Part 13

Then rose the orator, the _tulafale_, from the centre of the three rows of men now seated opposite to us, across the green space, and from two hundred feet away, addressed us slowly as he leaned upon his stick, and seemed not to raise his voice beyond what was absolute necessity. But the cadence always rose in the last words, so that the effect to the ear was of a distinct, emphatic assertion. Then he added, “This is all,” and sat down, apparently inattentive and indifferent. Our turn came next. Anai, the chief, translated to us the usual speech of great gratitude to America for having saved them from slavery and from the Germans, and compliments to us all, with prayers to God to have us in his holy keeping. Then a few things were suggested between us, and our political man said what was necessary, and alas, even more: for how can the United States promise anything--that may depend on sugar--or an election, or at any rate is merely a matter of barter? Anai stepped out from the house and repeated all this in Samoan, speaking also quite gently, with little raising of the voice. Nobody seemed to listen, nobody to care, but this was only apparent. All heard and had listened.

Then our own men, who had been hidden somewhere, sprang upon the presents and sorted them: one of them stood up and called them out: so much of this, so much of that, to give full acknowledgment for liberality. Then another spring, and all was carried away, even to the struggling, sucking pigs that could not be made to understand.

Momentary peace settled over everything, and we had begun to ask questions and to sketch, when we were told that now we should have a _siva_, that several villages would appear in it by their performers, as they had appeared in the military display. Men came up garlanded and cinctured in flowers and leaves, and sat down in double rows before us, some turning toward us, others away. Out of their number first one, then others arose and sat down again in order, fronting us, and the _siva_ began; six handsome young men, singing and swaying about upon their hips, to a chant for which time was beaten behind them.

The sun was setting; tired out and amused we walked back in the crowd, stopping to exchange _alofas_ with belated warriors who showed us their guns and occasional wounds, which with the Samoan idea of a joke they pretended had been caused by running against wire fences.

We had seen for the first time a pageantry of savage war, in a soft light, in the most peaceful and idyllic of landscapes, so that it was hard to realize again that this was not all a theatre scene, a fête champêtre--a play in the open air. There was nothing to contradict this unreality but the marks of ugly gashes on the arms and chests of the men and the

[Illustration: SOUTH SEA SEATED DANCE AT NIGHT, SAMOA]

recall of the savage melody, which was undeniably a war song, requiring no explanation as to its meaning.

In the house we ate our meal spread out on banana leaves, two of the _taupos_ coming in to help us by breaking the taro and yams, and tearing the fish and fowls. Then while wishing for nothing but bed and rest, and closed eyes, we were told that there would be a night _siva_ in our honour, and that other _taupos_ would figure in it. There was nothing to do but yield, and with each a _taupo_ to accompany us, we went back to the house that we had occupied in the afternoon. It was already half filled with people, occupying one side of it. I sat down against an outside post, alongside of my _taupo_, next to whom Seumanu reclined at length with another girl, an old acquaintance, near him, and I tried to keep awake while the _siva_ went on enthusiastically. At times I would start with some new figure or more picturesque effect, or when fresh fuel was added to the cocoanut fire that fit the scene within. Along the posts of the exterior sat chiefs watching the dance: behind them outside, a crowd of people in the moonlight, and many heads of youngsters. Occasionally a chief would say, “Some one a cigarette or a light,” and a boy darted into the house through the dancers, plunged for the light, and returned with it to the great man who had asked.

When the _taupos_, big and good natured, had danced, we drowsily asked them to sit alongside of us, while the _siva_ of the men went on. Between two, as I became more and more sleepy, I was fortunate in finding comfort and support from my first neighbour, against whose big shoulder I reclined, my arm supported upon the weight of her knees--all mine might have been thrown upon her massive form without apparent inconvenience. A gentle tap now and then, and a gentle _alofa_ told me that I was all right, and could go to sleep while making believe to look on. But the girls, drowsy as they were, were appreciative of the men’s dances, and so was Seu, who called out over and over again, _mālie_ (bravo) as if he had not seen thousands of _sivas_, which now, having become “missionary,” he does not attend. I knew that I was interested in the intervals of sleep, but all has faded into a sort of disconnected dream. I can only remember getting out into the bright moonlight, and that it made a silver haze outside during the dances. We had been obliged toward midnight to make a speech, with thanks, protesting the fatigue of travel as an excuse for not remaining. The Samoans will sit up all night, especially in their favourite moonlight: they can sleep during the day, and apparently always do so. Around our house, until we had blown out the light, and even for some time after, rows of people sat watching us in the light of the moon: the people sauntered about, or sat in the shade of the trees, with sharp-edged leaves that made the

