The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume 2 (of 3) / The Belief Among the Polynesians

by James George Frazer

THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE SAMOANS

§ 1. The Samoan Islands

About three hundred and fifty or four hundred miles nearly due north of Tonga lies Samoa, a group of islands situated between 13° 30' and 14° 30' South latitude and between 168° and 173° West longitude. The native name of the group is Samoa, which has this singularity, that it is apparently the only name that designates a group of islands in the Pacific; native names for all the other groups are wanting, though each particular island has its own individual name. Samoa is also known to Europeans as the Navigators' Islands, a name bestowed on them by the French explorer De Bougainville, who visited the group in 1768. The three most easterly islands were discovered in 1722 by Jacob Roggewein, a Dutch navigator, but he appears not to have sighted the principal islands of the group, which lie a good deal farther to the westward. There is no record of any visit paid by a European vessel to the islands in the interval between the visits of Roggewein and De Bougainville. The whole archipelago was not explored till 1787, when the French navigator La Pérouse determined the position of all the islands.[1]

The islands are disposed in a line running from west to east. The most westerly, Savaii, is also the largest, measuring about forty miles in length. Next follow two small, but important islands, Apolima and Manona. Then about three miles to the east of Manona comes Upolu, the second of the islands in size, but the first in importance, whether we regard population, harbours, or the extent of soil available for cultivation. The channel which divides Upolu from Savaii is from fifteen to twenty miles broad. About forty miles to the east, or rather south-east, of Upolu lies the island of Tutuila, with the fine and almost landlocked harbour of Pangopango. It was in this island that the French navigator La Pérouse lost his second in command and twelve men in a fierce encounter with the natives. The place where the fight took place is now known as Massacre Cove.[2] Some fifty miles to the east of Tutuila is situated a group of three small islands, Tau, Ofu, and Olosenga, which are collectively known as Manua.

The islands are of volcanic formation and for the most part surrounded by coral reefs, but the intervening seas are quite free from danger, and the possession of good harbours renders Samoa politically important. Viewed from the sea the islands are mountainous and for the most part wooded to the water's edge, except where a stretch of fertile plain is interposed between the foot of the mountains and the sea. The whole group presents to the voyager a succession of enchanting views as he sails along the coast. The eye is delighted by the prospect of lofty and rugged mountains, their tops sometimes lost in clouds, their slopes mantled in the verdure of evergreen forests, varied here and there by rich valleys, by grey and lofty cliffs, or by foaming waterfalls tumbling from heights of hundreds of feet and showing like silvery threads against the sombre green of the woods. Along the shore rocks of black lava alternate with white sands dazzling in the sunlight and fringed by groves of coco-nut palms, their feathery tops waving and dancing in the breeze, while the brilliant cobalt blue of the calm lagoon contrasts with the olive-green of the deep sea, which breaks in a long line of seething foam on the barrier reef. The scenery as a whole combines romantic grandeur with wild and rank luxuriance, thus winning for Samoa the reputation of being among the loveliest of the islands which stud like gems the bosom of the Pacific.[3]

The island of Upolu in particular is wooded from its summit to the water's edge, where in some places the roots of the trees are washed by the surf, while in many places clumps of mangrove trees spread out into the lagoon. The forests are dense and more sombre even than those of Brazil. The lofty trees shoot up to a great height before sending out branches. At their feet grow ferns of many sorts, while climbing vines and other creepers mantle their trunks and sometimes even their tops. But the gloom of the tropical forest is seldom or never relieved by flowers of brilliant tints; the few flowers that bloom in them are of a white or greyish hue, as if bleached for want of the sunbeams, which are shut out by the thick umbrageous foliage overhead.[4]

Very different from the aspect presented by this luxuriant vegetation is a great part of the interior of Savaii, the largest island of the group. Here the desolate and forbidding character of the landscape constantly reminds the traveller of the dreadful forces which slumber beneath his feet. Extinct volcanoes tower above him to heights of four and five thousand feet, their steep and almost perpendicular sides formed of volcanic ashes and denuded of vegetation. For miles around these gloomy peaks the ground presents nothing to the eye but black rocks, scoriae, and ashes; the forlorn wayfarer seems to be traversing a furnace barely extinguished, so visible are the traces of fire on the sharp-pointed stones among which he picks his painful way, and which in their twisted and tormented forms seem still to preserve something of the movement of the once boiling flood of molten lava. The whole country is a barren and waterless wilderness, a solitude destitute alike of animal and of vegetable life, alternately parched by the fierce rays of the tropical sun and deluged by hurricanes of torrential rain. Even the natives cannot traverse these dreary deserts; a European who strayed into them was found, after five or six days, prostrate and almost dead on the ground.[5]

In Samoa, as in Tonga, volcanic activity has ominously increased within less than a hundred years. Near the island of Olosenga, in 1866 or 1867, a submarine volcano suddenly burst out in eruption, vomiting forth rocks and mud to a height, as it was estimated, of two thousand feet, killing the fish and discolouring the sea for miles round.[6] Still later, towards the end of 1905, another volcano broke out in the bottom of a deep valley in the island of Savaii, and rose till it attained a height of about four thousand feet. Down at least to the year 1910 this immense volcano was still in full action, and had covered many miles of country under a bed of lava some ten or twelve feet thick, while with the same river of molten matter it completely filled up the neighbouring lagoon and replaced the level shore by an iron-bound coast of volcanic cliffs.[7]

A remarkable instance of these volcanic cliffs is furnished by the little island of Apolima between Savaii and Upolu. The islet, which is in fact the crater of an extinct volcano, is only about a mile long by half to three-quarters of a mile in width. On every side but one it presents to the sea a precipitous wall of basaltic rock some thousand feet high, while the interior is scooped out in the likeness of a great cauldron. Only at one place is there a break in the cliffs where a landing can be effected, and there the operation is difficult and dangerous even in fine weather. In bad weather the island is completely isolated. Thus it forms a strong natural fortress, which under the conditions of native warfare was almost impregnable.[8]

As might be expected from their volcanic formation, the islands are subject to frequent and sometimes severe shocks of earthquake. The veteran missionary, J. B. Stair, has recorded that the shocks increased in number and violence during the last years of his residence in Samoa. The last of them was preceded by loud subterranean noises, which lasted for hours, to the great alarm of the natives. At the north-west of Upolu also, Mr. Stair used often to hear a muffled sound, like the rumble of distant thunder, proceeding apparently from the sea under the reef. This curious noise always occurred on hot, sultry days, and seemed to strike a note of warning, which filled natives and Europeans alike with a sense of awe and insecurity.[9] Thus if, beheld from some points of view, the Samoan islands appear an earthly paradise, from others they present the aspect, and emit the sounds, of an inferno.

And with all their natural beauty and charm the islands cannot be said to enjoy a healthy climate. There is much bad weather, particularly during the winter months, when long and heavy rains, attended at times with high winds and gales, are frequent. The air is more moist than in Tahiti, and the vegetation in consequence is more rank and luxuriant. Decaying rapidly under the ardent rays of a tropical sun, it exhales a poisonous miasma. But the heat, oppressive and exhausting at times, is nevertheless tempered by the sea and land breezes, which blow daily, alternating with intervals of calm between them. Besides these daily breezes the trade wind blows regularly from the east during the fine season, when the sky is constantly blue and cloudless. Yet with all these alleviations the climate is enervating, and a long residence in it is debilitating to the European frame.[10] Nor are the natives exempt from the noxious effects of an atmosphere saturated with moisture and impregnated with the fumes of vegetable decay. The open nature of their dwellings, which were without walls, exposed them to the heavy night dews and rendered them susceptible to diseases of the chest and lungs, from which they suffered greatly; consumption in its many forms, coughs, colds, inflammation of the chest and lungs, fevers, rheumatism, pleurisy, diarrhœa, lumbago, diseases of the spine, scrofula, and many other ailments are enumerated among the disorders which afflicted them. But the prevailing disease is elephantiasis, a dreadful malady which attacks Europeans and natives alike. There are many cases of epilepsy, and though idiots are rare, lunatics are less infrequent. Hunchbacks are very common in both sexes, and virulent ophthalmia is prevalent; many persons lose the sight of one eye, and some are totally blinded; not less than a fifth part of the population is estimated to suffer from this malady.[11] Curiously enough, hunchbacks, who are said to be very numerous on account of scrofula, used to be looked on as special favourites of the spirits, and many of them, on growing to manhood, were accordingly admitted to the priesthood.[12]

During the stormy season, which lasts from December to April, hurricanes sometimes occur, and are greatly dreaded by the natives on account of the havoc which they spread both among the crops and the houses. A steady rain, the absence of the sun, a deathlike stillness of the birds and domestic animals, and above all the dark and lowering aspect of the sky, are the premonitory symptoms of the coming calamity and inspire general consternation, while the thunderous roar of the torrents and waterfalls in the mountains strike on the ear with redoubled distinctness in the prevailing silence which preludes the storm. Warned by these ominous signs, the natives rush to secure their property from being swept away by the fury of the blast. Some hurry their canoes inland to places of comparative safety; others pile trunks of banana-trees on the roofs of their houses or fasten down the roofs by hanging heavy stones over them; while yet others bring rough poles, hastily cut in the forest, and set them up inside the houses as props against the rafters, to prevent the roof from falling in. Sometimes these efforts are successful, sometimes futile, the hurricane sweeping everything before it in its mad career, while the terrified natives behold the fruits of months of toil, sometimes the growth of years, laid waste in an hour. On such occasions the shores have been seen flooded by the invading ocean, houses carried clean away, and a forest turned suddenly into a bare and treeless plain. Men have been forced to fling themselves flat on the ground and to dig their hands into the earth to save themselves from being whirled away and precipitated into the sea or a torrent. In April 1850 the town of Apia, the capital of the islands, was almost destroyed by one of these cyclones. When the rage of the tornado is spent and calm has returned, the shores of a harbour are apt to present a melancholy scene of ruin and desolation, their shores strewn with the wrecks of gallant ships which lately rode there at anchor, their pennons streaming to the wind. So it happened in the harbour of Apia on March 16th, 1889. Before the tempest burst, there were many ships of various nations anchored in the bay, among them five or six American and German warships. When it was over, all were wrecked and their shattered fragments littered the reefs. One vessel alone, the British man-of-war, Calliope, was saved by the courage and skill of the captain, who, seconded by the splendid seamanship of the crew, forced his ship, in the very teeth of the hurricane, out into the open sea, where he safely weathered the storm.[13]

A special interest attaches to Samoa in so far as it is now commonly believed to be the original seat of the Polynesian race in the Pacific, from which their ancestors gradually dispersed to the other islands of that vast ocean, where their descendants are settled to this day. Polynesian traditions point to such a dispersal from Samoa as a centre, and they are confirmed by the name which the various branches of the race give to their old ancestral home. The original form of that name appears to have been Savaiki, which through dialectical variations has been altered to Hawaiki in New Zealand, to Hawaii in the Sandwich Islands, to Havaii in Tahiti, to Havaiki in the Marquesas, and to Avaiki in Rarotonga. In the Samoan dialect, which of all the Polynesian dialects alone retains the letter S, the word presumably appears as Savaii, the name of the largest island of the group, which accordingly may be regarded, with some probability, as the cradle-land of the Polynesians in the Pacific; though native traditions indicate rather Upolu or Manua as the place from which the canoes started on their long and adventurous voyages. On the other hand in favour of Savaii it has been pointed out that the island holds a decided superiority over the other islands of the group in respect of canoe-building; for it possesses extensive forests of hard and durable timber, which is much sought after for the keels and other parts of vessels; indeed, the large sea-going canoes were generally, if not always, built on Savaii, and maritime expeditions appear sometimes to have started from its shores.[14] 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.[15] The Samoans and Tongans, says Mr. S. Percy Smith, "formed part of the first migration into the Pacific, and they have been there so long that they have forgotten their early history. All the numerous legends as to their origin seem to express their own belief in their being autochthones, created in the Samoan Islands."[16]

§ 2. The Samoan Islanders, their character

In spite of the many diseases prevalent among them, the Samoans are commonly reckoned among the finest, as well as the purest, specimens of the Polynesian race. Like the Tongans, whom they closely resemble, they are generally tall and shapely, with full rounded faces and limbs, but without that grossness and laxity of fibre common in the Tahitians. The average height of the men is said to be five feet ten inches, but some of them are over six feet with the thews and sinews of a Hercules. Their features, though not always regular, are commonly pleasing; and in particular the forehead is remarkable for its ample development, which, with the breadth between the eyes, gives to the countenance an expression of nobleness and dignity. Some of the young men especially are models of manly beauty; we read of one who, having decked his hair with the flowers of the scarlet hibiscus, might have sat for an Antinous. The women are comely enough, but strikingly inferior to the men in point of personal beauty. The prevailing colour is a light copper or olive brown, but the shade varies a good deal, deepening somewhat in fishermen and others who are much exposed to the sun; but it never approaches the dark chocolate tint, or Vandyke brown, of the Melanesians. Their hair is usually black and wavy, sometimes curly; but hardly a vestige is to be seen among them of the crisped and woolly hair and dusky complexion of the Melanesians, their neighbours on the west.[17]

The prepossessing appearance of the Samoans on the whole does not belie their character. They are reputed to be the most refined and civilised of all the native races of the Pacific, and this superiority is said to manifest itself in their social and domestic life.[18] The Samoans, we are told, are a nation of gentlemen and contrast most favourably with the generality of the Europeans who come among them.[19] They are said to carry their habits of cleanliness and decency to a higher point than the most fastidious of civilised nations;[20] and the Samoan women appear to be honourably distinguished by their modest behaviour and fidelity in marriage, qualities which contrast with the profligacy of their sex in other branches of the Polynesian race.[21] Equally honourable to the men are the respect and kindness which, according to the testimony of observers, they pay to their women, whom they are said to regard as their equals.[22] The aged were treated with respect and never abandoned; and strangers were always received in the best house and provided with food specially prepared for them.[23] Infanticide, which was carried to an appalling and almost incredible extent among some of the Polynesians,[24] was unknown in Samoa; abortion, indeed, was not uncommon, but once born children were affectionately cared for and never killed or exposed.[25] Wives and slaves were never put to death at a chief's burial, that their souls might attend their dead lord to the spirit land[26], as was the practice in some of the other islands, even in Tonga. Again, human sacrifices were not offered by the Samoans to the gods within the time during which the islands have been under the observation of Europeans; but in some of the more remote traditions mention is made of such sacrifices offered to the sun. Thus it is said that in the mythical island of Papatea, somewhere away in the east, the sun used to call for two victims every day, one at his rising and another at his setting. This lasted for eighty days. At such a rate of consumption the population of the island was rapidly wasting away. To escape the threatened doom, a brother and sister, named Luama and Ui, fled from Papatea to Manua, the most easterly of the Samoan islands, but they found to their consternation that there too, the sun was demanding his daily victims. Every house had to supply a victim in succession, and, when all had yielded the tribute, it came to the first house in turn to renew the sacrifice. The victim was laid out on a pandanus tree, and there the sun devoured him or her. When the lot fell on Luama, his heroic sister Ui insisted on taking his place, and lying down, she cried, "O cruel sun! come and eat your victim, we are all being devoured by you." But the amorous sun fell in love with her and took her to wife, at the same time putting an end to the human sacrifices. Another story affirms that the heroine was a daughter of the King of Manua, and that he yielded her up as an offering to the sun in order to end the sacrifices by making her the saviour of the people.[27]

