Under this malanga’s careless pageantry I witnessed a small pregnant incident. It dropped another of the seeds which, in a few years, sprouted into the wicked flower of an insurrection already germinating. In my report to the Foundation I described this official tour as “unique in my experience and remarkable for its results in obtaining the confidence of the native and his co-operation in measures for his own benefit. In the party there was the Governor, the Commissioner for Native Affairs, the Resident Commissioner of Savaii, the Chief Medical Officer, the Collector of Customs and Taxes, the Governor’s A.D.C., Dr. Buxton and myself.” Fau’mui’na, high chief, led thirty Boy Scouts called “Fetu o Samoa,” the Star of Samoa; there were native police, carriers and attendants. The Fetu went in front, beating a drum, behind them was the flagbearer, next the Governor with his retinue, then the endless queue of followers. It was a parade to touch the imagination of a people susceptible to pomp and ceremony.

In the village reception house there would be the usual kava ceremony, the food presentation, the long hour devoted to exchange of courtesies. Then the Tulafale, the professional orators, would unlimber their eloquence for the benefit of the Governor: “We in our ignorance and humility turn to you for the light of your wisdom, as the flower turns to the sun. We are the children, you are the father upon whom we depend for guidance. We know that you love us, and we return your love....” When you hear this doled out day after day you begin to believe the Orator. The simple Samoan child of nature—and watch out or he’ll have the shirt off your back. Witness how his shrewd diplomacy all but had the United States, Germany and Britain tearing at each other’s throats in 1900. When Germany got her cut in the colony the Samoan’s connivance worried her to a point where she only tried to control them with punitive raids....

But in the Governor’s malanga of 1924 the Orators were laying it on thick. They would look into every gift-basket, call out the donor’s name with praise if the taro were big and the fish well-cooked. If the contribution looked stingy they would be very frank about it, amidst popular mirth.

Public health was never relaxed in this bright journey of inspection. The Boy-Scoutish Fetu, wearing nothing but the lavalava and a cap with the emblem Star, would give the people exhibition games, object lessons in simple sports that would keep the villagers away from picture shows and dissipations in Apia. The Administration was sensible in showing the all but naked bodies of the young Fetu, to illustrate the health advantages of light clothing in the tropics. The Administration was always rational and kind.

At one of the settlements the orations and ceremonies had been unusually long. As in every place we stopped, the doctors had lined up the population for quick inspection of ulcers, skin lesions, eye conditions, enlarged spleens, or any other sign of disease. Our time was more than up, we had to be pushing on. What happened then was certainly no fault of Dr. Ritchie, a Medical Officer whose patient and enlightened work in restoring a failing race had earned him a crown in Heaven, twice over. It was a fault of tact, reacting on that interesting intangible, the Samoan temperament.

We had been there long enough for the natives to report any sickness in the region. Now we were hurrying to board the launch. What happened then was characteristic of Samoan dilly-dally. Several natives came running up with the cry: “There’s a woman who has been having a baby for five days! It’s half in, half out!” (They were describing, I suppose, a “hand presentation.”) All Savaii had known that we were there, but it had just occurred to them to call a doctor. Dr. Ritchie, on the march, had no instruments with him, and experience told him that the woman was as good as dead. To examine her would mean an out-of-the-way trip, and Governor Richardson was impatient for the pompous malanga to move on. So it moved.

Even then I felt the seriousness of that diplomatic blunder. Here was a chance for the Administration, out for show, to make a beautiful gesture. Of course there was no hope for the woman, but it would have made an immense impression of kindness if the party had turned their launch around and wasted a day with the dying mother. It would have had the dramatic effect they wanted.

But the mistake was made among a people who were nursing many grievances, most of them imaginary. When the calamitous Mau Rebellion broke in 1927 that incident was remembered. Years later, after the messy thing had subsided, one of the Mau leaders, Fau’mui’na—since promoted to a good government post—told me that official neglect of the woman did much toward fomenting revolt. That and the shooting of Tamasese, exiled as a nuisance and a royal pretender....

******

No war-captured country ever had a better government than these islands enjoyed after New Zealand’s soldiery took over in 1914 a group which the League of Nations later changed from German Samoa to the mandate of Western Samoa. It was in refreshing contrast to Australia’s early rule in New Guinea. Even before the uniformed Anzacs had left Samoa there was a clear-headed scientific attempt to look into social and health conditions. New Zealand, with her high cultural standards, had long studied the splendid race of Maoris, whom she had governed well. At home a million-and-a-half New Zealanders lived alongside 70,000 Maoris whose population had increased and whose rights had been maintained under a benevolent rule. Yes, Western Samoa was fortunate in her new government which had never shown a selfish financial motive behind any of its acts. But the Mau Rebellion came, and its “cruel oppressions” have been so sensationalized by newspaper propagandists that the average reader asks: How did the administrators come to grow hoofs and horns overnight? Well, they didn’t.