## scene look, as usual, like the stage-setting of a fairy opera.

* * * * *

The next morning we were to leave for the next important place, Sapapali, the home of the Malietoa, the princes who have been for a long time the principal chiefs of these islands, and who are now represented by the present king. This is a rude definition; as I have told you elsewhere, the question of chiefhood and sovereignty here is one not easily represented or defined by our words. At Sapapali, the ancestral home, we should be received by Aigā, the King’s niece, and consequently a young person of the highest rank, indeed, I suppose the greatest lady of the land. With us this would be the Queen or the Royal Princess, or the heir to the throne. But here blood and descent are all and in the direct line. This young person was next to Malietoa as being of sufficient blood.

Our arrival was to happen about noon, so that, as in Samoan phrase, it was only about half an hour’s walk, we were to leave punctually at ten o’clock. Early rising took us again to the black pool surrounded by high trees, where two of us bathed, watched and escorted by two little damsels with whom the other one of us flirted. I myself was too much occupied with the difficult question of keeping on, while swimming, the fathom of cloth they call lavalava; and afterward of adjusting it in the water, after swimming for it when it had floated away, and then on coming out, receiving dry cloth with one hand and putting off the wet one. But I found out how one begins in the corner. Later in the morning it had grown hot, as we left pretty Iva, and made our way through broad or narrow roads, to Sapapali. The old difficulty again amused me; we could not walk in proper Samoan order; sometimes one of us, sometimes another was in front, while properly, all of us chiefs should have led, and the attendants followed at respectful distances. So that again Awoki would canter on in front of the chiefs: meanwhile Anai told us things of local information, pointing out where the road narrowed, the place where had stood in older times, a famous tree, a cocoanut. Among its branches the Malietoa, who first became converted later to Christianity, used to conceal himself and lasso or noose such pretty _taupos_ or maidens as passing might strike his fancy. One of these had been the grandmother of the young lady whom we were going to visit. While the party talked the scandal over I remained a while by a deep well near the shore, and watched a handsome Samoan ride his horse barebacked to the water, to the sand and distant trees of a little promontory.

When I hurried forward, the party had gone far ahead, and had arrived before me. I crossed the rocky bed of a dry river, upon whose edge stood houses, and going up the hill before me, came upon a high open space with trees far scattered, and several large black tombs made of stones piled together in regular rectangular form; and in the centre of the green a house high-placed which instinct told me was the guest-house, our destination. Part of the mat curtains were down opposite the central posts: I entered by the open side, and saw Adams and the Consul seated next to a young woman in half European dress (that is to say with a corsage); and on the other side of her Seumanu and Anai. I entered and sat down with some hesitation next to the Consul, and after being presented to her ladyship looked about me. Opposite, the posts of the pretty house all adorned with flowers had each a chief, as a sort of sitting caryatid or buttress. And they were big and splendid; that was the Greek frieze of which I was telling you. Between each massive figure, of Ajax and Nestor and Ulysses and Agamemnon, appeared from time to time some little boy, whose small person made them look more ample, as the boys or angels of Michael Angelo’s Sistine Chapel make sibyls and prophets look more colossal by comparison. Then _kava_ was brought in and made solemnly, when in stepped a woman and sat herself beside the _kava_ attendant who dried the wisp. A moment later, and her presence was explained. She, it appears, had the hereditary right to “divide the _kava_,” and had come to claim it. When the heavy clapping of hands announced that the drink was ready, she called out the name of Aigā, to whom the first bowl was presented as to the greatest personage. Then to one of the guests, then to the next relative of the Malietoa, then to a guest, then to a chief, and so on, contrariwise to what we had seen before, where we as guests were helped first. You see we were at court, in the presence of royalty.