The Samoans, when they became known to Europe in the nineteenth century, did not habitually indulge in cannibalism; indeed, according to John Williams, one of the earliest missionaries to the islands, they spoke of the practice with great horror and detestation.[28] But we have the testimony of other early missionaries that in their wars they occasionally resorted to it as a climax of hatred and revenge, devouring some portion of an enemy who had rendered himself peculiarly obnoxious by his cruelty or his provocations. Traditions, too, are on record of chiefs who habitually killed and devoured their fellow-creatures. A form of submission which a conquered party used to adopt towards their conquerors has also been interpreted as a relic of an old custom of cannibalism. Representatives of the vanquished party used to bow down before the victors, each holding in his hands a piece of firewood and a bundle of leaves, such as are used in dressing a pig for the oven. This was as much as to say, "Kill us and cook us, if you please." Criminals, too, were sometimes bound hand and foot, slung on a pole, and laid down before the persons they had injured, like pigs about to be killed and cooked. Combining these and other indications we may surmise that cannibalism was formerly not infrequent among the ancestors of the Samoans, though among their descendants in the nineteenth century the practice had almost wholly died out.[29] It is further to the credit of the Samoans that their public administration of justice was on the whole mild and humane. Torture was never employed to wring the truth from witnesses or the accused, and there seems to be only a single case on record of capital punishment inflicted by judicial sentence. At the same time private individuals were free to avenge the adultery of a wife or the murder of a kinsman by killing the culprit, and no blame attached to them for so doing. The penalties imposed by the sentence of a court or judicial assembly (fono) included fines, banishment, and the destruction of houses, fruit-trees, and domestic animals. But a criminal might also be condemned by a court to suffer corporal punishment in one form or another. He might, for example, be obliged to wound himself by beating his head and chest with a stone till the blood flowed freely; if he seemed to spare himself, he would be ordered by the assembled chiefs to strike harder, and if he still faltered, the prompt and unsparing application of a war club to his person effectually assisted the execution of the sentence. Again, he might be condemned to bite a certain acrid and poisonous root (called in the native language tevi) which caused the mouth to swell and the culprit to suffer intense agony for a considerable time afterwards. Or he might have to throw up a spiny and poisonous fish into the air and to catch it in his naked hand as it fell; the sharp-pointed spines entered into the flesh and inflicted acute pain and suffering. Or he might be suspended by hands and feet from a pole and in this attitude exposed to the broiling sun for many hours together; or he might be hung by the feet, head downward, from the top of a tall coco-nut tree and left there to expiate his crime for a long time. For certain offences the culprit was condemned to have his nose tattooed or his ears split. In sentences of banishment the term of exile was never specified, but when the sentence had been pronounced in full assembly, and the offence was great, the culprit might live in exile for years. When the punishment consisted in the destruction of houses, plantations, and live stock, it was immediately inflicted by the whole force of the district, under the direction and superintendence of the leading men, who had taken part in the assembly and passed the sentence. A whole family might suffer in this way for the offence of one of its members, and be driven into exile, after witnessing the burning of their house, the killing of their pigs, and the barking of their breadfruit trees.[30] If such penalties seem to us in some cases needlessly severe, they at least testify to a strong sense of public justice developed among the Samoans, who had thus advanced far enough to transfer, in some measure, the redress of wrongs to judicial assemblies instead of leaving it to the caprice of the injured individuals. Nevertheless the transference was but imperfect: the administration of justice was loose and irregular: for the most part every man was a law to himself, and did what was right in his own eyes. An aggrieved party would become his own judge, jury, and executioner. The thirst for vengeance was slaked only by the blood of a victim.[31]

It is another sign of the intellectual enlightenment of the Samoans that they rose apparently superior to that system of malignant magic, which kept their neighbours the Melanesians in lifelong bondage. The experienced missionary, Dr. George Brown, could not find in Samoa any trace of the practice of that particular form of the black art with which he was familiar in New Britain and other Melanesian islands, the practice of procuring some object which has belonged to an enemy or been touched by him, and taking it to a sorcerer, that he may perform over it a ceremony for the purpose of injuring the person from whom the object has been obtained. The proceeding is one of the commonest forms of sympathetic magic, but the Samoans appear to have ignored or despised it.[32] Again, the silence of our authorities on the subject of amulets and talismans leaves us to infer that the Samoans were equally indifferent to that branch of magic which seeks to ensure the safety and prosperity of the individual by attaching a miscellaneous collection of rubbish to his person, a system of ensurance against evil and misfortune which has attained a prodigious development among some savages, notably in Africa,[33] and is very far from being unknown in Europe at the present day. Again, unlike most savages, the Samoans were close observers of the stars, not only reckoning the time of night by the rising of particular stars, but steering by them when they were out of sight of land.[34]

Against these amiable and enlightened traits in the Samoan character must be set their cruelty in war. If they opened hostilities with a great deal of formal politeness, they conducted them with great ferocity. No quarter was given to men in battle, and captives were ruthlessly slaughtered. Women were sometimes spared for the use of their captors. Nor did death save the conquered from the insults and outrages of the insolent victors. The slain on the battlefield were treated with great indignity. Their heads were cut off and carried in triumph to the village, where they were piled up in a heap in the place of public assembly, the head of the most important chief being given the place of honour on the top of the pile. However, they were not kept as trophies, but after remaining for some hours exposed to public gaze were either claimed by the relatives or buried on the spot. The headless trunks were given to children to drag about the village and to spear, stone, or mutilate at pleasure.[35] The first missionary to Samoa was told in Manua that the victors used to scalp their victims and present the scalps, with kava, either to the king or to the relatives of the slain in battle, by whom these gory trophies were highly prized. He mentions as an example the case of a young woman, whose father had been killed. A scalp of a foe having been brought to her, she burnt it, strewed the ashes on the fire with which she cooked her food, and then devoured the meat with savage satisfaction.[36] But the climax of cruelty and horror was reached in a great war which the people of A‛ana, in Upolu, waged against a powerful combination of enemies. After a brave resistance they were at last defeated, and the surviving warriors, together with the aged and infirm, the women and children, fled to the mountains, where they endeavoured to hide themselves from their pursuers in the caves and the depths of the forest. But they were hunted out and brought down to the seashore; and an immense pit having been dug and filled with firewood, they were all, men, women, and children, thrown into it and burnt alive. The dreadful butchery went on for days. Four hundred victims are said to have perished. The massacre was perpetrated at the moment when the first missionaries were landing in Samoa. From the opposite shore they beheld the mountains enveloped in the flames and smoke of the funeral pile. The decisive battle had been fought that very morning. For many years a great black circle of charcoal marked the scene and preserved the memory of the fatal transaction.[37]

§ 3. Houses, Agriculture, and Industries

Like all the Polynesians, the Samoans are not nomadic, but live in settled villages. The typical Samoan house is commonly described as oval or elliptical, though in fact it would seem to be of oblong shape with semicircular ends. But many houses were circular in shape, and with their conical thatched roofs resembled gigantic beehives. From the Tongans the Samoans also borrowed the custom of building oblong quadrangular houses, which were called afolau. The best houses, in particular those of important chiefs, were built on raised platforms of stones about three feet high. One of the circular houses would measure about thirty-five feet in diameter by a hundred in circumference. Two or three posts in the centre of the house, some twenty feet high, supported the roof, the lower end of which rested on a series of short posts, four or five feet high, placed at intervals of about four feet all round the house. The intervals between these posts were sometimes closed by thatch neatly tied to sticks, which were planted upright in the ground and fastened to the eaves; but more commonly, it would seem, the intervals between the posts were left open and only closed at night by blinds made of coco-nut leaves, which could be let down or pulled up like Venetian blinds. During the day these blinds were drawn up, so that there was a free current of air all through the house. The roofs of the best houses were made of bread-fruit wood carefully thatched with leaves of the wild sugar-cane; when well made, the thatch might last seven years. The circular roofs were so constructed that they could be lifted clean off the posts and removed anywhere, either by land or on a raft of canoes. The whole house could also be transported; and as Samoan houses were often bartered, or given as presents, or paid as fines, it frequently happened that they were removed from place to place. In the whole house there was not a single nail or spike: all joints were made by exactly corresponding notches and secured by cinnet, that is cordage made from the dried fibre of the coco-nut husk. The timber of the best houses was the wood of the bread-fruit tree; and, if protected against damp, it would last fifty years. The floor of the house was composed of stones, overlaid with fine gravel and sand. In the centre of the floor was the fire-place, a circular hollow two or three feet in diameter and a few inches deep, lined with hardened clay. It was not used for cooking, but for the purpose of lighting up the house by night. The cooking was never done in the house, but always in the open air outside on an oven of hot stones. An ordinary Samoan house consisted of a single apartment, which served as the common parlour, dining-room, and bedroom of the family. But at night small tents made of bark-cloth were hung from the ridge-pole, and under them the various members of the family slept separately, the tents serving them at the same time as curtains to protect them against the mosquitoes. Formerly, the houses of the principal chiefs were surrounded with two fences; the outer of the two was formed of strong posts and had a narrow zigzag entrance, several yards long, leading to an opening in the inner fence, which was made of reeds. But with the advent of a more peaceful epoch these fortified enclosures for the most part disappeared. Houses constructed on the Tongan model were often very substantially built: a double row of posts and cross-beams supported the roof. These houses were found better able to resist the high winds which prevail at one season of the year.[38]

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 regaled themselves on pigs, fowls, and turtle. But bread-fruit, taro, yams, bananas, and coco-nuts formed the staff of life in Samoa. As the soil is very rich and the hot, damp climate is eminently favourable to the growth of vegetation, food was always abundant, and the natives could procure the necessaries and even the luxuries of life at the cost of very little labour; if they tilled the soil, it was rather to vary their diet than to wring a scanty subsistence from a niggardly nature. Coco-nut palms, bread-fruit and chestnut trees, and wild yams, bananas, and plantains abound throughout the islands, and require little attention to make them yield an ample crop. For about half the year the Samoans have a plentiful supply of food from the bread-fruit trees: during the other half they depend principally upon their taro plantations. While the bread-fruit is in season, every family lays up a quantity of the ripe fruit in a pit lined with leaves and covered with stones. The fruit soon ferments and forms a soft mass, which emits a very vile smell every time the pit is opened. In this state it may be kept for years, for the older and more rotten the fruit is, the better the natives like it. They bake it, with the juice of the coco-nut, into flat cakes, which are eaten when the ripe fruit is out of season or when taro is scarce. For taro is on the whole the staple food of the Samoans; it grows all the year round. The water of the coco-nut furnishes a cool, delicious, slightly effervescing beverage, which is peculiarly welcome to the hot and weary wayfarer far from any spring or rivulet.[39]

To obtain land for cultivation the Samoans went into the forest and cut down the brushwood and creeping vines with small hatchets or large knives. The large forest-trees they destroyed by chopping away the bark in a circle round the trunk and then kindling a fire of brushwood at the foot of the tree. Thus in the course of a few days a fair-sized piece of ground would be cleared, nothing of the forest remaining but charred trunks and leafless branches. Then followed the planting. The agricultural instruments employed were of the simplest pattern. A dibble, or pointed stick of hard wood, was used to make the hole in which the plant was deposited. This took the place of a plough, and a branch served the purpose of a harrow. Sometimes the earth was dug and smoothed with the blade of a canoe paddle. The labour of clearing and planting the ground was done by the men, but the task of weeding it generally devolved on the women. The first crop taken from a piece of land newly cleared in the forest was yams, which require a peculiar culture and frequent change of site, two successive crops being seldom obtained from the same land. After the first crop of yams had been cleared off, taro was planted several times in succession; for this root does not, like yams, require a change of site. However, we are told that a second crop of taro grown on the same land was very inferior to the first, and that as a rule the land was allowed to remain fallow until the trees growing on it were as thick as a man's arm, when it was again cleared for cultivation. In the wet season taro was planted on the high land from one to four miles inland from the village; other kinds of taro were planted in the swamps, and these were considered more succulent than the taro grown on the uplands. The growing crops of taro were weeded at least twice a year. The natives resorted to irrigation, when they had the means; and they often dug trenches to drain away the water from swampy ground. Yams also required attention; for sticks had to be provided on which the plants could run. The fruit ripens only once a year, but it was stored up, and with care would keep till the next season. The natives found neither yams nor bread-fruit so nourishing as taro.[40]

The degree of progress which any particular community has made in civilisation may be fairly gauged by the degree of subdivision of labour among its members; for it is only by restricting his energies to a particular craft that a man can attain to any perfection in it. Judged by this standard 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. Thus by long practice and experience handed down from generation to generation a considerable degree of skill was acquired, and a considerable degree of reputation accrued to the family. Every trade had its particular patron god and was governed by certain well-known rules. The members formed, indeed, we are told, a trade union which was remarkably effective. Thus they had rules which prescribed the time and proportions of payment to be made at different stages of the work, and these rules were strictly observed and enforced by the workmen. For example, in the house-building trade, it was a standing custom that after the sides and one end of a house were finished, the principal part of the payment should be made. If the carpenters were dissatisfied with the amount of payment, they simply left off work and walked away, leaving the house unfinished, and no carpenter in the whole length and breadth of Samoa would dare to finish it, for it would have been as much as his business or even his life was worth to undertake the job. Anyone so foolhardy as thus to set the rules of the trade at defiance would have been attacked by the other workmen and robbed of his tools; at the best he would receive a severe thrashing, at the worst he might be killed. A house might thus stand unfinished for months or even years. Sooner or later, if he was to have a roof over his head, the unfortunate owner had to yield to the trade union and agree to such terms as they might dictate. If it happened that the house was almost finished before the fourth and final payment was made, and the builder at that stage of the proceedings took offence, he would remove a beam from the roof before retiring in dudgeon, and no workman would dare to replace it. The rules in the other trades, such as canoe-building and tattooing, were practically the same. In canoe-building, for example, five separate payments were made to the builders at five stages of the work; and if at any stage the workmen were dissatisfied with the pay, they very unceremoniously abandoned the work until the employer apologised or came to terms. No other party of workmen would have the temerity to finish the abandoned canoe upon pain of bringing down on their heads the wrath of the whole fraternity of canoe-builders; any such rash offenders against the rules of the guild would be robbed of their tools, expelled from their clan, and prohibited from exercising their calling during the pleasure of the guild. Such strides had the Samoans made in the direction of trade unionism.[41]

In addition to their household duties women engaged in special work of their own, particularly in the manufacture of bark-cloths and of fine mats; but among them there seems to have been no subdivision of labour and consequently no professional guilds. In all families the making of bark-cloth and mats was carried on by the women indifferently, though some no doubt excelled others in the skill of their handiwork. The cloth was made from the bark of the paper-mulberry (Morus papyrifera), which was beaten out on boards with a grooved beetle. The sound of these beetles ringing on the boards, though not very musical, was a familiar sound in a Samoan village. The fine mats, on the manufacture of which the Samoans particularly prided themselves, were worn as dresses on ceremonial occasions. They were made from the leaves of a large plant which the natives call lau ie; the leaves closely resemble those of the pandanus, but are larger. These mats were of a straw or cream colour, and were sometimes fringed with tufts of scarlet feathers of the paroquet. They were thin and almost as flexible as calico. Many months, sometimes even years, were spent over the making of a single mat. Another kind of fine mat was made from the bark of a plant of the nettle tribe (Hibiscus tiliaceus), which grows wild over the islands. Mats of the latter sort were shaggy on one side, and, being bleached white, resembled fleecy sheep-skins. These fine mats, especially those made from the leaves of the pandanus-like plant, were considered by the Samoans to be their most valuable property; they were handed down as heirlooms from father to son, and were so much coveted that wars were sometimes waged to obtain possession of them. The pedigrees of the more famous mats, particularly those fringed with red feathers, were carefully kept, and when they changed hands, their history was related with solemn precision. Age enhanced their value; and their tattered condition, deemed a proof of antiquity, rather added to than detracted from the estimation in which they were held. The wealth of a family consisted of its mats; with them it remunerated the services of carpenters, boat-builders, and tattooers. The mats formed, indeed, a sort of currency or medium of exchange; for while the Samoans were not in general a trading people, and there was little or no actual buying and selling among them, there was nevertheless a considerable exchange of property on many occasions; at marriage, for example, it was customary for the bride's family to give mats and bark-cloth as her dowry, while the bridegroom's family provided a house, canoes, and other articles. But though the fine mats were thus paid away or given in exchange, they had no fixed negotiable value, and thus did not serve the purpose of money.[42]

§ 4. Rights of Property

In Samoa the rights of private property, both personal and landed, were fully recognised, but with certain limitations. The lands were owned alike by chiefs and by heads of families; the laws regulating their possession were very definite. In no case did the whole of the land belong to the chiefs. Every family owned portions of land not only in the village and adjoining gardens, but far away in the unreclaimed forests of the interior. The title, which passed by inheritance, generally vested in the family; but the family was represented by the head, who often claimed the right to dispose of it by sale or otherwise. Yet he dared not do anything without consulting all concerned; were he to persist in thwarting the wishes of the rest, they would take his title from him and give it to another. Sometimes, however, the title to landed property vested in individual owners. The legitimate heir was the oldest surviving brother, but occasionally he waived his right in favour of one of the sons. Women might hold land when the male side of a family was extinct. The boundaries of land were well defined, being marked by pathways, natural limits, such as a river, or by trenches and stones half buried in the ground. Every inch of ground had its owner, even to the tops of the mountains. Trespass by a neighbouring village would be resisted, if necessary, by force of arms.[43]

