Part 16

In the evening we came into this beautiful bay with high mountains on either side, and fringes of lower land. The bay, as its name indicates, is a very long one, running far inland. The site we are in is charming, the great mountains right behind us, and from their lower sides, long waterfalls creep down the cliffs and glisten through the top branches of the palms. Around us all is covered with trees. I have lounged and slept as much as possible. Atamo has begun to paddle a canoe, taking out the _taupo_ with him. She has been very nice to us, doing her best with food, and seeing us to bed, and being in early to see us get up, and doing her duty generally and pleasantly. And she has given us _sivas_. We had met her before at Seu’s feast; we felt mutual good will, so that she was prepared. Her devotion to Atamo is great, and as I said, she has done her best by our food, which we managed this time with Awoki’s help. Through her eyes we saw one evening the resemblance of the light carried on the reef by the phantom of the lady who appears when night fishing goes on. You may remember, how she (as do others of the dead, or certain spirits perhaps--they are all confused in the Polynesian mind) fishes silently in the crowd of the canoes, or alongside of some single occupant--and then suddenly, when detected or suspected, disappears with the dawn that clears all our doubts away. Of this apparition some here say that she has her own canoe apart, just out of reach--some say that she walks on the water--but when she is followed, she makes for the shore, then is lost in the trees, and soon her lantern is seen going far up into the trackless mountain. There no one likes to follow at night. The dark for the Polynesian has terrors uncertain, natural enough, for the dark here is uncanny, and when plunged in its terrors the brown man does not like to add a definite influence or a name of ill omen. The belief in what might be called a lower supernatural is still strong: Christianity does well enough for the great needs, but something else is wanted for the smaller fears and dangers--the things about us at every moment; and it has interested us to draw out the small beliefs of this unimaginative and very practical race, who on one side are so much christianized. I wish that I could recall for you the scene in which we heard this story. The hollow silence between the mountain in the night--the water dark before us between darker trees. The dark shadows of the mountains, across the bay--the long glistening line of reflected starlight rolled up with a splash upon the beach that broke the quiet shiver of the palms. And then the one light, far out on the reef which caught the look of our maiden and drew the legend from her. I regret so much that my constant fatigue prevents my noting some of all this for you, and that I give you, too, no better description of what I see. The place is well worth some talk--even if it were nothing but a memorandum of the pretty _talolo_, or presentation of food, in which two or three dozen girls brought up the presents of taro and fruit, and threw them before us, filing out of the green trees, and disappearing again within them.

Ulutogia (part of Aliipata) Dec. 2d.

We are at a charming place in the town of Aliipata, which seems to stretch indefinitely for miles along the shore. We have had two invitations to stop; one from Mataafa, and one from Tofae, who both have their connections here, but we have pushed further on, and are now at the house of a chief, whose name is Sagapolu, as I make it out.

Before us, to sea, over a great spread of blue, are two blue cones, little spots that belong to Tutuila. Near us are rocky islands--two of them outside of our reef. We came in on the blue swell that hid everything, and then pulled hard over the boiling of the surf, in the charm that covers danger. The morning was lovely on the water, and we raced with our other boats. We had said good-bye to our friends in Fagaloa, who the night before had given us a _siva_, not a prolonged one, well done by the girls, and accompanied curiously by the two-year-old daughter of the chief, who followed seriously the performance, and beat time or caught up with the gestures of the older people. Nothing could be stranger, and a more complete proof of the _siva’s_ being a natural expression. No one noticed the child as anything extraordinary, except by an occasional smile. Our crew was asked to perform, and the villagers and the _taupo_ gave the preference, and she was right, to our men. The girls always seem anxious to see the men’s dances; a compliment not always returned by the men. The rising of the moon saw us to bed, and we tried to sleep late, fearing the hard day that has just passed over us.

Here, so far, all has been as usual. The house is far from others, all in the open, with palm trees some way off. At one end of the room is a reading desk, and the ruined walls of the church near by, explain that this house is used as a temporary chapel. At the other end, is a table covered with costly mats, upon which are flowers in glass bottles, and there are two big settles and two big chairs, covered with shaggy white mats made from the fibres of the _fao_ tree; all this furniture upon beautiful sleeping mats.

