Part 15

The end of the last week has been filled with festivity. Seu has been giving a great feast, and this has been a very serious matter. We have seen other feasts before, but none so successful and so great. The presents given to Seu and Faatulia, or rather to Vao, their little daughter, in whose name the feast was given, were larger in number than we had yet heard of. Among vast quantities of other things were hecatombs of pigs--in prose fact, three hundred and twenty-five--over two thousand rolls of _tappa_, and several dozen of “fine mats.” All the neighbouring houses were in requisition for the guests, who kept coming from various quarters during the whole week, and especially from Savaii, where is the stronghold of Faatulia’s family. Faatulia wore the anxious look of the hostess on her kindly face, and Seu looked worried, a thing I should have thought impossible. But as I go on you will see how serious it all is, however gratifying it may be to pride of position. The house of Seu was charmingly decorated with _tappa_, even to the floor, so as to remind me, but I own, more pleasantly, of our most æsthetic studios. In others, there were few European visitors, and more packing of Samoans. In one other especially, I think loaned by the King, a collection of _taupos_ from various localities filled the space by the posts, so as to make the hut look like a basket of flowers. Far in the central penumbra, two female giants sat all decorated, and around them the backs and waists of the others looked like a garden of dahlias and brown skin. For some were “faa Samoa”--others were more or less “_papalagi_” foreigners. In that case, however, their waist coverings were amusing. Some had corselets of leaves lapping over like Etruscan or Greek plate armour. Others had coloured netting, others had _tappa_ cut out with various openings, like some heathen dream of “insertions” (I think women call it so). One girl had a corselet of cut paper of many colours, making her look like a flower-bed, her oiling giving to the paper a look of leafage. There were dresses of the usual variety and in one case a large number of flower petals caught up one by one in the locks of the hair. In another the whole hair had been filled with little light blue bits of paper cut like petals. Mind you, all this was beautiful, funny as it was, and upon the green grass background, made, as I said, a basket of flowers. The brown skins that were not covered glowed like fruit. In perfect taste, for even garlands are gawky compared to the ineffable logic that the human frame carries with it, one good girl had no covering to her body, and this savage from the farther back country had a face that looked like the Italians’. In the shadow, playing with a bambino, she made a madonna. The reason of it came to me suddenly--her hair was down upon the forehead in the two large folds that we associate with the Italian way, and a great look of seriousness was added to the disdainful kindness of the face. Behind her head the hair was full, in a mass whose colour was blond with liming, and made a great capital for the column of her torso seen with arms hidden in front. Of her I have made some studies, and posed her for photographs, and later, on the next night, she gave us a _siva_ in our own house; Adams and I having duly called upon her, as if we were young men, with five loaves of bread, and two tins of salmon, as is the proper thing for youthful admirers like ourselves.

Around this beehive of yellow and black were assembled matrons and children and boys, waiting for the later food, of which they as relatives would have the larger part.

Far off, in another part of the grounds, Lima, known as John Adams, presided over the food; and in front of him a vast mass of pigs and bananas and taro, etc., etc., littered the ground. John told us about it in a high-pitched voice, with an accent that brought back indefinable associations. Whom did I know of the old school with such perfect intonation in English, and a diction that implied the gentleman by accepted tradition? Could it have been some old officer of the navy--could it have been some far-back Englishman or antique Southerner? But John, even in his exterior manner, brought back all the feeling that we do not speak English as well to-day as once was done, and that our refinement of manner and accent has disappeared.

The feast had begun; under long stretches of _tappa_ supported by poles, guests were assembled around the tables of banana leaf, while we wandered about, made prudent by former disasters in diet. It was pleasant to see the triumphant carrying of great pigs by the young men, garlanded and cinctured: the platforms of sugar-cane and taro disposed in a show, as if growing in some impossible yet graceful way--the taro like grapes on a vine.