In regard to personal property it may be said that, like landed property, it belonged rather to the family than to the individual; for no Samoan could refuse to give, without an equivalent, anything which any member of his family asked for. In this way boats, tools, garments, and so forth passed freely from hand to hand. Nay, a man could enter the plantation of a relative and help himself to the fruit without asking the owner's leave; such an appropriation was not considered to be stealing. Under this communistic system, as it has been called, accumulation of property was scarcely possible, and industry was discouraged. Why should a diligent man toil when he knew that the fruit of his labour might all be consumed by lazy kinsfolk? He might lay out a plantation of bananas, and when they were full-grown, bunch after bunch might be plucked and eaten by his less industrious relations, until, exasperated beyond endurance, the unfortunate owner would cut down all the remaining trees. No matter how hard a man worked, he could not keep his earnings; they all soon passed out of his hands into the common stock of the clan. The system, we are told, ate like a canker-worm at the roots of individual and national progress.[44]

§ 5. Government, Social Ranks, Respect for Chiefs

The native government of Samoa was not, like that of Tonga, a centralised despotism. Under the form of a monarchy and aristocracy the political constitution was fundamentally republican and indeed democratic. The authority of the king and chiefs was limited and more or less nominal; practically Samoa consisted of a large number of petty independent and self-governing communities, which sometimes combined for defence or common action in a sort of loose federation.[45]

To a superficial observer the aristocratic cast of Samoan society might at first sight seem very marked. The social ranks were sharply divided from each other, and the inferior orders paid great formal deference to their superiors. At the head of all ranked the chiefs (alii); but even among them the ordinary chiefs were distinct from the sacred chiefs (alii paia), who enjoyed the highest honours. These sacred chiefs preserved their pedigrees for twenty or more generations with as great care as the oldest and proudest families in Europe, and they possessed many feudal rights and privileges which were as well known and as fully acknowledged as are, or were, those of any lord of a manor in England. The task of preserving a record of a chief's pedigrees was entrusted to his orator or spokesman, who belonged to a lower social rank (that of the tulafales).[46] The influence of chiefs was supported by the belief that they possessed some magical or supernatural power, by which they could enforce their decisions.[47] Their persons were sacred or taboo. They might not be touched by any one. No one might sit beside them. In the public assemblies a vacant place was left on each side of the seat of honour which they occupied. Some chiefs were so holy that they might not even be looked at by day. Their food might not be handed to them, but was thrown to them, and it was so sacred that no one might eat any of it which they had left over.[48]

"The sacredness attributed to many chiefs of high rank gave rise to observances which were irksome to their families and dependents, since whatever they came in contact with required to undergo the ceremony of lulu‛u, or sprinkling with a particular kind of cocoanut-water (niu-ui); both to remove the sanctity supposed to be communicated to the article or place that had touched the chief, and also to counteract the danger of speedy death, which was believed to be imminent to any person who might touch the sacred chief, or anything that he had touched; so great was the mantle of sanctity thrown around these chiefs, although unconnected with the priesthood. Thus the spot where such a chief had sat or slept was sprinkled with water immediately he had left it, as were also the persons who had sat on either side of him when he received company, as well as all the attendants who had waited upon him.

"This remarkable custom was also observed on other occasions. It was always used on the occasion of deposing a chief, and depriving him of his Ao, or titles, in which case the ceremony was performed by some of those who had either conferred the titles or had the power to do so. In the case of O le Tamafainga, the usurper who was killed in A‛ana in 1829, his body was first sprinkled with cocoanut-water, and his title of O le Tuia‛ana recalled from him, before he was hewn in pieces. The ceremony consisted of sprinkling the body with cocoanut-water, and the officiating chief or Tulafale saying, 'Give us back our Ao,' by which means the title was recalled, and the sacredness attaching to it was dispelled. It was also used over persons newly tattooed, and upon those who contaminated themselves by contact with a dead body. In each of these cases the ceremony was carefully observed, and reverently attended to, as very dire consequences were considered certain to follow its omission."[49] Thus the sacredness of a chief was deemed dangerous to all persons with whom he might come, whether directly or indirectly, into contact; it was apparently conceived as a sort of electric fluid which discharged itself, it might be with fatal effect, on whatever it touched. And the sacredness of a chief was clearly classed with the uncleanness of a dead body, since contact with a dead body involved the same dangerous consequences as contact with the sacred person of a chief and had to be remedied in precisely the same manner. The two conceptions of holiness and uncleanness, which to us seem opposite and even contradictory, blend in the idea of taboo, in which both are implicitly held as it were in solution. It requires the analytic tendency of more advanced thought to distinguish the two conceptions, to precipitate, as it were, the components of the solution in the testing-tube of the mind.

The profound respect which the Samoans entertained for their chiefs manifested itself in yet another fashion. A special form of speech was adopted in addressing a chief, in conversing in his presence, or even in alluding to him in his absence. Thus there arose what is called a chiefs' language, or polite diction, which was used exclusively in speaking to or of a chief, whether the speaker was a common man or a chief of lower rank. But it was never used by a chief when he was speaking of himself. Persons of high rank, in addressing others and alluding to themselves, always employed ordinary language and sometimes the very lowest terms; so that it was often amusing to listen to expressions of feigned humility uttered by a proud man, who would have been indignant indeed if the same terms which he applied to himself had been applied to him by others. Thus, for example, the actions of sitting, talking, eating, sleeping, and dying were expressed by different terms according as the agent was a chief or a common man. The ordinary word for a house was fale; but a chief's house was called maota. The common word for anger was ita; the polite term was toasa. To sleep in ordinary language was moe, but in polite language it was tofā or toá. To be sick in common speech was mai, but in polite language it was ngasengase, faatafa, pulu pulusi. To die was mate or pe (said of animals), or oti (said of men); but the courtly expressions for death were maliu ("gone"), folau ("gone on a voyage"), fale-lauasi, ngasololo ao, and a number of others. The terms substituted in the court language sometimes had a meaning the very opposite of that borne by the corresponding terms in the ordinary language. For example, in the court language firewood was called polata, which properly means the stem of the banana plant, a wood that is incombustible. If the use of an ordinary word in the presence of a chief were unavoidable, it had to be prefaced by the apologetic phrase veaeane, literally "saving your presence," every time the word was spoken. Nay, the courtly language itself varied with the rank of the chief addressed or alluded to. For example, if you wished to say that a person had come, you would say alu of a common man; alala of a head of a household or landowner (tulafale); maliu of a petty chief; susu of a chief of the second class; and afiu of a chief of the highest rank.[50] The same respect which was shown in the use of words descriptive of a chief's actions or possessions was naturally extended to his own name, when he belonged to the class of sacred chiefs. If his name happened to be also the name of a common object, it ceased to be used to designate the thing in question, and a new word or phrase was substituted for it. Henceforth the old name of the object was dropped and might never again be pronounced in the chief's district nor indeed anywhere in his presence. In one district, for example, the chief's name was Flying-fox; hence the ordinary word for flying-fox (re'a) was dropped, and that species of bat was known as "bird of heaven" (manu langi).[51] Again, when the chief of Pango-pango, in the island of Tutuila, was called Maunga, which means "mountain," that word might never be used in his presence, and a courtly term was substituted for it.[52] This is only one instance of the ways in which the dialects of savages tend to vary from each other under the influence of superstition.

Yet despite the extraordinary deference thus paid to chiefs in outward show, the authority which they possessed was for the most part very limited; indeed in the ordinary affairs of life the powers and privileges of a chief were little more than nominal, and he moved about among the people and shared their everyday employments just like a common man. Thus, for example, he would go out with a fishing party, work in his plantation, help at building a house or a canoe, and even lend a hand in cooking at a native oven. So strong was the democratic spirit among the Samoans. The ordinary duties of a chief consisted in administering the law, settling disputes, punishing transgressors, appointing feasts, imposing taboos, and leading his people in war. It was in time of war that a chief's dignity and authority were at their highest, but even then he could hardly maintain strict discipline.[53] However, the influence of chiefs varied a good deal and depended in great measure on their personal character. If besides his hereditary rank a chief was a man of energy and ability, he might become practically supreme in his village or district. Some chiefs even used their power in a very tyrannical manner.[54]

But for the abuse of power by their nominal rulers the Samoans had a remedy at hand. When a chief rendered himself odious to his people by tyranny and oppression, the householders or gentry (tulafales) and neighbouring chiefs would not uncommonly depose him and transfer his office to another; in extreme cases they might banish him or even put him to death. The place of banishment for exiled chiefs was the island of Tutuila. Thither the fallen potentate was conveyed under custody in a canoe, and on landing he was made to run the gauntlet between two rows of the inhabitants, who belaboured him with sticks, pelted him with stones, or subjected him to other indignities. He was lucky if he escaped with nothing worse than bruises, for sometimes the injuries inflicted were severe or actually fatal.[55] Chieftainship was hereditary in the male line, but did not necessarily pass from father to son; the usual heir would seem to have been the eldest surviving brother, and next to him one of the sons. But a dying chief might nominate his successor, though the final decision rested with the heads of families. Failing a male heir, a daughter might be appointed to, or might assume, the prerogative of chieftainship.[56]

In addition to their hereditary nobility chiefs might be raised to higher rank by the possession of titles (ao), which were in the gift of certain ruling towns or villages. When four or, according to another account, five of these titles were conferred upon a single chief, he was called o le tupu, or King of Samoa. But if the constituencies were not unanimous in their choice of a candidate, the throne might remain vacant for long periods. Thus the monarchy of Samoa was elective; the king was chosen by a hereditary aristocracy, and his powers were tempered by the rights and privileges of the nobility. Yet under the show of a limited monarchy the constitution was essentially a federal republic.[57] The ceremony of anointing a King of Samoa in ancient times appears to have curiously resembled a similar solemnity in monarchical Europe. It took place in presence of a large assembly of chiefs and people. A sacred stone was consecrated as a throne, or rather stool, on which the king stood, while a priest, who must also be a chief, called upon the gods to behold and bless the king, and pronounced denunciations against such as should fail to obey him. He then poured scented oil from a native bottle over the head, shoulders, and body of the king, and proclaimed his several titles and honours.[58]

Next below the chiefs ranked an inferior order of nobility called tulafales or faipules, who are variously described as householders, councillors, and secondary chiefs. They formed a very powerful and influential class; indeed we are told that they generally exercised greater authority than the chiefs, and that the real control of districts often centred in their hands. They usually owned large lands: they were the principal advisers of the chiefs: the orators were usually selected from their number: the ao or titles of districts were always in their gift; and they had the power, which they did not scruple to use, of deposing and banishing an unpopular chief. Sometimes a chief contrived to bring them into subjection to himself; but as a rule they were a sturdy class, who did not shrink from speaking out their minds to their social superiors, often uttering very unpalatable truths and acting with great determination when the conduct of a chief incurred their displeasure. In short, they made laws, levied fines, and generally ruled the village.[59]

Below the tulafales ranked the faleupolu or House of Upolu, and the tangata nuu or Men of the Land. The former were considerable landowners and possessed much influence; the latter were the humblest class, bearing arms in time of war, and cultivating the soil, fishing, and cooking in time of peace. But they were far from being serfs; most of them were eligible for the position of head of a family, if, when a vacancy occurred, the choice of the family fell upon them.[60] For the title of head of a family was not hereditary. A son might succeed his father in the dignity; but the members of the family would sometimes pass over the son and confer the title on an uncle, a cousin, or even a perfect stranger, if they desired to increase the numerical strength of the family.[61]

The villages of the Samoans were practically self-governing and independent communities, though every village was more or less loosely federated with the other villages of its district. Each district or confederation of villages had its capital (laumua) or ruling town. These federal capitals, however, possessed no absolute authority over the other villages of the district; and though great respect was always shown to them, the people of the district, or even of a particular village, would often dissent from the decisions of the capital and assert their independence of action.[62] Of this independence a notable instance occurred when the Catholic missionaries first settled in Samoa. Under the influence of the Protestant missionaries a federal assembly had passed a decree strictly forbidding the admission of Roman Catholics to the islands, and threatening with war any community that should dare to harbour the obnoxious sect. The better to enforce the decree, prayers were publicly offered up in the chapels that God would be pleased to keep all Papists out of Samoa. To these charitable petitions the deity seems to have turned a deaf ear; for, in spite of prayers and prohibitions, two Catholic priests and a lay brother landed and were hospitably received and effectually protected by the people of a village, who paid no heed either to the remonstrances of the chiefs or to the thunders of the federal assembly.[63]

The population of a village might be from two to five hundred persons, and there might be eight or ten villages in a district. Throughout the Samoan islands there were in all eight of these separate districts. The union of the villages in a district was voluntary; they formed by common consent a petty state for their mutual protection. When war was threatened by another district, no single village acted alone; the whole district, or state, assembled at their capital and held a special parliament to concert the measures to be taken.[64] The boundaries of the districts were well known and zealously guarded, if necessary, by force of arms against the aggression of a neighbouring state. The wardenship of the marches was committed to the two nearest villages on either side, the inhabitants of which were called Boundary-Keepers. Between two such villages in former days mutual ill-feeling constantly existed and border feuds were frequent.[65]

The form of government both of the village and of the district was parliamentary. Affairs were discussed and settled in a representative assembly (fono), composed of the leading men of each village or district. These representatives included the chiefs, together with the householders or landowners (tulafales) and the inferior gentry (the faleupolu). The more weighty affairs, such as declaring war or making peace, or any matters of importance which concerned the whole district, were debated in the general parliament of the district, while business of purely local interest was transacted in the parliament of the village. It was the privilege of the capital to convene the district parliament, to preside over its deliberations, to settle disputed points, to sum up the proceedings, and to dismiss the assembly. These meetings were usually conducted with much formality and decorum. They were always held in the large public place (malae or marae) of the village or town. It was an open green spot surrounded by a circle of trees and houses. The centre was occupied by a large house which belonged to the chief and was set apart as a caravansary for the entertainment of strangers and visitors. Members of all the three orders which composed the parliament had the right to address it; but the speaking was usually left to the householders or landowners (tulafales). Each chief had generally attached to him one of that order who acted as his mouthpiece; and in like manner each settlement retained the services of a member of the order, who was the leading orator of the district. Decisions were reached not by voting but by general consent, the discussion being prolonged until some conclusion, satisfactory to the greater part of the members, and particularly to the most influential, was arrived at. One of the principal prerogatives of the king seems to have been that of convoking a parliament; though, if he refused to do so, when circumstances seemed to require it, the assembly would undoubtedly have met without him. The functions of these assemblies were judicial as well as legislative and deliberative. Offenders were arraigned before them and, if found guilty, were condemned and punished.[66]

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. Of these axes the rougher were chipped, but the finer were ground. Shells were used as cutting instruments and as punches to bore holes in planks; and combs, neatly carved out of bone, were employed as instruments in tattooing. A wooden dibble served them instead of a plough to turn up the earth. The only skins they prepared were those of sharks and some other fish, which they used as rasps for smoothing woodwork. The art of pottery was unknown.[67] Food was cooked in ovens of hot stones;[68] fire was kindled by the friction of wood, the method adopted being what is called the stick-and-groove process.[69]

We now pass to a consideration of the religion of these interesting people, especially in regard to the human soul and its destiny after death.

