Samoan language

“ Samoa still rises silently in moonlight out of the sea of my dreams. I can hear the barbarian orchestra clanging away down in the native village, as Samoan girls and youths, and two or three white men, waltz under the palms just below the plateau, where groves of orange-trees hang their golden fruit amongst dark leaves. As I play the violin the semi-savage people whirl to the wild rhythm of the forest ballroom music of a tribal waltz. ”

“ The centre-piece of all is the high chief himself, Malietoa-Tuiatua-Tuiaana Mataafa, king—or not king—or king-claimant—of Samoa. All goes to him, all comes from him. Native deputations bring him gifts and are feasted in return. White travellers, to their indescribable irritation, are (on his approach) waved from his path by his armed guards. He summons his dancers by the note of a bugle. He sits nightly at home before a semicircle of talking-men from many quarters of the islands, delivering and hearing those ornate and elegant orations in which the Samoan heart delights. ”

“ The chief Isles of Samoa are Upolu, Savaii, Tutuela and Manua. They are all of volcanic origin, are surrounded by coral reefs and palm-shaded lagoons; from the shore side to the mountain slopes inland grow the dark coco-palms, the beautiful bread-fruit trees, mangroves, plantains and other wild tropical bush and fern-trees, wherein sparkle and flit gorgeous-coloured butterflies, green parrots and cooing droves of Samoan doves. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Samoan is a fatalist. If the idea comes into his head that he is going to die no power on earth will keep him alive. He gives right up, lies down on the ground, in a boat, or wherever he may be—just makes up his mind that his time has come.
A Samoan chief dressed in war regalia is an object of interest. His well shaped head, covered with a heavy growth of black hair brushed back and glossy from applications of cocoanut oil, rests on a stocky neck. ”

“ Though they have practically all become Christians, the European and later American colonization has not been altogether to their benefit. In matter of population they seem to be about holding their own. Beneath the acquired new religion and borrowed culture survive many old traits and habits. The ancient arts and inventions of the natives are, however, disappearing before the labor-saving devices of the whites.
History. The Samoan Islands are probably identical with the Baumann's Islands, discovered by the Dutch navigator Roggoveen in 1722. ”

“ The future of Samoa should lie thus in the hands of a single man, on whom the eyes of Europe are already fixed. Great concerns press on his attention; the Samoan group, in his view, is but as a grain of dust; and the country where he reigns has bled on too many august scenes of victory to remember for ever a blundering skirmish in the plantation of Vailele. It is to him—to the sovereign of the wise Stuebel and the loyal Brandeis,—that I make my appeal. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In all the descriptions of Samoan life, one of the points which must have struck the reader most forcibly is the extreme flexibility of the civilisation as it is found to-day. This flexibility is the result of the blending of the various European ideas, beliefs, mechanical devices, with the old primitive culture. It is impossible to say whether it is due to some genius in the Samoan culture itself, or to fortunate accident, that these foreign elements have received such a thorough and harmonious acculturation. ”

“ Ever a splendid physical specimen and ever possessed of the kindliest and happiest of dispositions, the Samoan has undergone less change in his contact with the white man than any other native of the South Pacific. This is particularly true of those of Tutuila, for the mailed fist of the German War Lord had rested heavily on Upolou and Savaii for over a decade at the time of our visit, and one detected traces of sullenness and discontent among their peoples which he would search for in vain among the care-free natives of the American island. ”

“ In travelling in Samoa one need not always rely upon native hospitality. Though most of the white traders at the outlying villages nowadays make nothing beyond a scanty living, they are as a rule very hospitable and pleased to see and entertain white visitors as well as their poor means will allow, and in nine cases out of ten would feel hurt if they were ignored and the native teacher's house visited first; for between the average trader and the native teacher there is always a natural and yet reasonable jealousy. And here let me say a word in praise of the Samoan teacher—in Samoa. ”

“ Sunset was fading on the horizon out seaward and touching the coco-palms and the distant mountain range with golden light as the shadows fell over the island. From the hut doors the naked children peeped and clapped their hands with delight. The primitive town fairly buzzed with excitement when, under the palms, Samoan maids whirled around, clasped in the arms of the joyful sailors, who made the wild island country echo to their singing voices. A crowd of stalwart Samoan men left their work on the banana plantation close by and came to watch the sailors ashore. ”

“ Samoan girls with wild, bright eyes, round, plump, brown faces, and curved figures as perfect as sculptural art, pass and repass up the forest tracks. They are singing Samoan songs that intensify the romantic, dream-like atmosphere of the tropical night—an atmosphere not even to be dispelled by the wailing cry of the native babies, who give short, wild, smothered screams as they lose and then suddenly recover the breasts of sleeping mothers in those thatched homes by the palms and banana groves. The vast night sky, agleam with stars, shines like a mighty mirror. ”