Then we wandered back to our _taupos_ in their home. They were feasting in a circle around the banana trays. Two men were hewing the pigs into segments, with the _swish_ so well described by my Chinese philosopher, Chuang Tseu, in his chapter of the “Rising Clouds”--if that be the one. Two older women stalked about amid the food, who caught these chunks of meat and tossed them to the _taupos_. Occasionally they varied this by assorted lots of taro or cooked food. Do not suppose by this that these vigorous maidens were bolting their food. No, all this was Samoan and communistic; no one lives for himself here, but for the lot. These good girls were hard at work, passing all this to old women with baskets, and two young people who sat on the edge of the hut with feet outside, impatiently urged them. “Wait,” they said, “wait; our turn in a moment,” and amid laughter and chattering and long reproofs of the old women, the food came to them in turn. I suppose the _taupos_ managed to get something, but if they did, they deserved it for the work they had in passing the food away. This is Samoa--where a gift is shared or given away. When we called later on one of the _taupos_, as I told you, and carried our little gifts, half of them were at once given to the owners of the house, and the other half to some chief who happened to be present. All this as a matter of course, with fair counting, as in a commercial firm. Even the cigar accepted by the fair one, passed in a few seconds to her nearest neighbour. Some one was telling me yesterday, of having given a cigar a few days ago to a Samoan, who had just bitten it, when another passing asked for it. Thereupon it was handed away, as a matter of course. “Why did you give that?” the white man said.

“Because he asked,” said the Samoan.

“But is there no further reason?”

“Yes; I might some day want a cigar, and if he had one, I should ask.” The community of friends and relatives is a sort of bank where you deposit and draw as you may need. So for Seu’s food: almost all is given to him. It is given out, sent away if people are not there; a procession of people carrying things from the feast, filed along all the afternoon.

After the feast, a _siva_ in the open air, where Fanua danced. The crowd was full all about her and her assistants, girls and men. The occasion was a notable one. Two white missionaries with their wives were present, and the _siva_ was danced before them. Henceforward the excommunication will be difficult, unless the native preachers insist upon having their own way. But we shall have been present at this great event. I spoke to one of the missionaries for a moment, a rather interesting man, who talked a little about his hopes for the Samoans, their conservatism, and their not being emotional, however excitable they might appear to be, so that things once impressed upon them had a fair chance of thriving.

And thereupon we proceeded (those of us who were tired) to get away--not without, however, looking once more at another _siva_ getting under way, with some of the many _taupos_ and their male assistant dancers, to see them oil. Some one ran around offering the liquid, which was poured full upon everything, dress and person. And being introduced, I shook the oily palms of some of the girls and of one splendid chief--who might have been drier. Then, later, Adams and I called on our _taupo_ friend, whose home we proposed to drop into next week in our travels, and who is visiting near us. We arranged with Meli Hamilton as our _tulafale_ for a _siva_ in our own house. There at night the _taupo_ came, in the pouring rain, and I sat in my own comfortable chair, with Mrs. Parker next to me, and felt at home; for in the shadow I could close my eyes or look on while the figures danced in shadow or in light.

The next day we were summoned again to Seu’s feast. A _siva_ would be danced for us _papalagi_ who had been too crowded the day before. So that we went to see the comedy, which began seriously enough. We sat a while in Seumanu’s house, filled with friends and relatives, while a woman, an ex-_taupo_, carefully unfolded the presents of “fine mats,” saying what they were for, and from whom, and occasionally something of their history. For the “fine mat” is the great possession--the heirloom, the old silver, the jewels of the Samoan. And one tattered piece that was held up for show, sewed together, its trimming of feathers all gone, and full of holes, was looked at with respect; it had been _royal_. Around these mats cluster romance and story--war and quarrels--and the idea of the palladium, the insignia of power. The mat has been given at marriage and at birth, and has been worn on great occasions--it has witnessed those scenes, and besides carries money value. Its very stains tell stories of those events in life. So that Seu’s thirty odd mats were quite an affair, exclusive of the pile of two thousand pieces of _tappa_. As soon as the mats had been counted over, and admired, and a polite discussion arose, our hostess insisting that it must be a bore for us to look over all this, the polite guests insisting that nothing could be more entertaining.