§ 6. Religion: Gods of Families, Villages, and Districts

The first missionary to Samoa, John Williams, was struck by the contrast between the religion of the Samoans and the religion of the other Polynesian peoples whom he had studied. "The religious system of the Samoans," he says, "differs essentially from that which obtained at the Tahitian, Society, and other islands with which we are acquainted. They have neither maraes, nor temples, nor altars, nor offerings; and, consequently, none of the barbarous and sanguinary rites observed at the other groups. In consequence of this, the Samoans were considered an impious race, and their impiety became proverbial with the people of Rarotonga; for, when upbraiding a person who neglected the worship of the gods, they would call him 'a godless Samoan.' But, although heathenism was presented to us by the Samoans in a dress different from that in which we had been accustomed to see it, having no altars stained with human blood, no maraes strewed with the skulls and bones of its numerous victims, no sacred groves devoted to rites of which brutality and sensuality were the most obvious features, this people had 'lords many and gods many';—their religious system was as obviously marked as any other with absurdity, superstition, and vice."[70]

This account of the Samoan religion, written at a time when the islands were not yet fully opened up to Europeans, must be modified by the testimony of later writers, in particular with regard to the alleged absence of temples and offerings; but in its broad outlines it holds good, in so far as the Samoan ritual was honourably distinguished from that of many other islands in the Pacific by its freedom from human sacrifice and from the gross and licentious practices which prevailed in other branches of the Polynesian race. The notion of the Rarotongans that the Samoans were a godless people has proved to be totally mistaken. On closer acquaintance it was found that they lived under the influence of a host of imaginary deities who exercised their faith and demanded their obedience. Among these deities the most numerous and perhaps the most influential were the aitu, which were the gods of individuals, of families, of towns or villages, and of districts.[71] These gods were supposed to appear in some visible embodiment or incarnation, and the particular thing, or class of things, in which his god was in the habit of appearing, was to the Samoan an object of veneration, and he took great care never to injure it or treat it with contempt. In the great majority of cases the thing in which the deity presented himself to his worshippers was a class of natural objects, most commonly a species of animal, bird, or fish, less frequently a tree or plant or an inanimate object, such as a stone, the rainbow, or a meteor. One man, for example, saw his god in the eel, another in the shark, another in the turtle, another in the owl, another in the lizard, and so on throughout all the fish of the sea, the birds, the four-footed beasts, and creeping things. In some of the shell-fish, such as the limpets on the rocks, gods were supposed to be present. It was not uncommon to see an intelligent chief muttering prayers to a fly, an ant, or a lizard, which chanced to alight or crawl in his presence. A man would eat freely of the incarnation of another man's god, but would most scrupulously refrain from eating of the incarnation of his own particular god, believing that death would be the consequence of such sacrilege. The offended god was supposed to take up his abode in the body of the impious eater and to generate there the very thing which he had eaten, till it caused his death. For example, if a man, whose family god was incarnate in the prickly sea-urchin (Echinus), were to eat of a sea-urchin, it was believed that a prickly sea-urchin would grow in his body and kill him. If his family god were incarnate in the turtle, and he was rash enough to eat a turtle, the god would enter into him, and his voice would be heard from within the sinner's body, saying, "I am killing this man; he ate my incarnation." Occasionally, however, the penalty exacted by the deity was less severe. If, for instance, a man's god was in cockles, and he ate one of these shell-fish, a cockle would grow on his nose; if he merely picked up a cockle on the shore and walked away with it, the shell-fish would appear on some part of his person. But in neither case, apparently, would the kindly cockle take the life of the offender. It was not a bloodthirsty deity. Again, a man whose god was in coco-nuts would never drink the refreshing beverage which other people were free to extract from the nuts. But the worshipper who shrank from eating or drinking his god in the shape, say, of an octopus or of coco-nut water, would often look on with indifference while other people partook of these his divinities. He might pity their ignorance or envy their liberty, but he would not seek to enlighten the one or to restrain the other.[72] Indeed this indifference was sometimes carried to great lengths. For example, a man whose god was incarnate in the turtle, though he would not himself dare to partake of turtle, would have no scruple in helping a neighbour to cut up and cook a turtle; but in doing so he took the precaution to tie a bandage over his mouth to prevent an embryo turtle from slipping down his throat and sealing his doom by growing up in his stomach.[73] Sometimes the incarnate deity, out of consideration perhaps for the weakness of the flesh, would limit his presence to a portion of an animal, it might be the left wing of a pigeon, or the tail of a dog, or the right leg of a pig.[74] The advantages of such a restriction to a worshipper are obvious. A man, for instance, to whom it would have been death to eat the right leg of a pig, might partake of a left leg of pork with safety and even with gusto. And so with the rest of the divine menagery.

However, even if the worst had happened, that is to say, if the deity had been killed, cooked and eaten, the consequences were not necessarily fatal to his worshippers; there were modes of redeeming the lives of the sinners and of expiating their sin. Suppose, for example, that the god of a household was the cuttle-fish, and that some visitor to the house had, either in ignorance or in bravado, caught a cuttle-fish and cooked it, or that a member of the family had been present where a cuttle-fish was eaten, the family would meet in conclave to consult about the sacrilege, and they would select one of their number, whether a man or a woman, to go and lie down in a cold oven and be covered over with leaves, just as in the process of baking, all to pretend that the person was being offered up as a burnt sacrifice to avert the wrath of the deity. While this solemn pretence was being enacted, the whole family would engage in prayer, saying, "O bald-headed cuttle-fish, forgive what has been done. It was all the work of a stranger." If they did not thus abase themselves before the divine cuttle-fish, they believed that the god would visit them and cause a cuttle-fish to grow internally in their bodies and so be the death of some of them.[75] Similar modes of appeasing the wrath of divine eels, mullets, stinging ray fish, turtles, wild pigeons, and garden lizards were adopted with equal success.[76]

Apparently the Samoans were even more concerned to defend their village gods or district gods against injury and insult than to guard the deities of simple individuals. We are told that all the inhabitants of a district would thus unite for the protection of the local divinity.[77] For example, it happened that in a village where the first native Christian teachers settled one of them caught a sea-eel (Muraena) and cooked it, and two of the village lads, who were their servants, ate some of the eel for their supper. But the eel was the village god, and when the villagers heard that the lads had eaten the god, they administered a sound thrashing to the culprits, and dragged them off to a cooking-house where they laid them down in the oven pit and covered them with leaves in the usual way, as if the lads had been killed and were now to be cooked as a peace-offering to avert the wrath of the deity.[78] When John Williams had caused some Christian natives to kill a large sea-snake and dry it on the rocks to be preserved as a specimen, the heathen fishermen of the island at sight of it raised a most terrific yell, and, seizing their clubs, rushed upon the Christian natives, saying, "You have killed our god! You have killed our god!" It was with difficulty that Mr. Williams restrained their violence on condition that the reptile should be immediately carried back to the boat from which the missionary had landed.[79] The island in which this happened belonged to the Tongan group, but precisely the same incident might have occurred in Samoa. In some parts of Upolu a goddess was believed to be incarnate in bats, and if a neighbour chanced to kill one of these creatures, the indignant worshippers of the bat might wage a war to avenge the insult to their deity.[80] If people who had the stinging ray fish for the incarnation of their god heard that their neighbours had caught a fish of that sort, they would go and beg them to give it up and not to cook it. A refusal to comply with the request would be followed by a fight.[81]

Accordingly, when the Samoans were converted to Christianity, they gave the strongest proof of the genuineness of their conversion by killing and eating their animal gods. Thus when a chief named Malietoa renounced heathenism, he caused an eel to be publicly caught, cooked, and eaten by many persons who had hitherto regarded the eel as their god. His own sons had a different sort of fish, called anae, for their private deity, and to demonstrate their faith in the new religion they had a quantity of the fish caught, cooked, and served up in the presence of a large party of friends and relations. There, with trembling hearts, they partook of the once sacred morsel; but, their fears getting the better of them, they immediately retired from the feast and swallowed a powerful emetic, lest the divine fish should lie heavy on their stomachs and devour their vitals.[82] As nothing particular happened after these daring innovations, the people took heart of grace, and concerted further plans for the destruction of their ancient deities. Among these was a certain Papo, who was nothing more or less than a piece of old rotten matting, about three yards long and four inches wide; but being a god of war and, in that capacity, always attached to the canoe of the leader when they went forth to battle, he was regarded with great veneration by the people. At the assembly convoked to decide on his fate, the first proposal was to throw him into the fire. But the idea was too shocking to the general sense of the community, and by way of making death as little painful as possible to the deity, they decided to take him out to sea in a canoe and there consign him to a watery grave. Even from this mitigated doom Papo was rescued by the efforts of the missionaries, and he now adorns a museum.[83]

But even when the career of one of these animal gods was not prematurely cut short by being killed, cooked, and eaten, he was still liable to die in the course of nature; and when his dead body was discovered, great was the sorrow of his worshippers. If, for example, the god of a village was an owl, and a dead owl was found lying beside a road or under a tree, it would be reverently covered up with a white cloth by the person who discovered it, and all the villagers would assemble round the dead god and burn their bodies with firebrands and beat their foreheads with stones till the blood flowed. Then the corpse of the feathered deity would be wrapped up and buried with as much care and ceremony as if it were a human body. However, that was not the death of the god. He was supposed to be yet alive and incarnate in all the owls in existence.[84]

The offerings to these deities consisted chiefly of cooked food,[85] which was apparently deemed as essential to the sustenance of gods as of men, and that even when the gods were not animals but stones. For example, two oblong smooth stones, which stood on a platform of loose stones near a village, were regarded as the parents of the rain-god, and when the people were making ready to go off to the woods for the favourite sport of pigeon-catching, they used to lay offerings of cooked taro and fish on the stones, accompanied by prayers for fine weather and no rain. These stone gods were also believed to cause yams to grow; hence in time of dearth a man would present them with a yam in hope of securing their favour.[86]

At the feasts the first cup of kava was dedicated to the god, the presiding chief either pouring it out on the ground or waving it towards the sky. Afterwards all the chiefs drank from the same cup according to their rank; then the food brought as an offering was divided and eaten there before the god.[87] Even within the circle of the family it was customary to pour out on the ground a little kava as an offering to the family god before any one else drank of it.[88]

Annual feasts were held in honour of the gods, and the season of the feast was often in May, but sometimes in April or June.[89] In some cases the feasts were regulated by the appearance of the bird which was believed to be the incarnation of the god. Whenever the bird was seen, the priest would say that the god had come, and he would fix upon a day for the entertainment of the deity.[90] At these festivals all the people met in the place of public assembly, where they had collected heaps of cooked food. First, they made their offerings to the god and prayed to him to avert calamity and grant prosperity; then they feasted with and before their god, and after that any strangers present might eat. Some of the festivals included games, such as wrestling, spear-throwing, club exercises, sham-fights, and nocturnal dances; and they lasted for days.[91] At one of these annual festivals held in the month of June, the exercise with clubs assumed a serious and indeed sanguinary form. All the people, old and young, men, women, and children, took part in it, and battered their scalps till the blood streamed down over their faces and bodies. This proof of their devotion was supposed to be acceptable to the deity, who, gratified by the sight of their flowing blood, would answer their prayers for health, good crops, and victory in war.[92] At the feast of the cockle god in May prayers were offered up to the divine shell-fish that he would be pleased to cure the coughs and other ailments usually prevalent at that season, which in Samoa forms the transition from the wet to the dry months.[93] At the festival of an owl god, which fell about the month of April, the offerings and prayers were particularly directed towards the removal of caterpillars from the plantations; for these insects were believed to be the servants of the owl god, who could send them as his ministers of vengeance to lay waste the fields and orchards of the impious.[94] Elsewhere the owl was a war god, and at the beginning of the annual fish festivals the chiefs and people of the village assembled round the opening of the first oven and gave the first fish to the god.[95] A family, who had the eel for their household god, showed their gratitude to him for his kindness by presenting him with the first fruits of their taro plantation.[96] Another family believed their deity to be incarnate in centipedes; and if a member of the family fell ill or was bitten by a centipede, they would offer the divine reptile a fine mat and a fan, with a prayer for the recovery of the patient.[97] The utility of a fine mat and a fan to a centipede is too obvious to be insisted on. Sometimes offerings were made to a god, not to persuade him to come, but to induce him to go away. For example, where gods or spirits were believed to voyage along the coast, offerings of food were often set down on the beach as an inducement to the spirits to take the victuals and pass on without calling at that particular place.[98]

Formal prayers were offered to the god by the head of a family, and public prayer was put up when the men were setting out for war. On such occasions they prayed that stones, stumps of trees, and other obstacles might be taken out of the way of the warriors, and that their path might be wet with the blood of their foes. All their prayers were for temporal benefits, such as protection against enemies, plenty of food, and other desirable objects. They attached great importance to confession of wrongdoing in times of danger, but, so far as appears, they expressed no repentance, promised no amendment, and offered no prayer for forgiveness. If, for example, a canoe, crossing the channel between Savaii and Upolu, were caught in a squall and seemed likely to be swamped, the steersman would head the canoe to the wind, and every man on board would make a clean breast of his sins. One would say, "I stole a fowl at such and such a village." Another would confess an intrigue with a married woman somewhere else; and so on. When all had either confessed their guilt or declared their innocence, the helmsman would put the helm about and scud before the wind, in perfect confidence of bringing the canoe and crew safe to land.[99]

When a god was believed to be incarnate in a species of birds or animals or fish, omens were naturally drawn from the appearance and behaviour of the creatures. This happened particularly in time of war, when hopes and fears were rife among the people. Thus, if their war god was an owl, and the bird fluttered above the troops on the march, the omen was good; but if the owl flew away in the direction of the enemy, it was an evil omen, the god had deserted them and joined the foe;[100] if it crossed the path of the warriors or flew back on them, it was a warning to retreat.[101] So in places where the war-god was a rail-bird, if the bird screeched and flew before the army, the people marched confidently to battle; but if it turned and flew back, they hesitated. If the plumage of the rail showed glossy red, it was a sign to go to war; but if the feathers were dark and dingy, it was a warning to stay at home. And if the bird were heard chattering or scolding, as they called it, at midnight, it prognosticated an attack next day, and they would at once send off the women and children to a place of safety.[102] In like manner omens were drawn from the flight of herons, kingfishers, the Porphyris Samoensis, and flying-foxes, where these creatures were supposed to incarnate the war god.[103] People who saw their war god in the lizard used to take omens from a lizard before they went forth to fight. They watched the movements of a lizard in a bundle of spears. If the creature ran about the outside of the bundle and the points of the spears, the omen was favourable; but if it crept into the bundle for concealment, it was an evil sign.[104] The inhabitants of several villages looked upon dogs, especially white dogs, as the incarnation of their war god; accordingly if the dog wagged his tail, barked, and dashed ahead in sight of the enemy, it was a good omen; but if he retreated or howled, their hearts failed them.[105] Again, where the cuttle-fish was the war god, the movements of that fish at sea were anxiously observed in time of war. If the fish swam inshore while the people were mustering for battle, it augured victory; but if it swam far away, it portended defeat.[106]

When a god was supposed to dwell in some inanimate object, the art of divination was similarly employed to elicit a knowledge of the future from an observation of the object, whatever it might be. In several villages, for example, the people viewed a rainbow as the representative of their war god. If, when they were going to battle by land or sea, a rainbow appeared in the sky right in front of them, with the arch, as it were, straddling across the line of march or the course that the fleet was steering, it was a warning to turn back. But if the bow shone on the right or left of the army or of the fleet, it meant that the god was marching with them, and cheering on the advance.[107] Another village revered its god in the lightning. When lightning flashed frequently in time of war, it was believed that the god had come to help and direct his people. A constant play of lightning over a particular spot was a warning that the enemy was lurking there in ambush. A rapid succession of flashes in front meant that the foe was being driven back; but if the lightning flashed from front to rear, it was a signal to retreat.[108] In one large village the war god resided in two teeth of the sperm whale, which were kept in a cave and observed by a priest in time of war. If the teeth were found lying east and west, it was a good omen; but if they lay north and south, it prognosticated defeat.[109] In another place the war god was present in a bundle of shark's teeth, and the people consulted the bundle before they went out to fight. If the bundle felt heavy, it foreboded ill; but if it was light, it was an omen of victory, and the troops marched with hearts correspondingly light.[110]

When the god was incarnate in a live creature, it was an obvious advantage to ensure his constant presence and blessing by owning a specimen of his incarnation and feeding it. Hence some folk kept a tame god on their premises. For instance, some people possessed a war god in the shape of a pet owl;[111] others had a divine pigeon, which was carefully kept and fed by the different members of the family in turn.[112] Yet others were so fortunate as to capture the thunder god and to keep him in durance, which effectually prevented him from doing mischief. Having caught him, they tied him up with pandanus leaves and frightened him by poking firebrands at him. And lest, as an old offender, he should attempt to break prison and relapse into his former career of crime, they filled a basket with pandanus leaves and charred firebrands and hung it up on a tree in terrorem, to signify what he might expect to get if he took it into his head to strike houses again.[113]