“ It is not so much the facts that are historical, as the man’s attitude. No one could hear this tale as he originally told it in my hearing—I think none can read it as here condensed and unadorned—without admiring the fairness and simplicity of the Samoan ”

“ They have no complaint against the Germans. They have merely a sentimental and highly flattering preference for the English. On a recent visit of an English gunboat to Apia, the officers were entertained at a Samoan dinner party, with music and dances, by an eminent and very charming young princess. The princess is a famous beauty, with the keen intelligence Samoans have if they care, a wonderful dancer, possessed of a glorious singing voice and a perfect knowledge of English. ”

“ No more wars, no fightings, no thefts, but a peaceful and happy community (sufficiently) "clothed and in their right mind;" living in good houses of the Samoan type, instead of filthy huts; assembling for school and worship in large suitable buildings, and with abundant leisure to cultivate the soil and prepare the arrowroot and other produce, with which to purchase not only calico, hatchets, knives, &c., but also copies of the Scriptures, hymns, and commentaries, translated into the Savage Island dialect by the Samoan teachers, and printed at Apia. ”

“ Like many other Polynesian peoples, the Samoans are often quite good-looking and are generally well-formed. Tradition and legend make the Samoan Archipelago the centre from which a large portion of the island-world of the Pacific was peopled. The Samoans have always been noted as sailors and boat-builders. ”

“ A long row of young men, dressed in short kilts of many-coloured bark strips—red, pink, green, yellow, purple—and decked out with anklets of green creepers and necklaces of big scarlet berries, which looked just like enormous coral beads, were twirling and pirouetting, retreating, advancing, and waving their arms, in wonderfully perfect time. The Samoan, man or woman, is born with a metronome concealed somewhere in his or her works, to all appearance. ”

“ But the reader must not imagine that the Samoan Group is the only one in the South Pacific where an enjoyable holiday may be spent. The French possession of the Society Islands, of which the pretty town Papeite, in the noble island of Tahiti, is the capital, rivals, if not exceeds, Samoa in the magnificence of its scenery, and the natives are a highly intelligent race of Malayo-Polynesians who, despite their being citizens of the French Republic, never forget that they were redeemed from savagery by Englishmen, and a taata Peretane (Englishman) is an ever-welcome guest to them. ”

“ As it is, however, no Samoan warrior fights with the knowledge that his movements are directed in accordance with a definite plan, or that he will be supported by others. He does not feel himself a simple unit among many, but has to look out for himself, to select his own adversary, to advance when he thinks he can do so with advantage, to run away when he feels himself getting into undue peril.
Whenever a few Samoans have put themselves under the guidance of a white man, they have always repelled their foes. ”

“ However, according to the American ethnologist, Horatio Hale, some of the Samoans agreed with the Tongans in taking an aristocratic view of the destiny of souls after death; and as he had good opportunities for acquainting himself with the Samoan religion during the prolonged stay of the American Exploring Expedition at Samoa in 1839, when the islands were as yet but little affected by European influence, I will quote his account. He says: "All believe in the existence of a large island, situated far to the north-west called Pulótu, which is the residence of the gods. ”

“ This type predominates in some branches more than others, and perhaps Samoa contains a larger proportion of this character than any other island, but it is found everywhere—from Hawaii to New Zealand, from Samoa to Easter Island.
A Samoan, Polynesian type.
It is probable that nowhere is the true Polynesian type still in existence. When we come to consider their history, we shall see that the race has been acted on by ethnic elements of many and diverse characters, which show in the people as we know them. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The nearest villages have suffered most; they see over the hedge the lands of their ancestors waving with useless cocoa-palms; and the sales were often questionable, and must still more often appear so to regretful natives, spinning and improving yarns about the evening lamp. At the worst, then, to help oneself from the plantation will seem to a Samoan very like orchard-breaking to the British schoolboy ”

“ So for the explanation of the lack of poignancy in the choices of growing girls in Samoa, we must look to the temperament of the Samoan civilisation which discounts strong feeling. But for the explanation of the lack of conflict we must look principally to the difference between a simple, homogeneous primitive civilisation, a civilisation which changes so slowly that to each generation it appears static, and a motley, diverse, heterogeneous modern civilisation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And moreover, what more do the white children know than the black ones?
I knew a Samoan chief who was a kind of philosopher of his race, and I was much struck by his remarks and wisdom as he used to sit squatting by his hut and talk to me of the old days. He was not 97a true-blooded Samoan, but came from the Marquesan group and had once been a king before the heavy tramp of civilisation came his way. ”

“ 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. ”