When the ceremonies were over, we chatted with Aigā, who spoke English, and whose amiability pleased me. She was embarrassed and shy, and struggled like some girl, unaccustomed to society, to say some proper things. But the grace of her diffidence was all the greater when one noticed the security of position indicated by her voice when speaking in a low distinct tone to others. At length we rose and adjourned to the neighbouring house, where the feast had been set forth. This we were allowed to dispense with under plea of a late breakfast, but for form’s sake we looked at each separate thing, spread out in a long line of Samoan good fare, on green banana leaves that stretched across the house. Then we _papalagi_, (foreigners), returned to a Western soup kindly prepared by Aigā, and our own bread and tea, and sardines, in which fare Aigā joined, and talked to us and we to her, all stretched at full length upon the mats.

Then our lady disappeared with some little show of embarrassment, and had I known how much it cost her, I should have sympathized with her sooner in the annoyance of her having to prepare her toilette for the great official reception (_talolo_), which was to be the next function of the afternoon--the nearest house was the scene of the dressing of herself and her maidens. Through the dropped mats of the openings, girls and women kept plunging in and out, carrying in dress mats, and beads and garlands of flowers, and entangled, complicated cinctures and belts of fruits and flowers, and woven bark--and bringing out the news of how the dresses looked to the loungers sitting at a distance outside. And once I saw carried in a fierce, cruel headgear that our lady was to wear; the great helmet of blond hair, set with sparkling mirrors and tall filaments, to be bound tight with silvery shells around an aching head.

Then we went out to sit and wait on the other side of our guest-house, in the shade toward the sea, while long shadows covered the great space, and the sun itself became veiled and lit the scene with a tempered light more like that of our northern summer. One might almost have imagined an afternoon in some favoured, more poetic point in our coast at home, say Newport on some exceptional evening. The great _mālie_ spread out further than the reserved ground of any of our residences, and its edge dropped suddenly to the sea before us. Once or twice a thatched house stood on the verge of this rolling green, all carefully smoothed and weeded like a lawn. To the left and right were small groves like the wings of a theatre. Far off to one side curved the bay, with palm trees stepping gradually into the sunlight. The sea was blue and green before us, and faintly shining; far off in the haze of sunlight were Upolu and Apolima--spots of blue. Nothing broke this space to the furthest dim horizon, except where on the edge of the cliffs stood one hut through which shone the colour of the sea and the foliage of the tree overshadowing it.

Then our party came up and sat about us on the slope of the grass about the house, and from the groves about us came the sounds of the drum-beat and the call of war music. From behind the house, in a great circle, ran out in a sort of dance, our hostess in full gala costume: naked to the waist, kilted with costly mats held on by flower girdles--on her head the great military cap. She held a little toy club in her hand; on either side, with heavier strides, two of the giants, her attendant chiefs, dressed and undressed in the same way, repeated her movements. Some thirty paces behind her, two of her maidens followed these leaders, turning round in a great circle of dance, spreading out their arms, and the wide folds of their waist-cloths, and the lines of their garlands were flung out by

[Illustration: AITUTAGATA. THE HEREDITARY ASSASSINS OF KING MALIETOA. SAPAPALI, SAVAII, SAMOA]

their motion. In and out of the little grove danced back and forth a crowd of armed men, who threw up their clubs and caught them again.

Right in the middle of the green before us, threading their path between the princess and her girls, crouching to the ground, crawled or ran, bending low, three men, all blackened, with green cinctures of leaves wound round their heads, and short tails of white bark hanging down out of their girdles. These were the king’s “murderers,” relics of a bygone time when savage chiefs, like European sovereigns, used licensed crime to rid themselves of enemies--or friends--against whom they could not wage open war.

These whom we saw were only on parade. All this served but to recall a former power and its historical descent. But the ancestors of these official murderers of hereditary ancestry had been actively employed. At the whispered word of the chief they tracked the destined victim, risking their lives in the attack, and plunged into him their peculiar weapon, the _foto_, the barb of the Sting Ray, which breaking in the wound and poisonous withal, meant inevitable death.

They were called, as I make out, Aitutagata (Devil people). The display lasted but a short time; hardly more than a few circlings by Aigā and her people, then on a sudden all seemed to come up about us, and the assemblage broke up into groups. Aigā bore with apparent confusion our compliments. She was anxious to get away.