Vegetable gods were much less plentiful than animal gods in Samoa. Still they occurred. Thus, the god of one family lived in a large tree (Hernandia peltata); hence no member of the family dared to pluck a leaf or break a branch of that tree.[114] The household deity of another family dwelt in a tree of a different sort (Conanga odorata), which has yellow and sweet-scented flowers.[115] In Savaii the special abode of a village god called Tuifiti or "King of Fiji" was a grove of large and durable trees (Afzelia bijuga). No one dared to cut that timber. It is said that a party of natives from another island once tried to fell one of these trees; but blood flowed from the trunk, and all the sacrilegious strangers fell ill and died.[116] One family saw their god in the moon. On the appearance of the new moon all the members of the family called out, "Child of the moon, you have come." They assembled also, presented offerings of food, feasted together, and joined in praying, "Oh, child of the moon! Keep far away disease and death." And they also prayed to the moon before they set out on the war path.[117] But in Samoa, as in Tonga, there seems to be no record of a worship of the sun, unless the stories of human sacrifices formerly offered to the great luminary be regarded as reminiscences of sun-worship.[118]

§ 7. Priests and Temples

The father of a family acted as the priest of the household god. He usually offered a short prayer at the evening meal, begging the deity to guard them all from war, sickness, death, and the payment of fines. Sometimes he would direct the family to hold a feast in honour of their god, and on these occasions a cup of kava was poured out as a libation to the divinity. Such simple domestic rites were celebrated in the house, where the whole family assembled; for the gods were believed to be present with men in a spiritual and invisible form as well as in the material objects which were regarded as their visible embodiments. Often the deity spoke through the father or other members of the family, telling them what to do in order to remove a present evil or avert a threatened one.[119]

But while every head of a family might thus act as a domestic priest and mouthpiece of the deity, there was also a professional class of priests set apart for the public worship of the gods, particularly of the war gods, who in their nature did not differ essentially from the gods of families, of villages, and of districts, being commonly embodied either in particular material objects or in classes of such objects, especially in various species of birds, animals, and fish, such as owls, rails, kingfishers, dogs, lizards, flying-foxes, and cuttle-fish. Sometimes the ruling chiefs acted as priests; but in general some one man in a particular family claimed the dignity of the priesthood and professed to declare the will of the god. His office was hereditary. He fixed the days for the annual feasts in honour of the deity, received the offerings, and thanked the people for them. He decided also whether the people might go to war.[120] The priests possessed great authority over the minds of the people, and they often availed themselves of their influence to amass wealth.[121] The gods were supposed from time to time to take possession of the priests and to speak through their mouths, answering enquiries and issuing commands. Thus consulted as an oracle the priest, or the god through him, might complain that the people had been slack in making offerings of food and property, and he would threaten them with vengeance if they did not speedily bring an ample supply to the human representative of the deity. At other times the god required a whole family to assemble and build him a large canoe or a house, and such a command was always obeyed with alacrity and a humble apology tendered for past neglect. The priests were also consulted oracularly for the healing of the sick, the recovery of stolen property, and the cursing of enemies. Thus they kept the people in constant fear by their threats and impoverished them by their exactions.[122]

The outward signs of divine inspiration or possession were such as priests or prophets have manifested in many lands and ages as conclusive evidence of their being the vehicles of higher powers. The approach or presence of the god was indicated by the priest beginning to gape, yawn, and clear his throat; but soon his countenance changed, his body underwent violent contortions, and in loud, unearthly tones, which the trembling and awe-stricken hearers interpreted as the voice of an indwelling deity, he delivered his message of exhortation or warning, of menace, or comfort, or hope.[123]

Spirit-houses (fale-aitu) or temples were erected for some, but not all, of the class of deities (aitu) which we are now considering. It was chiefly the war gods who were thus honoured. Such temples were built with the same materials and in the same style as the houses of men, with nothing to distinguish them from ordinary dwellings, except that they almost always stood on platforms of stones, which varied in height and size with the respect felt for the particular deity. They were usually situated on the principal public place or green (malae) of the village and surrounded by a low fence. Sometimes they were mere huts; yet being viewed as the abode of gods they were held sacred and regarded with great veneration by the Samoans in the olden time. Whatever emblems of deity were in possession of the village were always placed in these houses under the watchful care of keepers.[124] In one temple, for instance, might be seen a conch shell hung from the roof in a basket. This shell the god was supposed to blow when he wished the people to go to war. In another a cup made of the shell of a coco-nut was suspended from the roof, and before it prayers were uttered and offerings presented. The cup was also used in an ordeal for the detection of theft. In a trial before chiefs the cup would be sent for, and each of the suspected culprits would lay his hand on it and say, "With my hand on this cup, may the god look upon me, and send swift destruction, if I took the thing which has been stolen." They firmly believed that it would be death to touch the cup and tell a lie.[125]

The temples were always built by the united exertions of a whole family, village, or district.[126] For example, when the inhabitants of a village whose god was the cuttle-fish erected a new temple to that deity, every man, woman, and child in the village contributed something to it, if it was only a stick or a reed of thatch. While some of the villagers were drafted off to put up the house, the rest engaged in a free fight, which appears to have been considered as a necessary part of the proceedings. On this occasion many old scores were settled, and he who got most wounds was believed to have earned the special favour of the deity. With the completion of the temple the fighting ended, and ought not to be renewed for a year, till the anniversary of the building of the temple came round, when the worshippers were again at liberty to break each other's heads in honour of the divine cuttle-fish.[127]

At one place in Savaii there was a temple in which a priest constantly resided. The sick used to be carried to him in the temple and there laid down with offerings of fine mats. Thereupon the priest stroked the diseased part, and the patient was supposed to recover.[128] We hear of another temple in which fine mats were brought as offerings to the priests and stored up in large numbers among the temple treasures. Thus in time the temples might have amassed a considerable degree of wealth and might even, if economic progress had not been arrested by European intervention, have developed into banks. However, when the people were converted to Christianity, they destroyed this particular temple and dissipated the accumulated treasures in a single feast by way of celebrating their adhesion to the new faith.[129] Where the bat was the local deity, many bats used to flock about the temple in time of war.[130] Where the kingfisher received the homage of the people as the god of war, the old men of the village were wont to enter his temple in times of public emergency and address the kingfisher; and people outside could hear the bird replying, though, singularly enough, his voice was that of a man, and not that of a bird. But as usual the god was invisible.[131] In one place a temple of the great god Tangaloa was called "the House of the Gods," and it was carefully shut up all round, the people thinking that, if this precaution were not taken, the gods would get out and in too easily and be all the more destructive.[132] Such a temple might be considered rather as a prison than a house of the gods.

To the rule that Samoan temples were built of the same perishable materials as ordinary houses a single exception is known. About ten miles inland from the harbour of Apia, in the island of Upolu, are the ruins of a temple, of which the central and side posts and the rafters were all constructed of stone. The ground plan seems to have resembled that of an ordinary Samoan house of the best style, forming an ellipse which measured fifty feet in one direction by forty feet in the other. Two central pillars appear to have supported the roof, each fashioned of a single block of stone some thirteen feet high, twelve inches thick one way and nine inches the other. The rafters were in lengths of twelve feet and six feet, by four inches square. Of the outside pillars, which upheld the lower edge of the sloping roof, eighteen were seen standing by Pritchard, who has described the ruins. Each pillar stood three feet high and measured nine inches thick in one way by six inches in the other. Each had a notch or shoulder on the inner side for supporting the roof. Pillars and rafters were quarried from an adjoining bluff, distant only some fifty yards from the ruins. Some squared stones lying at the foot of the bluff seem to show that the temple was never completed. The site of the ruins is a flat about three acres in area. The natives call the ruins Fale-o-le-Fe‛e, that is, the House of the Fe‛e. This Fe‛e was a famous war god of A‛ana and Faleata, two native towns of Upolu; he was commonly incarnated in the cuttle-fish. As the Samoans were unacquainted with the art of cutting stones, and had no tools suitable for the work, they thought that this temple, with its columns and rafters of squared stone, must have been built by the gods, and they explained its unfinished state by alleging that the divine builders had quarrelled among themselves before they had brought the work to completion.[133]

For the sake of completeness I will mention another stone monument, of more imposing dimensions, which has been discovered in Samoa, though its origin and meaning are unknown. It stands on a tableland in the high mountainous interior of Upolu and appears to be not altogether easy of access. The discoverer, Mr. H. B. Sterndale, reached it by clambering up from what he describes as a broad and dangerous ravine. In making his way to the tableland he passed through a gap which from a distance he had supposed to be a natural fissure in the rocks; but on arriving at it he discovered, to his surprise, that the gap was in fact a great fosse formed by the hand of man, being excavated in some places and built up at others, while on one side, next to the rise of the hill, it was further heightened by a parapet wall. When, passing through the fosse, he issued upon the tableland, which is a level space of some twenty acres in extent, he perceived the monument, "a truncated conical structure or Heidenmauer of such huge dimensions as must have required the labour of a great multitude to construct. So little did I expect," he says, "in this neighbourhood to meet with any example of human architecture, and so rudely monstrous was the appearance of this cyclopean building, that from its peculiar form, and from the vegetation with which it was overgrown, I might have passed it by, supposing it to have been a volcanic hillock, had not my attention been attracted by the stonework of the fosse. I hastened to ascend it. It was about twenty feet high by one hundred in diameter. It was circular with straight [perpendicular?] sides; the lower tiers of stone were very large, they were lava blocks, some of which would weigh at least a ton, which must have been rolled or moved on skids to their present places. They were laid in courses; and in two places near the top seemed to have been entrances to the inside, as in one appeared a low cave choked with rocks and tree roots. If there had been chambers within, they were probably narrow and still existing, as there was no sign of depression on the crown of the work, which was flat and covered with flat stones, among which grew both trees and shrubs. It is likely that it was not in itself intended as a place of defence, but rather as a base or platform upon which some building of importance, perhaps of timber, had been erected, no doubt in the centre of a village, as many foundations of a few feet high were near it. The fosse, when unbroken, and its inner wall entire, was probably crossed by a foot-bridge, to be withdrawn on the approach of an enemy; and the little gap, by which I had entered, closed, so that this must have been a place of great security. The Samoan natives, as far as I have been able to learn, have no tradition of what people inhabited this mountain fastness."[134]

On an adjoining tableland, approached by a steep and narrow ridge, Mr. Sterndale saw a great number of cairns of stone, apparently graves, disposed in rows among huge trees, the roots of which had overturned and destroyed very many of the cairns. Here, within the numerous trunks of a great spreading banyan tree, Mr. Sterndale found what he calls an inner chamber, or cell, about ten feet square, the floor being paved with flat stones and the walls built of enormous blocks of the same material, while the roof was composed of the twisted trunks of the banyan tree, which had grown into a solid arch and, festooned by creepers, excluded even the faint glimmer of twilight that dimly illuminated the surrounding forest. Disturbed by a light which the traveller struck to explore the gloomy interior, bats fluttered about his head. In the centre of the chamber he discovered a cairn, or rather cromlech, about four feet high, which was formed of several stones arranged in a triangle, with a great flat slab on the top. On the flat slab lay a large conch shell, white with age, and encrusted with moss and dead animalculae. The chamber or cell, enclosed by the trunks of the banyan-tree, might have been inaccessible, if it were not that, under the pressure of the tree-trunks, several of the great slabs composing the wall had been displaced, leaving a passage.[135]

What were these remarkable monuments? Mr. Sterndale believed the stone chamber to be the tomb of some man of authority in ancient days, the antiquity of the structure being vouched for by the great banyan-tree which had so completely overgrown it. This view is likely enough, and is confirmed by the large number of cairns about it, which appear to be sepulchral. But what was the massive circular monument or platform, built of huge blocks of lava laid in tiers? From Mr. Sterndale's description it would seem that the structure closely resembled the tombs of the sacred kings of Tonga, though these tombs are oblong instead of circular. But they often supported a house or hut of wood and thatch; and Mr. Sterndale may well be right in supposing that the circular Samoan monument in like manner served as a platform to support a wooden building. In this connexion we must not forget that the typical Samoan house was circular or oval in contrast to the typical Tongan house, which was oblong. The openings, which seemed to lead into the interior of the monument, may have given access to the sepulchral chamber where the bodies of the dead were deposited.

Slight as are these indications, they apparently point to the use of the monument as a tomb. There is nothing, except perhaps its circular shape, to suggest that it was a temple of the sun. As no such stone buildings have been erected by the Samoans during the time they have been under European observation, it may be, as Mr. Sterndale supposed, that all the ruins described by him were the work of a people who inhabited the islands before the arrival of the existing race.[136]

§ 8. Origin of the Samoan Gods of Families, Villages, and Districts: Relation to Totemism

If we ask, What was the origin of the peculiar Samoan worship of animals and other natural objects? the most probable answer seems to be that it has been developed out of totemism. The system is not simple totemism, for in totemism the animals, plants, and other natural objects are not worshipped, that is, they do not receive offerings nor are approached with prayers; in short, they are not gods, but are regarded as the kinsfolk of the men and women who have them for totems. Further, the local distribution of the revered objects in Samoa, according to villages and districts, differs from the characteristic distribution of totems, which is not by place but by social groups or clans, the members of which are usually more or less intermixed with each other in every district. It is true that in Samoa we hear of family or household gods as well as of gods of villages and districts, and these family gods, in so far as they consist of species of animals and plants which the worshippers are forbidden to kill or eat, present a close analogy to totems. But it is to be observed that these family gods were, so to say, in a state of unstable equilibrium, it being always uncertain whether a man would inherit his father's or his mother's god or would be assigned a god differing from both of them. This uncertainty arose from the manner of determining a man's god at birth. When a woman was in travail, the help of several gods was invoked, one after the other, to assist the birth; and the god who happened to be invoked at the moment when the child saw the light, was his god for life. As a rule, the god of the father's family was prayed to first; so that generally, perhaps, a man inherited the god of his father. But if the birth was tedious and difficult, the god of the mother's family was next invoked. When the child was born, the mother would call out, "To whom were you praying?" and the god prayed to just before was carefully remembered, and his incarnation duly acknowledged throughout the future life of the child.[137] Such a mode of selecting a divine patron is totally different from the mode whereby, under pure totemism, a person obtains his totem; for his totem is automatically determined for him at birth, being, in the vast majority of cases, inherited either from his father or from his mother, without any possibility of variation or selection. Lastly, the Samoan system differs from most, though not all, systems of totemism, in that it is quite independent of exogamy; in other words, there is no rule forbidding people who revere the same god to marry each other.

