Before starting on the main track I made my way down to the beach to have a swim in the cool waters and refresh myself. I was then several miles from Upolu, and as I crept from the forest and gazed shoreward, where by the palms shone a lagoon, I suddenly surprised a covey of native girls who were all having their morning bath. Some were still in the water and others on the shore; all of them, of course, perfectly nude. I shall never forget how some of them ran up the shore to get their “ridis” while others modestly bent themselves in the shallow waters, their heads and chins just poking out, watching their opportunity to bolt up the shore. This they did one after the other, their brown legs splashing out as they raced to the palm-trees, each plucking a big leaf to hold in front of her for modesty’s sake. There they stood in a huddled group just as God’s first thought had moulded them, the jungle grass brushing to their knees, in their hair the lovely wild red flowers plucked from the plants around them, their rows of pearly teeth gleaming as they smiled.
I tramped enviously onward. I was very happy that day. Somehow the scent of the sea-winds stirring the forest flowers intoxicated my brain as I trudged along and I felt as though I and those forest trees had been friends for ages. There is nothing under the heavens like a South Sea forest to make the atmosphere of true poetry, to lift you out of and above your fleshy self, and as I tramped along I sang to myself through sheer delirium of happiness.
Before the sun had climbed over the western hills I arrived at “Safata” and old Marmona’s wife came from her hut door with her big mouth open so wide with welcome and astonishment that I saw the brown roof and her three back teeth. “Marmona!” she shouted with delight as she called for her husband, “White man’s,” “Siva,” and across the track from behind the scattered shed-like huts of the village that stood beneath the palms and South Sea bamboo-trees came running Marmona, my old friend, whom I had got acquainted with in Apia. He was delighted to see that I had my fiddle with me and though he was getting old he clapped his hands and started chanting and did a double shuffle round me as the native girls came running across the clearings to see the white man. Round me they stood gazing into my face in regiments, their thick dark hair smothered in grass; some wore hibiscus flowers stuck behind their pretty brown ears, others a palm leaf twisted hat-shape to fit their curly heads, others were perfectly naked excepting for a tiny strip of tappa-cloth tied round the thighs into a bow at the back and in front a large blushing hibiscus blossom.
It was a sweltering hot afternoon and by their huts sat the Samoan parents watching their “Fainetoa” (little children) play. Some of them were very old, dark, hairless-headed grandfathers and grandmothers, and they all sat cross-legged, each on a little mat. Marmona led me up to a group of them and introduced me with pride, very much the same as an English draper would introduce an earl who suddenly claimed his friendship, to his tradesmen acquaintances, for I was a white man, and moreover my violin-playing made me something of a god in his eyes. I fully appreciated his great impression of me, saluted the village folk in lordly style and smacked Marmona familiarly on the back afterwards, and he nearly fainted with sheer pride and delight as the awestruck village élite followed us across the cleared patch towards his hut, where his wife Taloffora was busily laying the cloth on the ground for dinner. Her back stuck high up as she stooped and stirred the hot baked fish food and plantains, all got ready especially for me, and I sat there cross-legged on the special visiting mat and thoroughly enjoyed that meal. As I was sitting munching away, thinking how peaceful everything was in that native village, I suddenly heard a loud jabbering in a hut close by. It was a jealous neighbour of Mr and Mrs Marmona’s; they had long since been at loggerheads with my friend and his family, and now to see me there dining with them had riled them till their jealousy knew no bounds, and to make things worse old Madam Taloffora kept talking loudly to me in her own language as she walked round me filling my platter up with more hot fish. I could not understand all that she was saying, but I guessed she was having “one off” her jealous neighbour. Crash! came a coco-nut from the enemy’s hut and caught my hostess a terrible whack on that back part which the South Sea Islanders often reveal when they stoop. With a yell she placed her skinny fingers on the insulted part, and then the outraged husband came rushing under the palms towards her and gazed up into her face. She jabbered hysterically and the old fellow’s brown-skinned face shrunk into a map of scheming wrinkles that denoted intense concentration on the way for the best and speediest revenge! For the brown man is much the same as the white man—he believes all his wife tells him, never dreaming that she is possibly the cause of the whole trouble. Often the tribes of those wild lands meet in bloodthirsty warfare, kings are dethroned, queens murdered and unmentionable cruelties occur through no greater cause than that a woman was spitefully jealous of another woman’s tappa waist sash!
I knew old Marmona’s wife well, and in truth I could have sworn that she had scandalised the irate owner of the hand that had shied the coco-nut; anyway the deed was done, and I was at my wit’s end to know what to do to avert disaster. As quickly as possible I appealed to the old chap and by many signs and deftly used Samoan words I let him see that the best way to have revenge was not to imitate the injury, but to let me smile on and treat him and his wife with lordly respect. He was a clever old fellow and quickly fathomed the depths of my meaning, and I was so delighted to see how things were going that when he fetched the hut oil pot out in his hand, which the South Sea Islanders always keep ready for bruises, I myself held it as that wretched old scandalous wife stooped and he applied the lotion with his tender hand, and across the track, under the palms through a small hut door, gleamed the envious jealous eyes of the woman who had thrown the coco-nut. Had I not appeased the murderous wrath of my host and hostess they would have attacked that hut and the friends of each would have taken sides and a pitched battle commenced, which would in all probability have ended in the taking of my life. Evidently the jealous neighbour thought she had been sufficiently revenged, for with the cessation of Mrs Marmona’s groans the feud ceased.
Samoans are not given to vendetta vindictiveness, and mortal enemies by day are often great friends by night; and so it was in this case, for that night, as I played the fiddle, the enemy crept from her camp, sneaked through the circles of native girls and boys who sat all around delighted as they watched me, and fell into the arms of my hostess, each wailing loudly as I played away. Two grim-looking aged chiefs of many past battles chanted some old idol song as their friends sat round with frizzly heads and merry eyes listening to the awful noise. They sang in any key but the one I was trying to accompany them in, but it did not matter—they were all happy enough and so were the audience as they listened and smoked at their ease, tired after working on the yam plantations or on the buildings that were being erected for German Government officials far away by the beach.
In the huts hard by I heard the poor brown kiddies being spanked as they were put to bed screaming with disappointment that they must sleep while the chiefs sang and the funny white man scraped the spirit wood with the magic long thin finger, for that was the way those natives described my violin and bow.
I shall never forget the strangeness of those times in those primeval forests and native villages. As the moon sailed overhead that night after the concert had ceased I carefully hid my violin in my hostess’s hut and took a stroll around under the shadow of the palms. Among the yellow bamboos I saw the native girls in the arms of the Samoan youths, their eyes shining in the moonlight, while the innocent old mothers and fathers squatting cross-legged by their huts smoked peacefully away, thinking those very lovers were fast asleep in the next hut bedroom.
Low-caste Native Girl