Came then the wind and the sweet, blessed rain, and as the schooner, under reefed canvas, plunged to the rising sea, the folk of Nukutavake, I felt certain, stood outside their houses, and let the cooling Heaven-sent streams drench their smooth, copper-coloured skins, whilst good old Teveiva gave thanks to God.
CHAPTER XXI ~ THE PIT OF MAOTÂ
For the Samoans I have always had a great admiration and affection. Practically I began my island career in Samoa. More than a score of years before Robert Louis Stevenson went to die on the verdured slopes of Vailima Mountain, where he now rests, I was gaining my living by running a small trading cutter between the beautiful islands of Upolu, Savai'i, and Tutuila, and the people ever had my strong sympathies in their struggle against Germany for independence. Even so far back as 1865, German agents were at work throughout the group, sowing the seeds of discord, encouraging the chiefs of King Malietoa to rebel, so that they could set up a German puppet in his place. And unfortunately they have succeeded only too well, and Samoa, with the exception of the Island of Tutuila, is now German territory. But it is as well, for the people are kindly treated by their new masters.
The Samoans were always a warlike race. When not unitedly repelling invasion by the all-conquering Tongans who sent fleet after fleet to subjugate the country, they were warring among themselves upon various pretexts—successions to chiefly titles, land disputes, abuse of neutral territory, and often upon the most trivial pretexts. In my own time I witnessed a sanguinary naval encounter between the people of the island of Manono, and a war-party of ten great canoes from the district of Lepâ on the island of Upolu. I saw sixteen decapitated heads brought on shore, and personally attended many of the wounded. And all this occurred through the Lepâ people having at a dance in their village sung a song in which a satirical allusion was made to the Manono people having once been reduced to eating shell-fish. The result was an immediate challenge from Manono, and in all nearly one hundred men lost their lives, villages were burnt, canoes destroyed, and thousands of coco-nut and bread-fruit trees cut down and plantations ruined.
Sometimes in battle the Samoans were extremely chivalrous, at others they were demons incarnate, as merciless, cold-blooded, and cruel as the Russian police who slaughter women and children in the streets of the capital of the Great White Czar, and I shall now endeavour to describe one such terrible act, which after many years is still spoken of with bated breath, and even amidst the suppressed sobs and falling tears of the descendants of those who suffered.
On the north coast of Upolu there is a populous town and district named Fasito'otai. It is part of the A'ana division of Upolu, and is noted, even in Samoa, a paradise of Nature, for its extraordinary fertility and beauty.
The A'ana people at this time were suffering from the tyranny of Manono, a small island which boasted of the fact of its being the birthplace and home of nearly all the ruling chiefs of Samoa, and the extraordinary respect with which people of chiefly lineage are treated by Samoans, generally led them to suffer the greatest indignities and oppressions by the haughty and warlike Manonoans, who exacted under threats a continuous tribute of food, fine mats and canoes. Finally, a valorous young chief named Tausaga—though himself connected with Manono—revolted, and he and his people refused to pay further tribute to Manono, and a bloody struggle was entered upon.
For some months the war continued. No mercy was shown on either side to the vanquished, and there is now a song which tells of how Palu, a girl of seventeen, with a spear thrust half through her bosom by her brother-in-law, a chief of Manono, shot him through the chest with a horse pistol, and then breaking off the spear, knelt beside the dying man, kissed him as her “brother” and then decapitated him, threw the head to her people with a cry of triumph—and died.
At first the A'ana people were victorious, and the haughty Manonoans were driven off into their fleets of war canoes time and time again. Then Manono made alliance with other powerful chiefs of Savai'i and Upolu against A'ana, and two thousand of them, after great slaughter, occupied the town of Fasito'otai, and the A'ana people retired to inland fortresses, resolved to fight to the very last. Among the leaders of the defeated people were two white men—an Englishman and an American—whose valour was so much admired, even by the Manono people, that they were openly solicited to desert the A'ana people, and come over to the other side, where great honours and gifts of lands awaited them. To their credit, these two unknown men rejected the offer with scorn, and announced their intention to die with the people with whom they had lived for so many years. At their instance, many of the Manono warriors who had been captured had been spared, and kept prisoners, instead of being ruthlessly decapitated in the usual Samoan fashion, and their heads exhibited, with much ignominy, from one village to another, as trophies.