Samoan people

“ Therefore the poor islanders naturally concluded that these scourges were introduced by malicious foreign gods; so when a Samoan family assembled for their evening meal, the head of the house, ere tasting his bowl of kava, poured a little on the ground as a drink-offering to the gods; and every voice was hushed while he prayed that the gods of Samoa would give increase and prosperity to the household and all pertaining to it; that the war-gods would give strength to the people ”

“ With a background of knowledge about Samoan custom, of the way in which a child is educated, of the claims which the community makes upon children and young people, of the attitude towards sex and personality, we come to the tale of the group of girls with whom I spent many months, the group of girls between ten and twenty years of age who lived in the three little villages on the lee side of the island of Taū. In their lives as a group, in their responses as individuals, lies the answer to the question: What is coming of age like in Samoa? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ For the Samoans I have always had a great admiration and affection. Practically I began my island career in Samoa. More than a score of years before Robert Louis Stevenson went to die on the verdured slopes of Vailima Mountain, where he now rests, I was gaining my living by running a small trading cutter between the beautiful islands of Upolu, Savai'i, and Tutuila, and the people ever had my strong sympathies in their struggle against Germany for independence. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It has never been known or recorded in any book that a Samoan ever made a fortune, which seems remarkable when we consider that it is his own country. There was a Samoan chief in the old days who endeavoured to make money out of his copra plantation, and bought up a lot of territory for coco-nut growing, but the missionaries, acting for the traders, frightened him out of his life, told him he would go to hell for putting his heathen mind into mundane things, and for his sins they fined him heavily and pinched all his copra plantation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ These complications interested Stevenson. His first idea had been to stop there but a short time. He now found he wanted to remain in Samoa long enough to write its history.
The Samoans are true Polynesians; a strong and handsome race whose reputation is high among all the people of the Pacific. The large majority have become Christians, but in spite of the influence of the missionaries and the foreign powers who control them, they retain many of their old customs and habits. They are naturally peace-loving in spite of their many wars. ”

“ The Samoan Islands are perfect in their beauty, and all the conditions, including the ease with which the bare necessaries of life were produced from natural resources, conduced to a dolce far niente sort of existence amongst the natives, by which the whites also became infected.
The Samoan group, which forms the entrepôt of all the islands round where trade is carried on, consists of fourteen islands, of which eight, Savaii, Manono, Apolima, Upolu, Fanuatapu, Manua, Nu'utele, and Nu'ulua, were German—the remainder being British and American. ”

“ Such horrors as the burial of the living, as practised in Fiji in heathen times, were never dreamt of in Samoa.
In no land is old age more beautiful than here—partly because the tendency is to corpulence in place of leanness; and the eyes retain their clear, piercing brightness, and the countenance a kindly expression, which tells of the powerful good sense for which many of these people have been so remarkable. Certainly they are a handsome and attractive race. ”

“ Passing through a coral reef channel, we arrived in the harbor of Apia, capital of the Samoan Islands. The little town stretches along the bay, cocoanut palms lining the shore at places, the trees and heavily verdured hills in the foreground 209 giving the Samoan capital a high position in the list of pretty places. The ship was soon surrounded by natives, who offered for sale fans, shells, corals, beads and flowers.
The Samoan is the native aristocrat of all peoples. In bearing, looks, manners, tidiness, hospitality and pride he leads the world. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Roman Catholics also have missionaries on some of the islands. The Samoans are naturally religious and the level of their morality is far higher than that of the foreigners who bring in whisky and introduce the vices of civilization to these southern seas. There are, it is true, high-class business men scattered through the various archipelagoes, but the average beach-combing trader is as a rule a curse instead of a blessing and most of the evils that have come to the people are due to him. ”

“ Is it possible for a man in Samoa to be in touch with the great heart of the People? And is it not perhaps a mere folly to attempt, from so hopeless a distance, anything so delicate as a series of papers? ”

“ 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. ”