Samoans

“ R.L.S. and others only saw the traders, the Samoans and other tribes, as they stood before him in one light, and the missionaries with the halo of feverish goodness to reform shining around their brows. I was a boy, my opinion unrespected, a young beachcomber who knew more than they thought he did, so they let go, and out came the true man, glorious and joyous in the wild sprees of those long-ago Samoan nights! Mind you, there were good men in the South Seas of those days, but over most of their heads, in the cemetery where the whites were buried, the flowers grew. ”

“ For there is a time to fight, and a time to dig. You Samoans may fight, you may conquer twenty times, and thirty times, and all will be in vain. There is but one way to defend Samoa. Hear it before it is too late. It is to make roads, and gardens, and care for your trees, and sell their produce wisely, and, in one word, to occupy and use your country. If you do not, others will.”
The speaker then referred to the Parable of the Talents, Matt. xxv. 14-30, and continuing, impressively asked: “What are you doing with your talent, Samoa? Your three talents, Savaii, Upolu, and Tutuila? ”

“ The kava-drinking over, all stiffness and formality disappears for the time, and the visitors are surrounded by the villagers, eager to learn the latest news from Apia, and from the world abroad. The discussion of political matters always has a strong attraction for Samoans, who are anxious to learn the state of affairs in Europe, and their knowledge and shrewdness is surprising. Should there be any white ladies present, the brown ones make much of them. The Samoans are a fine, handsome race, and the faces and figures of many of the young women are very attractive ”

“ From the seemingly careless manner of life which prevails among the native race, one would hardly infer that any fixed form of government exists among the Samoans, but the contrary is the fact. They have a paternal system of government, which is scrupulously upheld by the several tribes, all the villages being united by the same customs and language, and amenable to the same code of traditional laws. ”

“ It says much for the natural ability of the Samoans that they should have attained to a level of culture so comparatively high with material resources so scanty and defective. Nature, indeed, supplied them with abundance of food and timber, but she denied them the metals, which were unknown in the islands until they were introduced from Europe. In their native state, accordingly, the Samoans were still in the Stone Age, their principal tools being stone axes and adzes, made mainly from a close-grained basalt which is found in the island of Tutuila. ”

“ In proof that the Samoans have long been settled in the islands which they now occupy, it may be alleged that they appear to have no tradition of any other home from which their ancestors migrated to their present abode. With the single exception of a large village called Matautu in Savaii, the inhabitants of which claim that they came originally from Fiji, all the Samoans consider themselves indigenous. ”

“ The Samoans are fine-looking specimens of the savage races of the South Pacific. The men are broad-shouldered and athletic, the women by no means ugly, and certainly graceful. They have very little if any of the flat nose and protruding lips of the African race. Their complexion is a light brown, "the livery of the burnished sun," the women exhibiting a warm rosy hue upon their smooth, well-rounded faces. The bodies of both sexes are more or less elaborately tattooed in blue. ”

“ They are all armed, and sometimes, when they are in want of food, will lay the Samoan villages under tribute, and if any resistance is shown, they set fire to the houses. The Samoans are terribly afraid of them, for there are two or three cannibal Solomon Islanders among them, and a Samoan has a holy terror of a man-eater.”
“Why don't the Dutchmen capture the beggars?” asked the captain. “There are enough of them in Samoa.”
The old trader laughed—“Ay, too many, sir; too many for us poor English traders. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 heathen days the Samoans seem to have been greatly averse to unnecessary work, and even the art of making cloth of the paper-mulberry fibre was one which their indolence long prevented them from acquiring, though they greatly admired that which their Tahitian teachers made for them. ”

“ There are many things which the Samoans do which are difficult for more civilized people to understand. Formerly the death of a chief was celebrated by a feast, but there has been an improvement since then, and now when a person of rank feels he is about to die he sends word round for his relatives and friends to gather and feast with him. ”

“ The huge majority of Samoans, like other God-fearing folk in other countries, are perfectly content with their own manners. And upon one condition, it is plain they might enjoy themselves far beyond the average of man. ”

“ Like the rest of the Polynesians, the Samoans are an agricultural people, and subsist mainly by the fruits of the earth, though the lagoons and reefs furnish them with a large supply of fish and shell-fish, of which they are very fond. They all, but especially persons of rank, occasionally [Pg 165] regaled themselves on pigs, fowls, and turtle. But bread-fruit, taro, yams, bananas, and coco-nuts formed the staff of life in Samoa. ”