We have had a complimentary speech from the _tulafale_, the old chief, who is thin and emaciated and extremely dignified, and has given us _kava_; and I have learned that Seumanu has a _kava_ name of Tauamamanu Vao (fighting with beasts of the field), when _kava_ is called out for him; the _taupo_ has come in to make it, and Samau of our boat, and Tamaseu of Seumanu’s, both _tulafales_, have come in to share it. There has been a spread of Samoan fare, apparently good, but I feel prudent and have taken little _kava_, and have been only a beholder of the feast.

The _taupo_, who is very young, is very silent, even when Atamo says that he is writing home about her.

They are sitting together, he absolutely immersed in his writing, a feat of which he is always capable apparently, and she is wiping her face on a new silk scarf of blue and red which he has given her, so that it has already caught the shine of the cocoanut oil.

Another little girl has singled me out, and has come to make friends, but I can only give her lollipops, that are handed away almost immediately, like my biscuit, to the smaller children. I have invited my fate, for I smiled at this beginning of _taupodom_, when she came in, almost closing her eyes from anxiety, to put a Samoan pillow for me on the pile of sleeping mats that had been spread for us to take a nap. Seu is having his back punched by an elderly lady, and peace and the flies reign over all. Here is a curious fact; one would think that with their habits of sitting and lying about, these people would remain in position, but it is only when they are sleeping very soundly that one can find them steady, unless it be a Tulafale officiating, or a chief sitting for dignity. The foot that does not press the ground is simply waggled interminably. Try it for part of a minute and see how difficult it is; and then you will realize that people who can move the foot for ten or twelve hours a day, may be able to dance when sitting, with an ease that only a juggler knows about his fingers.

Meanwhile, the sky is blue, with innumerable white clouds;--the sun smiles down on the banana grove behind us, and in front of it a little veil of light drops shows that it is raining overhead. The smoke from the house near us bends down lazily over the roofs, and Seu’s _tulafale_ and one of our men, are beating a tune on the two great war drums. _Lali_ is the name of the beating of a tune. One two, two--two, and so on, weird enough and rather tiresome. Such are the intervals of their naps, for they have had three hours of solid rowing this morning, and they need rest. At this moment the old chief comes in and talks about the music--praising the accentuation. These drums are near his house, say some twenty feet off, and are very large; gigantic troughs of old wood.

Then he calls across space for his daughter to make _kava_ again; this is the third time within just three hours, but this time the _kava_ will be chewed and not grated, as Atamo has asked for it.

Meanwhile a discussion on the name of the daughter: it is Mo Niu Fataia, if I get it right; it does not matter. Her name represents the fact that a place called Fataia, which we passed yesterday, has wild cocoanuts growing upon it that roll useless into the sea: hence her name. “The plenty of cocoanuts, of Fataia, that you don’t get.” It is this little word Mo that means “plenty that you don’t get.” Niu is cocoanut. You will notice all through, so far, how often names for people are arbitrary and accidental. Otaota, the beautiful daughter of the missionary person, is called Rubbish. Fagalo, who slipped the waterfall, is Forgetful, and so on. We have Smell Smoke Namuasua (or Cook-house, as Samasoni translated it) in our boat’s crew. In the early traditions, such and such an early divine heroine names her children by things that occur at their birth. One, I remember of “Carpenter’s Tools Rattling in a Basket.” The Bible is dipped into at random for names, and yesterday I talked to young Miss Kisa, which sounds like Kiss Her, but is Kish “who killed Saul.” (My _taupo’s_ statement, the usual Bible may run otherwise.) I cannot make out whether good luck follows these sortes biblical.

At this very moment I see coming to me a young lady who wears a black mat and a mop of yellow hair and nothing else, not even a collar. She is late, having been at church. She is the official _taupo_, the other one only taking a momentary place, and she is the daughter of the chief, and has brought presents of rings and of _tappa_; and her name is Faatoe, which means all agree, “Leave something in the basket” (when all are helping themselves), and I think this is a very fair addition to our stock of names.