Thus, while the Samoan worship of certain classes of natural objects, especially species of animals, is certainly not pure totemism, it presents points of analogy to that system, and might easily, we may suppose, have been developed out of it, the feeling of kinship for totemic animals and plants having been slowly transformed and sublimated into a religious reverence for the creatures and a belief in their divinity; while at the same time the clans, which were originally intermixed, gradually sorted out from each other and settled down in separate villages and districts. This gradual segregation of the clans may have been facilitated by a change from maternal to paternal descent of the totem; for when a man transmits his totem to his offspring, his descendants in the male line tend naturally to expand into a local group in which the totem remains constant from generation to generation instead of alternating with each successive generation, as necessarily happens when a man's children take their totem not from him but from their mother. That the Samoan worship of aitu was developed in some such way out of simple totemism appears to have been the view of Dr. George Brown, one of our best authorities on Samoan society and religion; for he speaks without reserve of the revered objects as totems.[138] A similar derivation of the Samoan aitu was favoured by Dr. Rivers, who, during a visit to Samoa, found some evidence confirmatory of this conclusion.[139]

§ 9. The High Gods of Samoa

But besides these totemic gods of Samoa, as we may term them, which were restricted in the circle of their worshippers to particular families, villages, or districts, there were certain superior deities who were worshipped by all the people in common and might accordingly be called the national divinities of Samoa; indeed the worship of some of them was not confined to Samoa, but was shared by the inhabitants of other groups of islands in Polynesia. These high gods were considered the progenitors of the inferior deities, and were believed to have formed the earth and its inhabitants. They themselves dwelt in heaven, in the sea, on the earth, or under the earth; but they were invisible and did not appear to their worshippers in the form of animals or plants. They had no temples and no priests, and were not invoked like their descendants.[140]

Among these high gods the chief was Tangaloa, or, as he was sometimes called, Tangaloa-langi, that is, Tangaloa of the Skies. He was always spoken of as the principal god, the creator of the world and progenitor of the other gods and of mankind.[141] It is said that after existing somewhere in space he made the heavens as an abode for himself, and that wishing to have also a place under the heavens he created this lower world (Lalolangi, that is, "Under the heavens"). According to one account, he formed the islands of Savaii and Upolu by rolling down two stones from the sky; but according to another story he fished them up from the depths of the sea on a fishing-hook. Next he made the Fee or cuttle-fish, and told it to go down under the earth; hence the lower regions of sea or land are called Sa he fee or "sacred to the cuttle-fish." In its turn the cuttle-fish brought forth all kinds of rocks, including the great one on which we live.[142] Another myth relates how Tangaloa sent down his son or daughter in the likeness of a bird called turi, a species of plover or snipe (Charadrius fulvus). She flew about, but could find no resting-place, for as yet there was nothing but ocean; the earth had not been created or raised above the sea. So she returned to her father in heaven and reported her fruitless search; and at last he gave her some earth and a creeping plant. These she took down with her on her next visit to earth; and after a time the leaves of the plant withered and produced swarms of worms or maggots, which gradually developed into men and women. The plant which thus by its corruption gave birth to the human species was the convolvulus. According to another version of the myth, it was in reply to the complaint of his daughter or son that the sky-god Tangaloa fished up the first islands from the bottom of the sea.[143]

Another of the national gods of Samoa was Mafuie, who was supposed to dwell in the subterranean regions and to cause earthquakes by shaking the pillar on which the earth reposes. In a tussle with the hero Ti'iti'i, who descended to the lower world to rob Mafuie of his fire, the earthquake god lost one of his arms, and the Samoans considered this as a very fortunate circumstance; for otherwise they said that, if Mafuie had had two arms, he would have shaken the world to pieces.[144] It is said that during a shock of earthquake the natives used to rush from their houses, throw themselves upon the ground, gnaw the grass, and shriek in the most frantic manner to Mafuie to desist, lest he should shake the earth to bits.[145]

It seems to be doubtful whether among the Samoan gods are to be numbered the souls of deceased ancestors. Certainly the evidence for the practice of a worship of the dead is far less full and clear in Samoa than in Tonga. On this subject Dr. George Brown writes as follows: "Traces of ancestor worship are few and indistinct. The word tupua is supposed by some to mean the deified spirits of chiefs, and to mean that they constituted a separate order from the atua, who were the original gods. The word itself is the name of a stone, supposed to be a petrified man, and is also generally used as the name of any image having some sacred significance, and as representing the body into which the deified spirit was changed. What appears certain is that ancestor worship had amongst the Samoans gradually given place to the worship of a superior order of supernatural beings not immediately connected with men, but having many human passions and modes of action and life. There are, however, some cases which seem to point to ancestor worship in olden days, as in the case of the town of Matautu, which is said to have been settled by a colony from Fiji. Their principal deity was called Tuifiti, the King of Fiji. He was considered to be the head of that family, and a grove of trees, ifilele (the green-heart of India), was sacred to him and could not be cut or injured in any way."[146] This god was supposed to be incarnate in a man who walked about, but he was never visible to the people of the place, though curiously enough he could be seen by strangers.[147]

However, another experienced missionary, J. B. Stair, who knew Samoa a good many years before Dr. Brown arrived in it, speaks apparently without hesitation of the tupua as being "the deified spirits of chiefs, who were also supposed to dwell in Pulotu," where they became posts in the house or temple of the gods. Many beautiful emblems, he says, were chosen to represent the immortality of these deified spirits; among them were some of the heavenly bodies, including the Pleiades and the planet Jupiter, also the rainbow, the marine rainbow, and many more. He adds that the embalmed bodies of some chiefs were worshipped under the significant title of "sun-dried gods"; and that people prayed and poured libations of kava at the graves of deceased relatives.[148]

§ 10. The Samoan Belief concerning the Human Soul: Funeral Customs

Whether the Samoans practised the worship of the dead in a developed form or not, they certainly possessed the elements out of which the worship might under favourable circumstances be evolved. These elements are a belief in the survival of the human soul after death, and a fear of disembodied spirits or ghosts.

The Samoans believed that every man is animated by a soul, which departs from the body temporarily in faints and dreams and permanently at death. The soul of the dreamer, they thought, really visited the places which he saw in his dream. At death it departed to the subterranean world of the dead which the Samoans called Pulotu, a name which clearly differs only dialectically from the Tongan Bolotoo or Bulotu. Some people professed to see the parting soul when it had quitted its mortal body and was about to take flight to the nether region. It was always of the same shape as the body. Such apparitions at the moment of death were much dreaded, and people tried to drive them away by shouting and firing guns. The word for soul is anganga, which is a reduplicated form of anga, a verb meaning "to go" or "to come." Thus apparently the Samoans did not, like many people, identify the soul with the shadow; for in Samoan the word for shadow is ata.[149]

However, they seem to have in a dim way associated a man's soul with his shadow. This appears from a remarkable custom which they observed in the case of the unburied dead. The Samoans were much concerned for the lot of these unfortunates and stood in great dread of their ghosts. They believed that the spirits of those who had not received the rites of burial wandered about wretched and forlorn and haunted their relatives everywhere by day and night, crying in doleful tones, "Oh, how cold! oh, how cold!" Hence when the body of a dead kinsman was lost because he had been drowned at sea or slain on a battlefield, some of his relatives would go down to the seashore or away to the battlefield where their friend had perished; and there spreading out a cloth on the ground they would pray to some god of the family, saying, "Oh, be kind to us; let us obtain without difficulty the spirit of the young man!" After that the first thing that lighted on the cloth was supposed to be the spirit of the dead. It might be a butterfly, a grasshopper, an ant, a spider, or a lizard; whatever it might be, it was carefully wrapt up and taken to the family, who buried the bundle with all due ceremony, as if it contained the body of their departed friend. Thus the unquiet spirit was believed to find rest. Now the insect, or whatever it happened to be, which thus acted as proxy at the burial was supposed to be the ata or shadow of the deceased. The same word ata served to express likeness; a photographer, for example, is called pue-ata, "shadow-catcher." The Samoans do not appear to have associated the soul with the breath.[150]

They attributed disease and death to the anger of a god, to the agency of an evil spirit, or to the ghost of a dead relative who had entered into the body of the sufferer. Epilepsy, delirium, and mania were always thus explained by the entrance into the patient of a god or demon. The Samoan remedy for all such ailments was not medicine but exorcism. Sometimes a near relative of the sick person would go round the house brandishing a spear and striking the walls to drive away the spirit that was causing the sickness.[151] Hence when a member of a family fell seriously ill, his friends did not send for a doctor, but repaired to the high priest of the village to enquire of him the cause of the sickness, to learn why the family god (aitu) was angry with them, and to implore his mercy and forgiveness. Often the priest took advantage of their anxiety to demand a valuable piece of property, such as a canoe or a parcel of ground, as the best means of propitiating the angry deity and so ensuring the recovery of the patient. With all these demands the anxious and unsuspecting relatives readily complied. But if the priest happened not to want anything in particular at the time, he would probably tell the messengers to gather the family about the bed of the sufferer and there confess their sins. The command was implicitly obeyed, and every member of the family assembled and made a clean breast of his or her misdeeds, especially of any curse which he or she might have called down either on the family generally or on the invalid in particular. Curiously enough, the curse of a sister was peculiarly dreaded; hence in such cases the sister of the sick man was closely questioned as to whether she had cursed him and thus caused his illness; if so, she was entreated to remove the curse, that he might recover. Moved by these pleadings, she might take some coco-nut water in her mouth and spurt it out towards or upon the body of the sufferer. By this action she either removed the curse or declared her innocence; a similar ceremony might be performed by any other member of the family who was suspected of having cursed the sick man.[152]

When an illness seemed likely to prove fatal, messengers were despatched to friends at a distance that they might come and bid farewell to the dying man. Every one who came to visit the sufferer in his last moments brought a present of a fine mat or other valuable piece of property as a token of regard, and to defray the cost of the illness and funeral. The best of the mats would be laid on the body of the dying man that he might have the comfort of seeing them before he closed his eyes for ever. Dr. George Brown thought that the spirits of the mats thus laid on the body of the dying chief were supposed to accompany his soul to the other world. It is possible that their spirits did so, but it is certain that their material substance did not; for after the funeral all the mats and other valuables so presented were distributed among the mourners and friends assembled on the occasion, so that every one who had brought a gift took away something in return on his departure.[153]

If the dying man happened to be a chief, numbers crowded round him to receive a parting look or word, while in front of the house might be seen men and women wildly beating their heads and bodies with great stones, thus inflicting on themselves ghastly wounds, from which the blood poured as an offering of affection and sympathy to their departing friend or lord. It was hoped that, pleased and propitiated by the sight of their devotion, the angry god might yet stay his hand and spare the chief to his people. Above all the tumult and uproar would rise the voice of one who prayed aloud for the life then trembling in the balance. But if the prayer seemed likely to prove ineffectual, it was exchanged for threats and upbraiding. "O thou shameless spirit," the voice would now be heard exclaiming, "could I but grasp you, I would smash your skull to pieces! Come here and let us fight together. Don't conceal yourself, but show yourself like a man, and let us fight, if you are angry."[154]

Immediately after death, all the mats on the floor of the house were thrown outside, and the thatched sides of the house were either torn down or knocked in with clubs; while the relatives and assembled crowds wrought themselves up to frenzy, uttering loud shrieks, rending their garments, tearing out their hair by handfuls, burning their bodies with firebrands, beating their faces and heads with clubs and stones, or gashing themselves with shells and shark's teeth, till the blood ran freely down. This they called an offering of blood for the dead. In their fury some of the mourners fell on the canoes and houses, breaking them up and tearing them down, felling the bread-fruit trees, and devastating the plantations of yams and taro.[155]

As decomposition is rapid in the hot moist climate of Samoa, it was customary to bury commoners a few hours after death. The body was laid out on a mat, anointed with scented oil, and the face tinged with turmeric, to soften the cadaverous look. It was then wound up in several folds of native cloth and the chin propped up, the head and face being left uncovered, while for some hours longer the body was surrounded by weeping relatives, who kept constant watch over it, so long as it remained in the house. These watchers were always women, and none of them might quit her post under any pretext till she was relieved by another. A fire was kept burning brightly in the house all the time. If the deceased had died of a complaint which had previously carried off other members of the family, they would probably open the body to "search for the disease." Any inflamed substance which they happened to find they would take away and burn, thinking thus to prevent any other member of the family from being similarly afflicted. Such a custom betrays an incipient sense of death from natural, instead of supernatural, causes, and must have contributed to diffuse a knowledge of human anatomy.[156]

So long as a corpse remained in the house no food might be eaten under the roof; the family had their meals outside or in another house. Those who had attended to the deceased or handled the corpse were taboo: they might not feed themselves or touch food with their hands. For days they were fed by others as if they were helpless infants. Baldness and the loss of teeth were supposed to be the punishment inflicted by the household god for a breach of the rule. Many people fasted at such times, eating nothing during the day, but taking a meal in the evening. The fifth day was a day of purification. The tabooed persons then washed their faces and hands with hot water and were clean; after that they were free to eat at the usual time and in the usual manner.[157]

The ordinary mode of disposing of the dead was by interment either in a stone vault or in a shallow grave. But occasionally other modes were adopted, such as embalming, putting the corpse in a canoe and setting it adrift on the sea, or exposing it on a stage erected in the forest, where it was left to decay, the bones being afterwards collected and buried. Upon the death of a chief his body was generally deposited in a family vault, the sides and bottom of which were lined with large slabs of sandstone or basalt, while another large slab of the same material formed the roof. Such vaults were sometimes large and massive. The stones used in their construction were found in various parts of the islands. Commoners were buried in shallow graves.[158]

Ordinary people were usually buried the day after they died. As many friends as could be present attended the funeral. Every one brought a present, but on the day after the funeral all these presents, like those which had previously been made to the dying man, were distributed again, so that none went empty-handed away. The corpse was generally buried without a coffin; but chiefs were laid in hollow logs or canoes. However, even the bodies of common people were sometimes interred in rude coffins similarly constructed. There were no common burying-grounds; all preferred to bury their dead on their own land. Often the grave was dug close to the house. The body was laid in it with the head to the east and the feet to the west. When it had been thus committed to its last resting-place, a near relative of the deceased, a sister, if one survived, seated herself at the grave, and waving a white cloth over the corpse, began an address to the dead. "Compassion to you," she said, "go with goodwill, and without bearing malice towards us. Take with you all our diseases, and leave us life." Then pointing to the west, she exclaimed, "Misery there!" Next pointing to the east, she cried, "Prosperity there!" Lastly, pointing to the grave, she said, "Misery there; but leave happiness with us!" With the body they deposited in the grave several things which had been used by the deceased during his illness, such as his clothing, his drinking-cup, and his bamboo pillow. The wooden pickaxes and coco-nut shells employed as shovels in digging the grave were also carefully buried with the corpse. It was not, we are told, because the people believed these things to be of use to the dead; but because it was supposed that, if they were left and handled by others, further disease and death would be the consequence. Valuable mats and other articles of property were sometimes buried with the corpse, and the grave of a warrior was surrounded with spears stuck upright in the ground. Graves were sometimes enclosed with stones and strewn with sand or crumbled coral.[159]

The obsequies of a chief of high rank were more elaborate. The body was kept unburied for days until his clansfolk had assembled from various parts of the islands and paraded the body, shoulder high, through the village, chanting a melancholy dirge.[160] The mourning and ceremonies lasted from ten to fifteen days. All that time the house of death was watched night and day by men appointed for the purpose. After the burial, and until the days of mourning were ended, the daytime was generally spent in boxing and wrestling matches, and sham-fights, while the nights were occupied with dancing and practising a kind of buffoonery, which was customary at these seasons of mourning for the dead. The performance was called O le tau-pinga. The performers amused themselves by making a variety of ludicrous faces and grimaces at each other, to see who could excite the other to laugh first. Thus they whiled away the hours of night till the days of mourning were expired.[161] So long as the funeral ceremonies and feasts lasted no work might be done in the village, and no strangers might approach it. The neighbouring lagoon and reefs were taboo: no canoe might pass over the lagoon anywhere near the village, and no man might fish in it or on the reef.[162] For a chief or man of distinction fires were kept burning day and night in a line from the house to the grave; these fires were maintained for ten days after the funeral. The reason assigned for this custom, according to Ella, was to keep away evil spirits. Even common people observed a similar custom. After burial they kept a fire blazing in the house all night, and they were careful to clear the intervening ground so that a stream of light went forth from the house to the grave. The account which the Samoans gave of the custom, according to Turner, was that it was merely a light burning in honour of the departed, and a mark of their tender regard for him. Dr. George Brown believed that the original motive for the custom was to warm the ghost, and probably at the same time to protect the mourners against dangerous spirits.[163]

The head was deemed a very sacred part, and in olden days the bodies of chiefs were often buried near their houses until decomposition had set in, when the head was cut off and interred in some family burying-place inland, to save it from insult in time of war. This interment of the head was accompanied with feasts, dances, and sham-fights. The skull was borne to the appointed place on a kind of stage, attended by a troop of armed men. With these sham-fights Dr. George Brown, who records the custom, compares the sham-fights which used to take place among the Melanesians of the Duke of York Island when the body of a chief was laid on a high platform in front of his house, one company of warriors striving to deposit the corpse on the platform, while their adversaries attempted to prevent them from doing so.[164] The meaning of these curious sham-fights is obscure. Perhaps the attacking party represented a band of evil spirits, who endeavoured to snatch away the chief's body, but were defeated in the nefarious attempt.

One or two families of chiefs in the island of Upolu used to practise a rude kind of embalming. The work was done exclusively by women. The viscera having been removed and buried, the women anointed the body daily with a mixture of oil and aromatic juices. To let the fluids escape, they punctured the body all over with fine needles. Finally, wads of native cloth, saturated with oil or resinous gums, were inserted in the abdomen, the apertures were closed up, and the body wrapt in native cloth. The face, hands, and feet were left exposed, and were repeatedly anointed with oil, mixed with turmeric powder, to give a fresh and life-like appearance to the mummy. The whole process lasted about two months. On its completion the mummy was placed in a house built specially for the purpose, where, loosely covered with a sheet of native cloth, it rested on a raised platform. Strangers were freely admitted to see it. Four of these mummies, laid out in a house, were to be seen down to about the year 1864. They were the bodies of a chief, his wife, and two sons. Dr. George Turner judged that they must have been embalmed upwards of thirty years, and although they had been exposed all that time, they were in a remarkably good state of preservation. The people assigned no particular reason for the practice, further than that it sprang from an affectionate desire to keep the bodies of their departed friends with them, as if they were still alive.[165]

§ 11. The Fate of the Human Soul after Death

With regard to the fate of human souls after death the Samoans appear to have believed in their immortality, or at all events in their indefinite survival. On this subject Dr. Brown observes: "All souls survived after death, and so far as I know they had no idea of their dying a second death or being destroyed. I do not think that a Samoan could give any reason for his belief that the soul does not perish with the body, but he certainly does believe this, and I never heard any one question the fact."[166] Thus, according to Dr. Brown the Samoans, unlike the Tongans, drew no invidious distinction between the souls of noblemen and the souls of commoners, but liberally opened the doors of immortality to gentle and simple alike. So far, they carried their republican or democratic spirit into the world beyond the grave.