There was something inextricably touching in the case of this bashful young person--indoctrinated with our ideas to some extent--apparently realizing how we looked upon the scene, how different her dress and

## actions from those of her white friends and sisters, and yet carrying it

all out to suit her position of princess and hostess; what was due to us, and to the traditions of her race.

With evening came the need of change, and I wandered down to the unfinished church begun by the Malietoa, of whom I told you. The massive foundations of coral rock, against which the tide was washing, are finished, as well as part of the walls of the church. In front is a little island, planted with trees: to the left, at once rocks and high trees; on the right, the surf broke again in a little cove with houses and palm trees, standing high against the setting sun. Far off the point, the outline of Apolima, more than ever like a submerged volcano cone, and the long white line of the surf; and near me, almost under me, a dark moving space in the water, where the tide washed more uneasily, the submerged tomb of a woman called Siga (white), a former wife of Seumanu. There was something that made one dream, in this grave, now remembered, now forgotten, a reminder that all memory can

[Illustration: BUTTRESSES OF THE FIRST CHRISTIAN CHURCH AND TOMB OF SIGA IN THE REEF. SAPAPALI, SAMOA]

be but temporary, and that the real end is where all ends and is forgotten, and where, as the Spaniard says, “Dios empiezo.” I sat and sketched a little, seated on the great foundation. Children and women crowded around, and climbed up the space in front, where the great steps should have been, and filed all around the projecting edge that runs about the church. When I had done I rose, and turning the corner of the narrow ledge, found that I had made a group of frightened prisoners. Then I went to the deep pool near by, where the sea runs into the little fresh water, and was smiled at by the good-natured face, just being washed, of one of the murderers by inheritance, who had figured all blackened that afternoon, with green leaves and a white hanging tail. His wickedness was being washed off with his blacking: or rather, his wickedness was all archæological, kept up as a proof of the former dignity and power of the chief, and of the obedience of his men. For these people seem never to have been grossly wicked or cruel; as I told you, they were not cannibals or whatever they had that way, ages ago, was condemned as bad. They have even been unwilling to exterminate their enemies in their many wars: and when they could put an end to the German, in this last war, they stopped their killing the moment the enemy was beaten, as they imagined. An element of strong good nature seems to persist at the bottom of their character.

That evening we had a _siva_, like other _sivas_, which I am unable to describe, because I was so sleepy that my memory has not held over. I lurked in the dark, behind our hostess, who did not dance. Her missionary training and her position were against it, I suppose, but also, perhaps, she did not dance well, or as well as others. Afterward she lingered with us, in the late evening, as did the _taupo_ who had danced. With them were her two girls, attendants, and one or two of the elder women, along with some of our men who acted as chorus. Then “quelque diable le poussant,” nothing would do for one of our own party but that he should tease and beg for a dance with more undressing. The older women seemed to enjoy the notion, which reminded them, perhaps, of old days when they were able to be naughty, and had performed all sorts of antics late at night, when the elders and the great people were gone to bed. So gradually, from one dance to another, we came to one in which the performers disrobe entirely for a moment, using some words that represent and lay claim to the same beauty which the Venus of Naples, she whom we call Venus Callipyge, attempts to look at, and certainly shows. But it was all innocent and childish--the _taupo_ danced it, and the young girls accompanied her with one older woman--and Aigā laughed and was amused, but hid away behind us, ashamed. Then we made her dance for

[Illustration: PRACTISING THE SEATED DANCE AT NIGHT. SAMOA]

a moment the usual dance, I say we, but it was not I--and as she seemed to think that even that was dreadful enough--we parted with some discomfort. I foresaw trouble, but whether our fair friend was not as much annoyed by the relentless compliments paid to the beauty of others, is more than I can make out, being a man.

In the morning we trotted off a few miles, to this present place Sapotulafai, the headquarters of the great orator, and which is the great political centre. We had a great dinner, at which I sat next to the _taupo_ of the adjacent village, a giantess, whose name is not insignificant, though people here are not apparently named, any more than are people anywhere else, by name to suit them. Charlie interpreted her name for me saying, “When you are on top of a cocoanut, and the wind blows hard, and you are afraid of falling off, that is _Lilia_.” You have seen a palm tree in a gale, and you can imagine the picturesqueness of this definition of fear, in the wild swinging of the waves of the branches.