Then John Adams (Lima), in his fine old-fashioned voice and way, cried out that if we wished, a _siva_ was getting ready in the next house, and as our adviser whispered to us that we had better be away, for that now the real work had begun. It was for Seu and Faatulia and the family group to decide as to who should be the people to whom all these gifts were to be made over. A few they might keep, but the mass must go. Every giver had a right to something, if possible finer than his gift: and here was a ploy, as Sir Walter says. Everything must be according to dignity and family and precedence, and everything that society means everywhere. Think of the heart-burnings, jealousies, affronts, etc., that hung in the balance. Many a time in Samoa, war has begun by some error in such adjustments. No wonder that we were better out of the way. Even to-day, we are told that several days more, a whole week, will be consumed in these weighty questions, and Seu is to wear his look of worry for days.

Adams and I sat on branches: I, on the right, Adams, on the left of her Majesty the Queen, while a siva of two pretty children, little _taupos_, daughters of a chief of Savaii, and of two young men, went on before us in the sweet light, half sunlight and half rain. These two little girls, Selu’s daughter and her little friend, the daughter of a chief of Iva, gave us an infantile imitation, while another chief played buffoon, to give them courage and protect them from serious attention. And this time Fanua sat behind us, and looked on, alongside of many young girls and women whom we have learned to know a little.

Up to this time, the terrible ordeal of decision of presents must have gone on, and will not be through until late next week, when we hope to get Seumanu on another malaga; but this time at our own pleasure, and with the hope of making sketches and studies with more leisure, and with a better knowledge, for as you know, he who runs finds it difficult to read, and there is nothing that I abhor more than the carrying of the studio sight into other visions.

Only the poet is free, whether he be painter or writer, for with him subjects are only excuses, and as Fromentin has put it so perfectly, Delacroix’s three months of Morocco contain all that has been said and will be said of the east and south of the Mediterranean. But we cannot all be great people like Delacroix, nor great painters like him, nor perhaps was he at all aware in early life of his always having achieved. But he tried probably, to be exact and faithful, as any one of us might do.

The weather is again beautiful; to-day is all blue and triumphant; indeed, the sky is bluer than it was, although the grass is yellower, and in the afternoon late, the clouds of the horizon are radiant in violet and rose. Fanua has come up to see me, with the Queen’s little daughter all clad in pink, who has been living in Fiji, and talks English quite well, and says like a child, that she likes Fiji better than Samoa. Service at the little church opposite is just over, where Fanua has been, and where I have heard the voice of Otaota’s father preaching. He has called upon me, apparently interested in questioning about the Mormons, who have sent missionaries here, and whose wives often canter past, against the blue background of the sea. Otaota’s father is not a little proud of his preaching, which indeed sounds well out of the church windows, and he asks me why I don’t come in to listen more closely. His parishioners sit on mats, and I sometimes lend some of mine to stray visitors, especially to members of our crew. The men sit on one side, the women on the other: and files of women, especially, walk along with mats under their arms or over their heads, or held in front of them; and occasionally a child is carried outside on the hip.

There is a small post near by, upon which is a small bell, and a ladder to get to it, all under a tree, and some young girl or boy rings the clapper with great zeal. I have made a sketch of one of them who accidently set about a missionary work, without putting on her _tiputa_, to cover her bosom, and who was worried as I sketched her, between the propriety of carrying out her “missionary work” and her want of missionary propriety.

Fanua has left, after sending for the child of a neighbour and caressing it during part of our supposed conversation. They say that she is thinking of marrying, and certainly she will make a nice wife and mother if one can judge by looking at her. Is there anything sweeter than a woman caressing a child? and how fond these Samoans are of children. They swarm about as free as birds, rarely checked; the owner of our house, the chief Magogi, looks more good-natured and smiling than ever, when after his fishing, and leaving a fish with us, he parades about with his child in his arms. Like a woman, he even carries him when he is attending to something else. And Tofae is as gentle to little George (the son of the late English Consul, and of Tāelē) whom he has adopted, as if he were a mother. When he and other chiefs, in the afternoon, sit about on the grass, far interspersed, some ten or twenty feet from each other, in Samoan fashion, little George creeps up and nestles against him, making with him the only group in the big circle.