However, according to the American ethnologist, Horatio Hale, some of the Samoans agreed with the Tongans in taking an aristocratic view of the destiny of souls after death; and as he had good opportunities for acquainting himself with the Samoan religion during the prolonged stay of the American Exploring Expedition at Samoa in 1839, when the islands were as yet but little affected by European influence, I will quote his account. He says: "All believe in the existence of a large island, situated far to the north-west called Pulótu, which is the residence of the gods. Some suppose that while the souls of the common people perish with their bodies, those of the chiefs are received into this island, which is described as a terrestrial elysium, and become there inferior divinities. Others hold (according to Mr. Heath) that the spirits of the departed live and work in a dark subterraneous abode, and are eaten by the gods. A third, and very common opinion is, that the souls of all who die on an island, make their way to the western extremity, where they plunge into the sea; but what then becomes of them is not stated. The rock from which they leap, in the island of Upolu, was pointed out to us; the natives term it 'Fatu-asofia,' which was rendered the 'jumping-off stone.'"[167]

Of these various opinions described by Hale the third would seem to have been by far the most prevalent. It was commonly believed that the disembodied spirit retained the exact resemblance of its former self, by which we are probably to understand the exact resemblance of its former body. Immediately on quitting its earthly tabernacle it began its solitary journey to Fafa, which was the subterranean abode of the dead, lying somewhere to the west of Savaii, the most westerly island of the group. Thus, if a man died in Manua, the most easterly of the islands, his soul would journey to the western end of that island, then dive into the sea and swim across to Tutuila. There it would walk along the beach to the extreme westerly point of the island, when it would again plunge into the sea and swim across to the next island, and so on to the most westerly cape of Savaii, where it finally dived into the ocean and pursued its way to the mysterious Fafa.[168]

At the western end of Savaii, near the village of Falealupo, there are two circular openings among the rocks, not far from the beach. Down these two openings the souls of the dead were supposed to go on their passage to the spirit-world. The souls of chiefs went down the larger of the openings, and the souls of common people went down the smaller. Near the spot stood a coco-nut tree, and if a passing soul chanced to collide with it, the soul could not proceed farther, but returned to its body. When a man recovered from a deep swoon, his friends supposed that his soul had been arrested in its progress to the other world by knocking against the coco-nut tree, and they rejoiced, saying, "He has come back from the tree of the Watcher," for that was the name by which the coco-nut tree was known. So firmly did the people of the neighbourhood believe in the passage of the souls near their houses, that at night they kept down the blinds to exclude the ghosts.[169] The "jumping-off stone" at the west end of Upolu was also dreaded on account of the passing ghosts. The place is a narrow rocky cape. The Samoans were much astonished when a Christian native boldly built himself a house on the haunted spot.[170] According to one account, the souls of the dead had not to make their way through the chain of islands by the slow process of walking and swimming, but were at once transported to the western end of Savaii by a band of spirits, who hovered over the house of the dying man, and catching up his parting spirit conveyed it in a straight course westward.[171]

The place down which the spirits of the dead were supposed to descend to the nether world was called by a native name (Luaō), which means "hollow pit." "May you go rumbling down the hollow pit" was a common form of cursing. At the bottom of the pit was a running stream which floated the spirits away to Pulotu. All alike, the handsome and the ugly, old and young, chiefs and commoners, drifted pell-mell on the current in a dazed, semi-conscious state, till they came to Pulotu. There they bathed in "the Water of Life" and recovered all their old life and vigour. Infirmity of every kind fled away; even the aged became young again. The underworld of Pulotu was conceived on the model of our upper world. There, as here, were heavens and earth and sea, fruits and flowers; there the souls of the dead planted and fished and cooked; there they married and were given in marriage, all after the manner of life on earth.[172]

However, it appears that according to a widespread belief the world of the dead was sharply discriminated into two regions, to wit, an Elysium or place of bliss called Pulotu, and a Tartarus or place of woe named Sā-le-Fe'e. The title for admission to one or other of these places was not moral worth but social rank, chiefs going to Elysium and commoners to Tartarus. The idea of the superiority of the chiefs to the common people was thus perpetuated in the land of the dead.[173] The king of the lower regions was a certain Saveasiuleo, that is, Savea of the Echo. He reclined in a house in the company of the chiefs who gathered round him: the upper part of his body was human, the lower part was like that of a fish and stretched away into the sea. This royal house of assembly was supported by the erect bodies of chiefs, who had been of high rank on earth, and who, before they died, anticipated with pride the honour they were to enjoy by serving as pillars in the temple of the King of Pulotu.[174]

But the souls of the dead were not permanently confined to the lower world. They could return to the land of the living by night to hold converse with members of their families, to warn and instruct them in dreams, and to foretell the future. They could cause disease and death by entering into the bodies of their enemies and even of their friends, and they produced nightmare by sitting on the chests of sleepers. They haunted some houses and especially burying-grounds. Their apparitions were visible to the living and were greatly dreaded; people tried to drive them away by shouts, noises, and the firing of guns. But the ghosts had to return to the nether world at daybreak. It was because they feared the spirits of the dead that the Samoans took such great pains to propitiate dying people with presents; this they did above all to persons whom they had injured, because they had most reason to dread the anger of their ghosts.[175] However, the souls of the departed were also thought of in a more amiable light; they could help as well as harm mankind. Hence prayers were commonly offered at the grave of a parent, a brother, or a chief. The suppliant, for example, might pray for health in sickness; or, if he were of a malignant turn, he might implore the ghost to compass the death of some person at whom he bore a grudge. Thus we are told that a woman prayed for the death of her brother, and he died accordingly.[176] In such beliefs and practices we have, as I have already observed, the essential elements of a regular worship of the dead. Whether the Samoans were on the way to evolve such a religion or, as Dr. George Brown preferred to suppose,[177] had left it behind them and made some progress towards a higher faith, we hardly possess the means of determining.

But while the Samoans thought that the dead return to earth to make or mar the living, they did not believe that the spirits come back to be born again in the form of men or animals or to occupy inanimate bodies; in other words they had no belief in the transmigration of souls.[178] The absence of such a belief is significant in view of Dr. Rivers's suggestion that Melanesian totemism may have been evolved out of a doctrine of metempsychosis, human souls being supposed to pass at death into their totem animals or plants.[179] We have seen that the Samoan system of family, village, and district gods bears strong marks of having been developed out of totemism; and if their totemism had in turn been developed out of a doctrine of transmigration, we should expect to find among them a belief that the souls of the dead appeared in the shape of the animals, plants, or other natural objects which were regarded as the embodiments of their family, village, or district gods. But of such a belief there is seemingly no trace. It appears, therefore, unlikely that Samoan totemism was based on a doctrine of transmigration. Similarly we have seen reason to think that the Tongan worship of animals may have sprung from totemism, though according to the best authorities that worship was not connected with a theory of metempsychosis.[180] Taken together, the Samoan and the Tongan systems seem to show that, if totemism ever flourished among the Polynesians, it had not its roots in a worship of the dead.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Ch. Wilkes, Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition, New Edition (New York, 1851), ii. 117; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa (London, 1897), pp. 21 sq.; F. H. H. Guillemard, Australasia, ii. (London, 1894) p. 500; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians (London, 1910), pp. 1, 360.

[2] J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 27 sq.; F. H. H. Guillemard, op. cit. pp. 500, 504.

[3] J. E. Erskine, Journal of a Cruise among the Islands of the Western Pacific (London, 1853), p. 110; T. H. Hood, Notes of a Cruise in H.M.S. "Fawn" in the Western Pacific (Edinburgh, 1863), p. 40; J. L. Brenchley, Jottings during the Cruise of H.M.S. "Curaçoa" among the South Sea Islands in 1865 (London, 1873), pp. 37-39, 61 sq.; F. H. H. Guillemard, Australasia, ii. 502 sq.; John B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 26 sqq.

[4] J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 31 sq., 52 sq.

[5] Violette, "Notes d'un Missionnaire sur l'archipel de Samoa," Les Missions Catholiques, iii. (1870) pp. 71 sq.; F. H. H. Guillemard, Australasia, ii. 502 sq.; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, p. 34; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 1 sqq.

[6] F. H. H. Guillemard, op. cit. ii. 504; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, p. 43.

[7] G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, p. 3.

[8] J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 33 sq.; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, p. 171.

[9] T. H. Hood, Notes of a Cruise in H.M.S. "Fawn" in the Western Pacific (Edinburgh, 1863), p. 145; J. B. Stair, op. cit. pp. 41 sq.

[10] Ch. Wilkes, Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition, ii. 118; Violette, "Notes d'un Missionnaire sur l'archipel de Samoa," Les Missions Catholiques, iii. (1870) p. 72 (who, however, affirms that the climate is not unhealthy); T. H. Hood, Notes of a Cruise in H.M.S. "Fawn" in the Western Pacific (Edinburgh, 1863), pp. 144 sq.; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 16, 35 sqq.

[11] Ch. Wilkes, Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition, ii. 124 sq.; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 165 sq., 169 sq.; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 180 sqq.

[12] S. Ella, "Samoa," Report of the Fourth Meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, held at Hobart, Tasmania, in January 1892, p. 622.

[13] Ch. Wilkes, Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition, ii. 72; Violette, "Notes d'un Missionnaire sur l'archipel de Samoa," Les Missions Catholiques, iii. (1870) p. 72; F. H. H. Guillemard, Australasia, ii. 504; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 38-41.

[14] Horatio Hale, Ethnography and Philology of the United States Exploring Expedition (Philadelphia, 1846), pp. 119 sqq.; J. E. Erskine, Journal of a Cruise among the Islands of the Western Pacific, pp. 102 sq.; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 271 sqq. (compare id. p. 34 as to the timber and canoe-building of Savaii); G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 358, 371 sq.; A. C. Haddon, The Wanderings of Peoples (Cambridge, 1919), p. 36; A. H. Keane, Man Past and Present (Cambridge, 1920), p. 552. That the Samoan language, alone of the Polynesian dialects, retains the S sound, is affirmed by Ch. Wilkes (Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition, ii. 123). In some of the islands the name of the ancient fatherland of the race (Hawaiki, etc.) has been applied or transferred to the spirit-land to which the souls of the dead are supposed to pass as their final abode. See S. Percy Smith, Hawaiki, pp. 46 sqq.; E. Tregear, Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary, pp. 56 sqq., s.v. "Hawaiki."

[15] G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 360 sq. As to the Fijian colony in Savaii, compare T. H. Hood, Notes of a Cruise in H.M.S. "Fawn" in the Western Pacific (Edinburgh, 1863), pp. 117 sq.

[16] S. Percy Smith, Hawaiki, pp. 114 sq.

[17] Horatio Hale, Ethnography and Philology of the United States Exploring Expedition, pp. 10 sq.; Ch. Wilkes, Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition, ii. 125 sq.; J. E. Erskine, Journal of a Cruise among the Islands of the Western Pacific, pp. 41, 51; C. E. Meinicke, Die Inseln des Stillen Oceans (Leipzig, 1875-1876), ii. 110 sq.; G. Turner, Samoa, p. 3; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, p. 58; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 55 sq.

[18] S. Ella, "Samoa," Report of the Fourth Meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, held at Hobart, Tasmania, in January 1892, p. 634.

[19] T. H. Hood, Notes of a Cruise in H.M.S. "Fawn" in the Western Pacific (Edinburgh, 1863), pp. 59 sq.

[20] J. E. Erskine, op. cit. p. 110

[21] Ch. Wilkes, op. cit. ii. 125; J. E. Erskine, op. cit. p. 110

[22] Ch. Wilkes, op. cit. ii. 148; Violette, " Notes d'un Missionnaire sur l'archipel de Samoa," Les Missions Catholiques, iii. (1870) p. 156; J. L. Brenchley, op. cit. p. 77; S. Ella, op. cit. pp. 628 sq.; G. Brown, op. cit. pp. 43, 410.

[23] G. Brown, op. cit. p. 410.

[24] For some evidence of the practice see John Turnbull, Voyage round the World (London, 1813), pp. 363 sq.; C. S. Stewart, Journal of a Residence in the Sandwich Islands (London, 1828), pp. 251 sqq.; P. Dillon, Voyage in the South Seas (London, 1829), ii. 134; William Ellis, Polynesian Researches, Second Edition (London, 1832-1836), i. 248 sqq.; J. Williams, Narrative of Missionary Enterprises in the South Sea Islands (London, 1838), pp. 479-486. According to Stewart, in those parts of Hawaii to which the influence of the missionaries had not penetrated, two-thirds of the infants born were murdered by their parents within the age of two years. In Tahiti three women, questioned by Mr. Williams, acknowledged that they had killed twenty-one of their children between them. Another, at the point of death, confessed to him, in an anguish of remorse, that she had destroyed sixteen of her children.

[25] G. Turner, Samoa, p. 79. Compare J. Williams, op. cit. p. 479; S. Ella, op. cit. p. 621; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, p. 47.

[26] G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, p. 219.

[27] G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 201 sq. Compare G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 230 sq.; J. Williams, Narrative of Missionary Enterprises in the South Sea Islands, p. 471; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, p. 210.

[28] J. Williams, Narrative of Missionary Enterprises in the South Sea Islands, p. 456.

[29] G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 108-111; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 149 sq., 290; J. E. Erskine, op. cit. pp. 39, 101 sq.; W. T. Pritchard, Polynesian Reminiscences (London, 1866), pp. 125 sq.; Violette, "Notes d'un Missionnaire sur l'archipel de Samoa," Les Missions Catholiques, iii. (1870) p. 168; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 240 sq.

[30] J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 91 sqq.; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 288-291. Compare Violette, "Notes d'un Missionnaire sur l'archipel de Samoa," Les Missions Catholiques, iii. (1870) pp. 119, 120.

[31] S. Ella, "Samoa," Report of the Fourth Meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, held at Hobart, Tasmania, in January 1892, p. 633.

[32] G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, p. 245. Compare S. Ella, op. cit. p. 638.

[33] See, for example, E. W. Smith and A. M. Dale, The Ila-speaking Peoples of Northern Rhodesia (London, 1920), i. 252 sqq.

[34] G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, p. 348.

[35] J. Williams, op. cit. p. 456; Ch. Wilkes, op. cit. ii. 150 sq.; W. T. Pritchard, Polynesian Reminiscences, p. 61; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 247 sqq.; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 170, 172 sq. Dr. Brown here speaks as if captive women were regularly spared and married by the victors. As to the elaborate civilities which passed between the vanguards of two hostile armies at their first meeting, see Dr. Brown, op. cit. pp. 166 sq.

[36] J. Williams, op. cit. p. 458.

[37] J. Williams, op. cit. pp. 286 sq., 456; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 254-258.

[38] Ch. Wilkes, op. cit.. ii. 145 sqq.; J. E. Erskine, op. cit. pp. 45-47; T. H. Hood, Notes of a Cruise in H.M.S. "Fawn" in the Western Pacific (Edinburgh, 1863), p. 32; Violette, "Notes d'un Missionnaire sur l'archipel de Samoa," Les Missions Catholiques, iii. (1870) p. 135; G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 152 sqq.; S. Ella, op. cit. pp. 634 sq.; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 105 sqq., 153 sqq.; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 24 sqq.

[39] Ch. Wilkes, op. cit. ii. 147; W. T. Pritchard, Polynesian Reminiscences (London, 1866), pp. 126-128; Violette, "Notes d'un Missionnaire sur l'archipel de Samoa," Les Missions Catholiques, iii. (1870) pp. 87 sq.; G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 105-107; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 53-55; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 130 sqq. According to Dr. Brown, there are generally three crops of bread-fruit in the year, one of them lasting about three months.

