Something in the very magic of the place seems to subdue or soften the evil in men. Heaven forbid I should deny that mean and treacherous and cruel acts of white men and brown are on record. But as a rule the greedy or the boorish, once they settle there, appear to mellow and grow quiet. Between this sea and sky even a trader becomes almost a gentleman, even a Prussian almost lovable, and the very missionaries are betrayed by beauty, and contentment takes them unaware. ”

“ The Semitic Baal was a lord or king of human shape and passions. He thus stood in marked contrast to the Sumerian ghost or spirit; and, as we have seen, the gulf between them is too deep and broad to be spanned by the doctrine of evolution. For the Sumerian the world outside man was peopled with spirits and demons; for the [pg 496] Semite it was a human world, since man was made in the image of the gods. The triumph of the gods of light and order over the monsters of chaos symbolised not only the birth of the present creation, but also the theological victory of the Semite over the Sumerian. ”

“ The influence of Asia on Africa has been considerable, and until the middle of the 10th century greater than that of Europe. Some authorities hold that Egyptian civilization came from Babylonia, and that the so-called Hamitic languages are older and less specialized members of the Semitic family. The connexion between Carthage and Phoenicia is more certain, and the ancient Abyssinian kingdom was founded by Semites from south Arabia. The traditions of the Somalis derive them from the same region. ”

“ Fables and groundless traditions crowd themselves into every part of Jerusalem, and even the sites of the most memorable events are subjects of doubtful disputation; but Samaria has the charm of being now what it was nineteen centuries ago; and the Samaritans, though reduced to a very small number of families, have retained the language, the religion, the prejudices of their ancestors; and they love the Jews as little as their ancestors did. ”

“ In the Sandwich Islands the king, personating the god, utters oracular responses; and his power "extends over the property, liberty, and lives of his people." Various Asiatic rulers, whose titles ascribe to them divine descent and nature, stand in like relations to their peoples. In Siam "the king is master not only of the persons but really of the property of his subjects; he disposes of their labor and directs their movements at will." ”

“ In native swords and native ranks The only hope of courage dwells: But Turkish force and Latin fraud Would break your shield, however broad.
Fill high the bowl with Samian wine! Our virgins dance beneath the shade— I see their glorious black eyes shine; But, gazing on each glowing maid, My own the burning tear-drop laves, To think such breasts must suckle slaves.
Place me on Sunium's marbled steep, Where nothing save the waves and I May hear our mutual murmurs sweep; There, swan-like, let me sing and die: A land of slaves shall ne'er be mine— Dash down yon cup of Samian wine! ”

“ And one of these invading tribes, the Angles, gave its name to a part of our island, which is to this day known as England—that is, Angle-land, the land of the Angles.
Now, in the same way, the people who live in Siam at the present time are the descendants of invaders who swept into the country and drove the original inhabitants into the hills. No one is quite certain where the Siamese actually came from, but it is likely that their home was upon the mountain-slopes of Tibet. Their ancestors were a wild and vigorous race who tattooed themselves. ”

“ Comparative philology alone enables us to trace the origin of nations of great antiquity. According to the researches of the late king, who was a very studious and learned man, of twelve thousand eight hundred Siamese words, more than five thousand are found to be Sanskrit, or to have their roots in that language, and the rest in the Indo-European tongues; to which have been superadded a [Pg 2] great number of Chinese and Cambodian terms. He says: "The names of temples, cities, and villages in the kingdom of Siam are derived from three sources, namely, Sanskrit, Siamese, and Cambodian. ”

“ The Samoan has seen everything as it is and knows that the white missionaries and traders are human beings like himself, looking for all they can get and enjoying life to the uttermost, and so the glamour is fading in the South Seas as it has faded in the West, where many still believe all they hear and read about the converted heathen who would rather die than sell his honour.
The whites consist chiefly of tourists, traders and missionaries of various sects. ”

“ Nor have the subtler penalties of civilisation, neuroses, philosophical perplexities, the individual tragedies due to an increased consciousness of personality and to a greater specialisation of sex feeling, or conflicts between religion and other ideals, reached the natives. The Samoans have only taken such parts of our culture as made their life more comfortable, their culture more flexible, the concept of the mercy of God without the doctrine of original sin. ”

“ Once more the Semitic scholars protested. There was no end to the extravagant fantasies of the Assyriologists! The learned world was comfortably convinced that none but a Semitic or Aryan people could have been the originators of civilization, and to assert that the Semites had borrowed their culture from a race which seemed to have affinities with Mongols or Tatars was an outrage upon established prejudices. The Semitic philologist was more certain [25] than ever that Assyrian decipherment was the folly of a few “untrained” amateurs, and could safely be disregarded. ”

“ Samia, sā′mi-a, n. a genus of bombycid moths, belonging to North America.
Samian, sā′mi-an, adj. pertaining to, or from, the island of Samos, in the Greek Archipelago.—n. (also Sā′miot, Sā′miote) a native of Samos.—Samian earth, an argillaceous astringent earth; Samian stone, a goldsmiths' polishing-stone; Samian ware, an ancient kind of pottery, brick-red or black, with lustrous glaze. ”