Fanua has gone, and from Mataafa’s house begins a hymn. I recognize the ancient sound of the Ave Maria Stella (for Mataafa is a Catholic)--another version of the Vallis Lachrymarum that Otaota’s father was urging on his people an hour ago: “It is morning and you dance--but night is coming and then----” The Samoan smile is proof against anything--but Mataafa is grave and somewhat sad, and must take things on a scale far different. The mournful dignity of his position--a king is always a king, and he has been a real one--of highest birth and greatest capacity--must always oppress him. And he has no future, I fear, for his holding power might be against the interests of Germany, to which England will always accede as a bargain, and to which we will yield, for we don’t care, and we are not yet aware of our enormous strength, to be used for ill or for good, and we sell it willingly for anything.

The former German ruler here knew all about it, for the Germans have every power of measuring us, and he said to our representative:

“You are really weak--like all Republicans--always at the mercy of little home events, and any one of you will trade for some personal advantage. You can have no policy, that any one of you in politics would not break through, to play a trick on the political adversary; and then you have no fleet nor army, to show to others what you could do. Before you can make up your mind to anything we shall have taken Samoa for ourselves.”

God willed it otherwise, but the German had measured us, at least as we are to-day.

The moon is almost full, and comes up in the night, while the sun is still lighting the sky with pink. Around her a single cloud is greenish white, while the entire sky is suffused with rose. The breakers are rosy white; the sea is of a daylight blue, the furthest distance is lit up, and a rose-coloured cloud hangs on the horizon far below the moon, while her wake cuts in silver across the sunlit sea and surf.

The western sky is all afire, and against it, when the eye is protected, the shadows of the moonlight fall with extreme clearness and precision. The beauty is ineffable; a little sarcasm comes up into my mind--a reminiscence of the theatre, of a too perfect arrangement, in which the machinist has combined too much together, the sun and the moon both equally splendid--night together with day. I am sure that no one would believe it if painted, and most would _know_ it was incorrect. This disturbs my peace--but only a little. The good that comes from seeing through our teachers, is that at length we have no more use for them, and the remainder of life is more economical. And indeed, the world about me here seems to say, “See with how little we can be rich!”

Another Samoan Malaga, Nov. 30th.

Fagaloa Bay, on the N. E. side of Upolu.

We are on another malaga. I have not quite recovered from illness, so that the trip is not all enjoyment, and I write to you in some dejection and with an effort. We are going around the island, some hundred miles, in our two boats; our own managed by Samau, the _tulafale_, as coxswain, with four men to carry provisions, etc., and plenty of luggage and food for all of us; and Seumanu’s boat with ten rowers. We left the day before yesterday, in the early dove-coloured morning, all grey with

## partial rain, the mountains covered at top, and low down in the gorges,

the mist and smoke from villages rising up in straight lines that looked like enormous waterfalls. Our first landing was at Falefä, where a river falls over wide rocks in its way to the sea, not so differently from other pretty waterfalls, except that it makes a broad spread of water that joins the sea, so that from some points one might imagine that the ocean runs in to meet it.

And then behind the frame of the wide fall and its bordering trees, one sees the mountains of the dim interior. There we rested at midday, and I lay on the mats, ill and tired, while Charley explained to the young woman of the house, wife of the native teacher, the meaning of a large sheet of the spring fashions of this year, which she had pinned up, with many other pictures from newspapers, upon the screen that divided the house. Her husband was away, attending the great meeting or Fono at Malua, the missionary school, where the toleration or rejection of the _siva_ has been, or is being discussed. I am told now that the native clergy have held their own; and that though not reproving their white brethren, they have not quite concurred in a full freedom of toleration, but have arranged some middle term by which the question will be always limited to individual cases.

Later in the afternoon I sketched at the waterfall, in that curious silence filled with the sustained sound of rushing water, that belongs to such places, within which a faint, sharper thrill was the gliding of the surf upon the beach behind it. The place was shaded in its own shade, thrown over it by the hills that enclose and make it. Here and there, the sun caught the roll of the water, and the distant valley and mountains behind it were all floating in hot light and moisture that came down in great gusts with wafts of heat.