APPENDIX III
SAMOAN CIVILISATION AS IT IS TO-DAY
The scene of this study was the little island of Taū. Along one coast of the island, which rises precipitately to a mountain peak in the centre, cluster three little villages, Lumā and Siufaga, side by side, and Faleasao, half a mile away. On the other end of the island is the isolated village of Fitiuta, separated from the other three villages by a long and arduous trail. Many of the people from the other villages have never been to Fitiuta, eight miles away. Twelve miles across the open sea are the two islands of Ofu and Olesega, which with Taū, make up the Manu’a Archipelago, the most primitive part of Samoa. Journeys in slender outrigger canoes from one of these three little islands to another are frequent, and the inhabitants of Manu’a think of themselves as a unit as over against the inhabitants of Tutuila, the large island where the Naval Station is situated. The three islands have a population of a little over two thousand people, with constant visiting, inter-marrying, adoption going on between the seven villages of the Archipelago.
The natives still live in their beehive-shaped houses with floors of coral rubble, no walls except perishable woven blinds which are lowered in bad weather, and a roof of sugar-cane thatch over which it is necessary to bind palm branches in every storm. They have substituted cotton cloth for their laboriously manufactured bark cloth for use as everyday clothing, native costume being reserved for ceremonial occasions. But the men content themselves with a wide cotton loin cloth, the lavalava, fastened at the waist with a dexterous twist of the material. This costume permits a little of the tattooing which covers their bodies from knee to the small of the back, to appear above and below the folds of the lavalava. Tattooing has been taboo on Manu’a for two generations, so only a part of the population have made the necessary journey to another island in search of a tattooer. Women wear a longer lavalava and a short cotton dress falling to their knees. Both sexes go barefoot and hats are worn only to Church, on which occasions the men don white shirts and white coats, ingeniously tailored by the native women in imitation of Palm Beach coats which have fallen into their hands. The women’s tattooing is much sparser than the men’s, a mere matter of dots and crosses on arms, hands, and thighs. Garlands of flowers, flowers in the hair, and flowers twisted about the ankles, serve to relieve the drabness of the faded cotton clothing, and on gala days, beautifully patterned bark cloth, fine mats, gaily bordered with red parrot feathers, headdresses of human hair decorated with plumes and feathers, recall the more picturesque attire of pre-Christian days.
Sewing-machines have been in use for many years, although the natives are still dependent upon some deft-handed sailor for repairs. Scissors have also been added to the household equipment, but wherever possible a Samoan woman still uses her teeth or a piece of bamboo. At the Missionary boarding-schools a few of the women have learned to crochet and embroider, using their skill particularly to ornament the plump, hard pillows which are rapidly displacing the little bamboo head rests. Sheets of white cotton have taken the place of sheets of firmly woven mats or of bark cloth. Mosquito nets of cotton netting make a native house much more endurable than must have been the case when bark cloth tents were the only defence against insects. The netting is suspended at night from stout cords hung across the house, and the edges weighted down with stones, so that prowling dogs, pigs, and chickens wander through the house at will without disturbing the sleepers.
Agate buckets share with hollowed cocoanut shells the work of bringing water from the springs and from the sea, and a few china cups and glasses co-operate with the cocoanut drinking cups. Many households have an iron cook pot in which they can boil liquids in preference to the older method of dropping red hot stones into a wooden vessel containing the liquid to be heated. Kerosene lamps and lanterns are used extensively; the old candle-nut clusters and cocoanut oil lamps being reinstated only in times of great scarcity when they cannot afford to purchase kerosene. Tobacco is a much-prized luxury; the Samoans have learned to grow it, but imported varieties are very much preferred to their own.
Outside the household the changes wrought by the introduction of European articles are very slight. The native uses an iron knife to cut his copra and an iron adze blade in place of the old stone one. But he still binds the rafters of his house together with cinet and sews the parts of his fishing canoes together. The building of large canoes has been abandoned. Only small canoes for fishing are built now, and for hauling supplies over the reef the natives build keeled rowboats. Only short voyages are made in small canoes and rowboats, and the natives wait for the coming of the Naval ship to do their travelling. The government buys the copra and with the money so obtained the Samoans buy cloth, thread, kerosene, soap, matches, knives, belts, and tobacco, pay their taxes (levied on every man over a certain height as age is an indeterminate matter), and support the church.
And yet, while the Samoans use these products of a more complex civilisation, they are not dependent upon them. With the exception of making and using stone tools, it is probably safe to say that none of the native arts have been lost. The women all make bark cloth and weave fine mats. Parturition still takes place on a piece of bark cloth, the umbilical cord is cut with a piece of bamboo, and the new baby is wrapped in a specially prepared piece of white bark cloth. If soap cannot be obtained, the wild orange provides a frothy substitute. The men still manufacture their own nets, make their own hooks, weave their own eel traps. And although they use matches when they can get them, they have not lost the art of converting a carrying stick into a fire plow at a moment’s notice.
Perhaps most important of all is the fact that they still depend entirely upon their own foods, planted with a sharpened pole in their own plantations. Breadfruit, bananas, taro, yams, and cocoanuts form a substantial and monotonous accompaniment for the fish, shell fish, land crabs, and occasional pigs and chickens. The food is carried down to the village in baskets, freshly woven from palm leaves. The cocoanuts are grated on the end of a wooden “horse,” pointed with shell or iron; the breadfruit and taro are supported on a short stake, tufted with cocoanut husk, and the rind is grated off with a piece of cocoanut shell. The green bananas are skinned with a bamboo knife. The whole amount of food for a family of fifteen or twenty for two or three days is cooked at once in a large circular pit of stones. These are first heated to white heat; the ashes are then raked away; the food placed on the stones and the oven covered with green leaves, under which the food is baked thoroughly. Cooking over, the food is stored in baskets which are hung up inside the main house. It is served on palm leaf platters, garnished with a fresh banana leaf. Fingers are the only knives and forks, and a wooden finger bowl is passed ceremoniously about at the end of the meal.
Furniture, with the exception of a few chests and cupboards, has not invaded the house. All life goes on on the floor. Speaking on one’s feet within the house is still an unforgivable breach of etiquette, and the visitor must learn to sit cross-legged for hours without murmuring.