All this time the others to whom she is added are getting the _kava_ ready carefully, gravely, chewing the root to extract its juice. There is a big row of _kava_ people or attendants--all pensive; one man, two _taupos_, another man of _ours_, a little girl, and another of our men--no--there are a few others who are around the corner so that I can’t see them.

* * * * *

Then I went for a long walk on the seashore. The sun was setting; only toward Apolima was the sky at all clear. Over one of the islands to the north, cloud and mist threatening immediate rain, made a large veil that hung far up and melted its violet lace over the island. The sea was of the fairy green that the inside of the reef takes in rain, spotted with violet where the coral lay. With me walked on one side my little girl, her upper garment fluttering, her young, long brown arms and legs glistening in the sun. She smiled at me for all talk, for English she knew not. On the other side, a hunch-backed dwarf, Japhet by name, with yellowed crispy hair, naked to the waist, a garland of red fruit hanging down on him, to meet the blue drapery about his loins--his bare legs and tattooed thighs glistening also in the light. Their company meant kindness and the _habit of accompanying a chief_--and they were kindly certainly, and meant to please and serve. Neither you nor I could have invented a more curious combination, and one of which I should like to have either a drawing or a photograph, that it may serve for the ends of my life. If instead of me and my linen helmet, and trousers kept up by a sash we had had one of the Spaniards, who ages ago, perhaps, landed in the unknown neighbouring island of the Gente Hermosa, the “Beautiful People”--some bearded man with butgonett, and velvet hose and jerkin, the picture might have been that of a knight-errant in fairyland. Such a faraway image it made to me, as I looked down either way to the earnest face of the dwarf framed in the fruits of his garland, or the politely anxious eyes and moving bosom of the young virgin of the village, as we stalked on almost abreast, in the silence, making threefold tracks of very different shapes in the smooth wet beach; until the rain broke down, and then I ran back, supported and clung to by my improbable companions.

As the day closes it is still raining. A sort of glow is in the grey of the rain, so that it reddens all the shadows among the trees. Far off toward Tutuila there is high up a great opening where the sky is as of an apple-green that has been washed with the lavender of the rain clouds: big cumulous clouds round out, made gold by the sunset.

The light fades away, and all becomes blurred except always the cumulus in the distant green sky. The lamps are lit and we turn to dinner.

In the evening afterward we got to talking about the legends and superstitions, and we were for a long time merely getting about it. There had been a promise to have something written out for us of old verses, and then songs were sung, ordered from a number of girls.

These were mostly poems concerning the son of the old chief, who died in the last war, and about whom, says Maua, he is always thinking. I watched his face and sketched it while he sat and listened. He is as striking as an Arab chief, with the orbital bones projecting like a camel’s from out of his face, so as to make a great line of light or dark around the looking part of the visage. His head recedes far up, and his long beard drops on his thin chest. This death of his son has affected him more and more, so as to make him slightly insane.

Maua says that he was once “the baddest man in all Samoa,” and that he was the greatest dancer, and that he had invented many dances, and that he might be tempted to-day to dance, if only we could find some person to accompany him with songs to suit. I think that Maua is wrong, for the chief has become missionary, and is quite absorbed in that sort of thing. As I was saying, he has a splendid, fanatic, Arab head; and so the evening has closed with the old chief’s listening to these memories of his son. I am frightfully tired with listening to the legends struggled for. Perhaps a verse or so of some of the songs might be worth saving out of this wreck of dreaminess. It was a pure, complimentary, Samoan idea, poetic only perhaps because we cannot help translating the feeling as well as the words; it was about a chief the singer sang--a young and handsome chief--and she said how natural it was for the girls to wish for the hero’s notice, “for the very winds that blew belonged to him, coming as they did from his ancestral island that lies to windward.” But our friends are not poetic, I feel sure. They are intensely practical and full of common sense; they make poetry for _me_. And they are restful--and I--am sleepy, as I said before.

Wednesday Afternoon.

