During the time engaged in the operation, the patients look most miserable beings, the wounded parts swollen and inflamed, and displaying as yet none of the elegant pattern which has been traced on them. The lads hobble about in all sorts of contorted attitudes, fanning away the flies with flappers made of white masi, and doing all in their power to alleviate the pain. At last, however, comes the reward of all their sufferings. As soon as the wounds are healed, their friends get up a grand dance. As the costume of the male dancers is nothing but the little apron of leaves which has been already mentioned, the pattern of the tattooing is freely displayed; and the lads, now admitted among the men, think themselves well repaid for their former sufferings by the honor and glory of being ranked as men, and by the admiration of the opposite sex.
An [illustration] on the preceding page represents the process of tattooing. In the centre is lying the patient with his head in his sister’s lap, and his legs held by her companions, who are singing, in order to cover his groans, should he utter any. Near him are two assistants with their white masi cloths, and at his side kneels the operator, busily at work with his mallet and comb. The little vessel of pigment is by his side. Ranged round the wall of the house are the young men who are waiting their turn. Painful as is the operation, and expensive as it is, involving not only the fees to the operator, but a constant supply of provisions, all the lads look forward to it with the greatest anxiety, knowing that they will never be considered as men unless they can show a complete tattoo.
Both men and women wear mats, called in the native language “je-tonga.” One of these mats is in my collection, and is a beautiful piece of work. It is made of very narrow strips of leaf scraped thin, each strip being about the fifteenth of an inch in width. These are plaited together with beautiful regularity, and the whole is edged with a very fine and almost silken fringe of the same material.
Some of these mats are decorated with the red feathers of the parrot tribe, and increase in their value by age, being handed down to successive generations, and having legends attached to them. My own specimen has been adorned in a way which doubtless was very imposing to a Samoan eye, though not to that of an European. The native maker had evidently treasured up some scraps of English calico, and some blue and yellow paper such as is used for wrapping parcels. These treasures she has fastened to the mat, to which they give a most ludicrous appearance.
Samoan chiefs, when full dressed for war or state, may be known at a great distance by the splendid headdress which they wear. In the first place, they increase the apparent size of their heads by enormous wigs made of their own hair, which is suffered to grow long for this express purpose. When it has attained sufficient length, it is cut off, and is stained red, and frizzed out, until it assumes as large dimensions as the woolly head of a Papuan. They also wear great plumes of feathers, sometimes towering to the height of nearly two feet above their heads; so that the height of a Samoan chief, measured from the top of his plume, is not far from nine feet.
One of these headdresses in my collection is made of a vast number of feathers, tied by the stems in little bundles, and carefully arranged so that they shall droop evenly. There are about ten feathers in each bundle. These tufts are arranged closely together in circles composed of leaf stems and cocoa-nut fibre, and there are four of these circlets placed one over the other, so that several hundred feather tufts are employed for this single dress. The maker has ingeniously, though ignorantly, copied the peacock, the egret, and other birds which are furnished with trains. In them, the tail feathers are short and stiff, so as to allow the long train of feathers to droop gracefully over them. In a similar manner, the Samoan artificer has employed the shortest and stiffest feathers in the lower-most circlet, while in the uppermost are placed the longest and most slender plumes. The headdress is really very handsome, and even when worn by an European gives a most martial aspect to the countenance, especially when the war mat is worn, and the huge Samoan club carried on the shoulder.
The dress of the women is made of the same material as that of the men, but differently arranged. Their work costume is a petticoat of Dracæna leaves, but instead of being, like that of the men, a mere short apron, it is much longer, and completely surrounds the body. On occasions of state or ceremony, however, they wear lava-lavas of siapo like those of the men, only put on rather differently, and of much larger size. A woman of rank will often have this garment so long that it trails on the ground far behind her.
Captain Hood, in describing an entertainment given in honor of the white visitors, writes as follows. After the men had danced “a number of girls entered, who went through a somewhat similar set of evolutions, with infinite exactness and grace. It may seem incredible to our fair sisters in England, that a young lady arranged in no other garment but a mat tied round her waist should look handsomely dressed; but could they see these Samoan belles enter the circle in their full evening costume, with their coronets of nautilus shell and scarlet hibiscus, and their necklaces of red and yellow flowers, I believe they would admit that their appearance is highly imposing.
“Some wore beautifully plaited fine mats, which are so highly prized that they cost more than a rich silk or satin dress. Others had white shaggy dresses, made from the inner fibres of the hibiscus, the amplitude of which would satisfy the most extensive patronesses of crinoline, and indulged in trains equalling in length that worn by those dames of England in former days, while their carriage and air plainly showed that, whatever we might think, they felt themselves superior beings.” To judge from the photographed portraits of these Samoan beauties, Captain Hood is perfectly right; they not only look well dressed, but, if anything, over dressed.
That this opinion was not a rare one is evident from Mr. Williams’s account of Samoa, which he visited more than thirty years before Captain Hood. The missionaries’ wives had endeavored to persuade the Samoan women to wrap their abundant mantles over the whole of the body, but without success. On the contrary, the Samoan belles in their turn tried to convince the white visitors that it would be much better for them to faa Samoa, i. e. to do in Samoa as the Samoans do. Garments that covered the whole of the body might do well enough in the white woman’s country, but when they came to Samoa they ought to dress themselves like the Samoans, tie a shaggy mat round the waist, coquettishly looped up on one side, and anoint themselves with scented oil and color themselves with turmeric; wear a flower on the head instead of a bonnet, and a necklace of flowers by way of a bodice. Thus accoutred, they might faa-riaria, i. e. strut about in the consciousness of being well dressed, and certain of admiration. There is much to be said on both sides of the question.