“ The house is really splendid; in the rafters in the midst, two carved and coloured model birds are posted; the only thing of the sort I have ever remarked in Samoa, the Samoans being literal observers of the second commandment. At one side of the egg our party sat. a=Mataafa, b=Lady J., c=Belle, d=Tusitala, e=Graham, f=Lloyd, g=Captain Leigh, h=Henry, i=Popo. The x’s round are the high chiefs, each man in his historical position. One side of the house is set apart for the King alone; we were allowed there as his guests and Henry as our interpreter. ”

“ The Samoans are not vanishing as rapidly as are the Hawaiians and the Maories, for two very simple reasons: their climate is not so suitable to the white man as is that of New Zealand and of Hawaii. Nor, like Fiji, has Samoa been hampered by indentured coolieism, though Chinese do come. Racially there seems no immediate prospect of Samoa being submerged, though politically it fell before Hawaii did. Socially, however, it is going, as are the native features of most of the more progressive and more assimilable peoples of the Pacific.
Simple naturalness is fast fading even from Samoa. ”

“ Judged by this standard [Pg 167] the Samoans had advanced some way on the road to civilisation, since among them the division of labour was carried out to a considerable extent: in their native state they had not a few separate trades or professions, some of which may even be said to have developed the stability and organisation of trade guilds. Among them, for example, house-building, canoe-building, tattooing, and the making of nets and fish-hooks were distinct crafts, which, though not strictly hereditary, were usually confined to particular families. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When the Dutch explorers first saw Apia they found a people who lacked the solidarity that welded Tonga. Each of Samoa’s three main islands had its own complicated aristocracy and tribal intrigue. It was Japan without a Mikado. You would have thought that the descendants of voyaging warriors would have developed the leadership that pulls a country together. Perhaps the Samoans were too innately civilized to crave a Hitler and a generation of massacres. It was the European’s job to drag them out of the Stone Age into the Bomb Age—all in a century and a half. ”

“ I know this is true in the little town of Hauula in Laie in the State of Hawaii.
Now, I don't want to give the impression to my colleagues that Samoans are a lot of muscle and brawn but no brains; no, this is not true. ”

“ Garments that covered the whole of the body might do well enough in the white woman’s country, but when they came to Samoa they ought to dress themselves like the Samoans, tie a shaggy mat round the waist, coquettishly looped up on one side, and anoint themselves with scented oil and color themselves with turmeric ”

“ Sometimes, when a captive has been taken alive, the Samoans have been known to tie him up to a tree, dig a hole in front of him, line it with stones, heat it before his eyes, and then throw him into it. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Titles are of two grades, chiefs and talking chiefs, each title carries many other duties and prerogatives besides the headship of a household. And the Samoans find rank a never-failing source of interest. They have invented an elaborate courtesy language which must be used to people of rank; complicated etiquette surrounds each rank in society. ”

“ And unfortunately they have succeeded only too well, and Samoa, with the exception of the Island of Tutuila, is now German territory. But it is as well, for the people are kindly treated by their new masters.
The Samoans were always a warlike race. When not unitedly repelling invasion by the all-conquering Tongans who sent fleet after fleet to subjugate the country, they were warring among themselves upon various pretexts—successions to chiefly titles, land disputes, abuse of neutral territory, and often upon the most trivial pretexts. ”

“ As you study small life under the lens and watch the microcosm work out its cycle, so you can look at Western Samoa and see the after-effects of war over this wrongheaded world. The doctor rushes in afterwards and tries to patch up the innocent and the guilty. Samoa, when the Mau subsided, knew a terrible aftermath. The Samoans hadn’t got back Samoa; all they had received was a resurgence of the native diseases which a careful Mandate had struggled so valiantly and successfully to cleanse. Devoted men had worked for many years to accomplish what five years of rebellion had undone. ”

“ The trade wind sweeps over the low peninsula and cleanses it from the contagion of the swamp. Samoans have a quaint phrase in their language; when out of health, they seek exposed places on the shore “to eat the wind,” say they; and there can be few better places for such a diet than the point of Mulinuu.
Two European houses stand conspicuous on the harbour side; in Europe they would seem poor enough, but they are fine houses for Samoa. One is new; it was built the other day under the apologetic title of a Government House, to be the residence of Baron Senfft. ”

“ By nature they were dignified and polite; they also learned quickly the arts of civilized life. Nowadays nearly every native village has its church and school-house. The Samoans are fond of music and one may hear American hymns and melodies in nearly every native house. ”

“ The inhabitants of the privileged towns claim the largest share at the feasts, and generally rule the district in which they live. As all the Samoans dress much alike and speak the same language, they are obliged to wear a sort of uniform, by which they shall know friends from foes. In the case of warriors, the hair is dressed in some strange way, or a white shell is hung round the neck, or a strip of cloth tied round the arm, these symbols being changed every three or four days, in order to prevent the enemy from imitating them. ”

“ 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. ”