This morning, while it was raining, the old chief talked of the spirits that once ruled. We are told that the chief believes yet in these ideas, but I cannot make it out distinctly, neither one way nor the other. He is missionary now, and as we take his portrait, wishes to hold the prayer-book in his hand. But he tells me there are people who control the spirits (devils, our interpreter and we have called them--_aitu_) and that they predict things and recover property, bringing evil upon him who has erred until he acknowledges. And this power is not given to any man by inheritance, it cannot fall upon a plebeian, neither the son nor nephew of chief or priest, if indeed there were priests, for this he denies. He says that his people prayed, making oblations to the deities of the village and of the household, and that when these were collected together, they were eaten by _them_, which, he says, means by those who collected--not the priests, but the family or those attached to the chief, who thought it time for such offerings. And these were given to the bush, if it were for the bird divinity; to the sea, if the divinity was the cuttlefish. His was the cuttlefish, and his family did not eat it. All this, of course, you know more or less of; what I say is of no value except insomuch that I heard it myself. To know all here would require to be master of the language, not to be confined by missionary ideas, nor to be connected with such--and after all that, to have a very receptive, a very acute, and a very truthful mind. There are such people in the world, but you or I do not find them usually writing books, and judging questions for others. These soundings of the savage mind are Atamo’s properly; he is patient beyond belief; he asks over and over again the same questions in different shapes and ways of different and many people, and keeps all wired on some string of previous study in similar lines. But everywhere one comes right against some secret apparently, something that cannot be well disentangled from annoyance to the questioned one. For instance, in the question of genealogy, Seumanu told us that had he been interrogated some years ago in such a direction he should have struck the questioner down on the spot. Still we have hope, and if any one can manage it, Atamo will. Web after web I have seen him weave around interpreter and explainer, to get to some point looked for, which may connect with something we have already acquired. As many time as the spider is brushed away, so many times he returns.

* * * * *

This morning talk of the world of bad spirits that do harm to man suggested to me an opening toward a side I had never read of or heard of. Were there spirits that did good as well as spirits that did harm? There I had a door for home history. Yes, there were such, and no further than here: his son had had such a spirit, who went about with him and looked after him, protected him from harm (apparently from woman a good deal; and took, in such cases--as even with us--the shape of some other woman). Sometimes this protection would be sudden; when he was in the way of harm, a good spirit would appear and drive away those that might harm him, and would sometimes lead him personally away--_prevent_ him--as the old word goes. And all knew that he was so protected; the spirit had been seen and would only disappear when suspected. Otherwise, any one might take the same for mortal man or woman--as in Homeric story, where Nestor speaks and acts, but it is Athens all the same. And had this spirit, or such a spirit, invariably an action only for good? Certainly--and nothing had ever contradicted such a view. And yet--only once, the good spirit had killed a man, but it was for protection always, as a guardian. Then, of course, I could ask no further. As you see, analogies keep coming up, our ideas easily dropping into theirs, and _informing_ them--probably.

And had these spirits and others been apparently existing out of the world of humanity?

The dead became spirits and fought anew the old battles, with a knowledge of the present; as when a chief _aitu_, known by name, some weeks ago refused to participate in a spirit war urged on by a feminine spirit. “No,” he said, “I have been missionary, but if I am attacked I can defend myself. Go on with your war; if you are successful you do not need me; if you are pursued too far, and into my territory, I shall be here.”

Nene is the name of this male _aitu_ who has “joined the church.” ... And the dead killed at sea turn into fish, into turtles, into sea-life. Now how to clear these from the original spirits existing of themselves? There was one, Tangaloa, who, our friend said, might be supposed to be a distorted vision of the true God. But that you know as well as I.

Here the talk drifted away to a question that, as you see, naturally connects. Were offerings made to spirits as being ancestors? Were offerings made to ancestors? No; of that they were sure--not even if Hawaii was different. And they did not care if the black pig meant anything in Oahu--to them (and the white teeth shone) it was only good to eat. If it crossed them in war excursions, it was only good to kill, but the bird and the cuttlefish, they were not to be hurt; and the bird might mean a good deal to them as it gave them omens by its flight--according to its favourable direction or the reverse, or by its cry. But they had, above all, a great divine omen, the rainbow--which presided over all. When for the people here it was bent over Tutuila, then things were against them; if it stood against them they were not to go into the war, but wait. It, however, it went with them, its end turned toward the enemy, then they were protected by it, and had victory promised them.