[40] Violette, "Notes d'un Missionnaire sur l'archipel de Samoa," Les Missions Catholiques, iii. (1870) p. 188; S. Ella, op. cit. p. 635; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 54 sq.; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 130 sqq., 338 sqq.

[41] G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 157 sqq., 162 sqq.; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 141 sqq., 145 sqq., 153 sqq., 157 sqq.; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 268, 305-308. Compare Ch. Wilkes, op. cit. ii. 143 sqq.; Violette, op. cit. pp. 134 sq.; S. Ella, op. cit. pp. 635 sq.

[42] Ch. Wilkes, Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition, ii. 142 sq.; J. E. Erskine, Journal of a Cruise among the Islands of the Western Pacific, pp. 109 sq.; W. T. Pritchard, Polynesian Reminiscences, pp. 129-132; Violette, "Notes d'un Missionnaire sur l'archipel de Samoa," Les Missions Catholiques, iii. (1870) p. 135; G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 119-121; S. Ella, "Samoa," Report of the Fourth Meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, held at Hobart, Tasmania, in January 1892, p. 636; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 143 sq.; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 304 sq., 305, 315, 434.

[43] G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 176 sq.; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 83 sq.; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 287 sq., 314, 339.

[44] G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 160 sq.; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 247, 262 sq., 434.

[45] J. Williams, Narrative of Missionary Enterprises in the South Sea Islands, p. 454; H. Hale, Ethnography and Philology of the United States Exploring Expedition, p. 29; T. H. Hood, Notes of a Cruise in H.M.S. "Fawn" in the Western Pacific (Edinburgh, 1863), p. 118; G. Turner, Samoa, p. 173; S. Ella, "Samoa," Report of the Fourth Meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, held at Hobart, Tasmania, in January 1892, p. 631; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 83 sq., 89; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, p. 333.

[46] H. Hale, op. cit. p. 28; Violette, op. cit. p. 168; G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 173 sqq.; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 65 sqq.; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 283, 430.

[47] G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, p. 431.

[48] G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 280, 283, 285; Violette, op. cit. p. 168 (as to chiefs too holy to be seen by day).

[49] J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 127 sq. Compare Violette, op. cit. p. 168; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 231, 280, 285. In this work Dr. Brown remarks (p. 231) that there is no clear explanation of the custom of sprinkling coco-nut water as a purificatory rite. But the explanation given by Stair, which I have quoted in the text, is clear and satisfactory, and elsewhere (p. 285) Dr. Brown implicitly adopts the same explanation, where he says that the man who had served kava to a sacred chief "sprinkled himself all over to wash away the sacredness (paia)."

[50] H. Hale, Ethnography and Philology of the United States Exploring Expedition, pp. 28 sq.; Violette, "Notes d'un Missionnaire sur l'archipel de Samoa," Les Missions Catholiques, iii. (1870) p. 190; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 67 sqq.; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 380 sq. Compare G. Turner, Samoa, p. 175.

[51] G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 280, 381.

[52] J. E. Erskine, Journal of a Cruise among the Islands of the Western Pacific, p. 44.

[53] G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 174 sq.; S. Ella, "Samoa," Report of the Fourth Meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, held at Hobart, Tasmania, in January 1892, pp. 631 sq.; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, p. 70; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, p. 286.

[54] J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, p. 70; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, p. 286.

[55] J. Williams, Narrative of Missionary Enterprises in the South Sea Islands, p. 454; H. Hale, Ethnography and Philology of the United States Exploring Expedition, p. 28; Violette, "Notes d'un Missionnaire sur l'archipel de Samoa," Les Missions Catholiques, iii. (1870) p. 119; G. Turner, Samoa, p. 177; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 71 sqq.

[56] Violette, op. cit. p. 119; G. Turner, Samoa, p. 174; S. Ella, op. cit. p. 631; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 282, 286, 430.

[57] Violette, op. cit. pp. 118 sq.; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 65 sqq.; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, p. 283. Compare H. Hale, Ethnography and Philology of the United States Exploring Expedition, p. 29.

[58] S. Ella, "Samoa," Report of the Fourth Meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, held at Hobart, Tasmania, in January 1892, p. 631.

[59] H. Hale, op. cit. p. 28; Ch. Wilkes, op. cit. ii. 152; Violette, op. cit. p. 119; S. Ella, op. cit. p. 629; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 70 sq.; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 285 sq., 287.

[60] J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 74 sq.; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, p. 432.

[61] G. Turner, Samoa, p. 173.

[62] G. Turner, Samoa, p. 180; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, p. 333.

[63] Violette, "Notes d'un Missionnaire sur l'archipel de Samoa," Les Missions Catholiques, iii. (1870) pp. 119 sq.

[64] G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 173, 180 sq. A third local division, intermediate between the village and the district, is mentioned by Stair, who calls it a settlement (Old Samoa, p. 83); but the other authorities whom I have consulted appear not to recognise such an intermediate division.

[65] J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, p. 83.

[66] H. Hale, Ethnography and Philology of the United States Exploring Expedition, p. 29; Ch. Wilkes, Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition, ii. 153 sq.; Violette, "Notes d'un Missionnaire sur l'archipel de Samoa," Les Missions Catholiques, iii. (1870) p. 119; G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 177 sqq., 180 sqq.; S. Ella, op. cit. pp. 632 sq.; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 84 sqq.; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 286 sq., 288 sqq.

[67] G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, p. 319; G. Turner, Samoa, p. 158; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 146, 149, 154, 159. As to the wooden dibbles, see Ella, op. cit. p. 635 (above, p. [166]).

[68] G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 111 sq.; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, p. 130.

[69] G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, p. 129.

[70] John Williams, Narrative of Missionary Enterprises in the South Sea Islands, pp. 465 sq.

[71] W. T. Pritchard, Polynesian Reminiscences (London, 1866), pp. 106 sqq.; T. H. Hood, Notes of a Cruise in H.M.S. "Fawn" in the Western Pacific, p. 141; G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 16 sqq.; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 211, 215 sqq.

[72] J. Williams, Narrative of Missionary Enterprises in the South Sea Islands, p. 468; Ch. Wilkes, Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition, ii. 131 sq.; T. H. Hood, Notes of a Cruise in H.M.S. "Fawn" in the Western Pacific, p. 141; W. T. Pritchard, Polynesian Reminiscences, pp. 106 sqq.; Violette, "Notes d'un Missionnaire sur l'archipel de Samoa," Les Missions Catholiques, iii. (1870) p. 111; G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 16 sqq., 40, 50 sq.; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 211, 216 sq.; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 137, 218. The account of these deities given by Dr. G. Turner is by far the fullest and best.

[73] G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 67 sq.

[74] W. T. Pritchard, op. cit. p. 107. Similarly some people had pig's heart for their god, or the embodiment of their god, and they scrupulously avoided eating pigs' hearts lest pigs' hearts should grow in their bodies and so cause their death. See G. Turner, Samoa, p. 72.

[75] G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 31 sq.

[76] G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 38, 58, 59, 69 sq., 72.

[77] J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 216 sq.

[78] G. Turner, Samoa, p. 58.

[79] J. Williams, op. cit. p. 469.

[80] G. Turner, Samoa, p. 57.

[81] G. Turner, Samoa, p. 75.

[82] J. Williams, op. cit. pp. 373 sq.

[83] J. Williams, op. cit. p. 375.

[84] G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 21, 26, 60 sq. Compare W. T. Pritchard, Polynesian Reminiscences, pp. 110 sq.

[85] G. Turner, Samoa, p. 20.

[86] G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 24 sq.

[87] G. Turner, Samoa, p. 20; W. T. Pritchard, Polynesian Reminiscences, pp. 121 sqq.

[88] G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, p. 229.

[89] G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 20, 26, 29, 41, 44, 47, 53, 57.

[90] G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 20 sq.

[91] G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 20, 26, 29; W. T. Pritchard, Polynesian Reminiscences, p. 123.

[92] G. Turner, Samoa, p. 57.

[93] G. Turner, Samoa, p. 41.

[94] G. Turner, Samoa, p. 47.

[95] G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 25 sq.

[96] G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 70 sq.

[97] G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 47 sq.

[98] G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, p. 229.

[99] G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 229 sq.

[100] G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 25 sq.

[101] G. Turner, Samoa, p. 60.

[102] G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 52, 61, 65.

[103] G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 35, 51, 54 sq., 64.

[104] G. Turner, pp. 46 sq.

[105] G. Turner, Samoa, p. 49.

[106] G. Turner, Samoa, p. 29.

[107] G. Turner, Samoa, p. 35; compare p. 43.

[108] G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 59 sq.

[109] G. Turner, Samoa, p. 35.

[110] G. Turner, Samoa, p. 55.

[111] G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 25 sq.

[112] G. Turner, Samoa, p. 64.

[113] G. Turner, Samoa, p. 34.

[114] G. Turner, Samoa, p. 72.

[115] G. Turner, Samoa, p. 71.

[116] G. Turner, Samoa, p. 63.

[117] G. Turner, Samoa, p. 67.

[118] See above, p. [158].

[119] G. Turner, Samoa, p. 18. For the offering of kava to the household god, compare id. p. 51.

[120] G. Turner, Samoa, p. 20. For a full account of the priesthood, see J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 220 sqq. As to the Samoan war-gods, see G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 23, 25 sq., 27 sq., 28, 32, 33, 35, 42, 46 sq., 48, 49, 51, 52, 54 sq., 55, 57, 60, 61, 64, 65; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 215 sq.

[121] J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 70, 222 sq., 225; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 228, 246 sq.

[122] J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 223-225; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 246 sq.

[123] J. B. Stair, p. 223; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 228, 246 sq.

[124] J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 226-228.

[125] G. Turner, Samoa, p. 19.

[126] J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 227 sq.

[127] G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 29 sq.

[128] G. Turner, Samoa, p. 49.

[129] G. Turner, Samoa, p. 55.

[130] G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 56 sq.

[131] G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 54 sq.

[132] G. Turner, Samoa, p. 53.

[133] W. T. Pritchard, Polynesian Reminiscences, pp. 119-121; Violette, "Notes d'un Missionnaire sur l'archipel de Samoa," Les Missions Catholiques, iii. (1870) p. 112; G. Turner, Samoa, p. 31; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, p. 228; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, p. 220.

[134] H. B. Sterndale, quoted by R. A. Sterndale, "Asiatic Architecture in Polynesia," The Asiatic Quarterly Review, x. (July-October 1890) pp. 347-350. The writer of this article reports the discoveries of his brother, Mr. Handley Bathurst Sterndale.

[135] H. B. Sterndale, op. cit. pp. 351 sq.

[136] H. B. Sterndale, op. cit. p. 352.

[137] G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 17, 78 sq.

[138] G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 137, 218, 334.

[139] W. H. R. Rivers, "Totemism in Polynesia and Melanesia," Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, xxxix. (1909) pp. 159 sq.

[140] W. T. Pritchard, Polynesian Reminiscences, pp. 111 sq.; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 211 sq.

[141] J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, p. 212.

[142] G. Turner, Samoa, p. 7.

[143] G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 7 sq.; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 212-214. The bird turi or tuli is spoken of by Turner as the daughter, but by Stair as the son, of Tangaloa. According to Turner, the bird is a species of snipe; according to Stair, a species of plover. As to Tangaloa and the stories told about him, compare John Williams, Narrative of Missionary Enterprises in the South Sea Islands, pp. 469 sq.; H. Hale, Ethnography and Philology of the United States Exploring Expedition, p. 22; Violette, "Notes d'un Missionnaire sur l'archipel de Samoa," Les Missions Catholiques, iii. (1870) pp. 111 sq.; E. Tregear, Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary, p. 463, s.v. "Tangaroa."

[144] Ch. Wilkes, Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition, ii. 131; W. T. Pritchard, Polynesian Reminiscences, pp. 112, 114 sqq.; G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 209-211; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 238 sq.

[145] J. Williams, op. cit. p. 379.

[146] G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, p. 223. See also above, p. [192].

[147] G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 62 sq. The town or village of Matautu is in the island of Savaii. According to G. Turner, the sacred tree of Tuifiti was the Afzelia bijuga.

[148] J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 210 sq., 215.

[149] G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 8, 16; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, p. 220; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 218 sq.; E. Tregear, Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary, p. 26, s.v. "Ata."

[150] G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 170 sq., 218 sq.; G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 150 sq.; S. Ella, "Samoa," Report of the Fourth Meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, held at Hobart, Tasmania, in January 1892, pp. 641 sq.; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, p. 184. According to Brown and Stair the ceremony described in the text was observed when a man had died a violent death, even when the relatives were in possession of the body, and in that case the insect, or whatever it might be, was buried with the corpse. I have followed Turner and Ella in supposing that the ceremony was only observed when the corpse could not be found. As to the fear of the spirits of the unburied dead, see also W. T. Pritchard, Polynesian Reminiscences, pp. 58 sq., 151.

[151] S. Ella, op. cit. pp. 639, 643; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 223 sq., 402.

[152] W. T. Pritchard, Polynesian Reminiscences, pp. 146 sq.; G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 140 sq.; S. Ella, op. cit. p. 639; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 180 sq.; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 223 sq., 401.

[153] W. T. Pritchard, op. cit. pp. 147, 150 sq.; G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 141 sq., 146; S. Ella, op. cit. p. 639; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, p. 180; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 220, 401, 405 sq.

[154] J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 181 sq.

[155] W. T. Pritchard, Polynesian Reminiscences, p. 148; G. Turner, Samoa, p. 144; S. Ella, op. cit. p. 640; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, p. 182; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 401 sq.

[156] W. T. Pritchard, Polynesian Reminiscences, pp. 148 sq.; G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 144 sq.; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, 182; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, p. 402.

[157] G. Turner, Samoa, p. 145; W. T. Pritchard, op. cit. p. 149; S. Ella, op. cit. p. 640; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, p. 182; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, p. 402.

[158] J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 178 sq.

[159] W. T. Pritchard, Polynesian Reminiscences, pp. 150 sq.; G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 146 sq.; S. Ella, op. cit. pp. 640 sq.; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 179 sq., 182 sq.; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, p. 403.

[160] G. Turner, Samoa, p. 146

[161] J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 183 sq.

[162] W. T. Pritchard, Polynesian Reminiscences, pp. 149 sq.; S. Ella, op. cit. p. 642; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 403 sq.

[163] G. Turner, Samoa, p. 149; S. Ella, op. cit. pp. 640 sq.; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, p. 402.

[164] G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 388 sq., 404 sq.

[165] G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 148 sq.; S. Ella, op. cit. p. 641; J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 184 sq.; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, p. 405.

[166] G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 220 sq.

[167] H. Hale, Ethnography and Philology of the United States Exploring Expedition, p. 27.

[168] J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 218 sq. Compare G. Turner, Samoa, p. 257; S. Ella, op. cit. pp. 643 sq.

[169] G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 257 sq.; S. Ella, op. cit. pp. 643 sq.; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, p. 221.

[170] J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, p. 219.

[171] G. Turner, Samoa, p. 257; S. Ella, op. cit. p. 643.

[172] G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 258 sq.; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, p. 222.

[173] J. B. Stair, Old Samoa, pp. 217 sq.; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, p. 221. On the question whether the Samoans held a doctrine of moral retribution after death, Dr. Brown observes: "I do not remember any statement to the effect that the conduct of a man in this life affected his state after death. They certainly believe this now, but whether they did so prior to the introduction of Christianity I cannot definitely say. I am inclined, however, to believe that they did not believe that conduct in this life affected them in the future" (Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 261 sq.). Elsewhere, however, Dr. Brown seems to express a contrary opinion. He says: "It was generally understood that the conditions of men in this life, even amongst the common people, had an effect on their future conditions. A good man in Samoa generally meant a liberal man, one who was generous and hospitable; whilst a bad man was one who was mean, selfish, and greedy about food" (op. cit. p. 222).

[174] G. Turner, Samoa, pp. 259 sq.; S. Ella, op. cit. p. 644.

[175] G. Turner, Samoa, p. 259; S. Ella, op. cit. p. 644; G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 219, 221, 222.

[176] G. Turner, Samoa, p. 151.

[177] G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, pp. 245, 282.

[178] G. Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, p. 221, "They had no belief in the transmigration of souls either into animals, inert bodies, or into different human bodies."

[179] W. H. R. Rivers, The History of Melanesian Society, ii. 358 sqq.

[180] See above, pp. [92 sqq.]

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CHAPTER IV