have been over, though Adams said that just then our dignity forbade it.
But our feeling of dignity had been helped by Meli Hamilton’s telling us
that the last time she had gone over the fall, she had struck badly
against a rock, and so had her companion, the navy officer; so that with
the rain beginning again, horses were bridled and saddled, and we all
started for a wet ride in the wet woods, down the slippery path which we
had to take in single file. Fagalo rode with Charley, on Sopo’s little
nag, and the last thing I saw of Otaota was her bare legs over the back
of Awoki’s horse; he sat behind, his arms around her, gallantly
protecting all that remained of her with his little waterproof. And we
came home tired and wet, but having spent a pleasant childlike day with
grown-up children.
PALOLO
Vaiala in Upolu, Nov. 14th.
I broke off yesterday telling you about _palolo_. I think my words ended
by telling you that even all my liking and admiration for Meli Hamilton
would scarcely reconcile me to the wriggling of the great tree worms
which she crunched at our
[Illustration: GIRL SLIDING DOWN WATERFALL. BANANA LEAF AROUND HER BODY.
SAMOA]
last Samoan dinner. Mrs. Lieutenant Parker became very white as she saw
her and I handed her rapidly something or other, brandy or whiskey, to
help the occasion.
_Palolo_ has no such horrors. For it we have not had far to go. Only
just out into the reefs before us, when, in the early morning before the
dawn, we rowed out a few yards to find a concourse of people, in boats
and canoes, scooping up with eager hands thin hairlike worms that
swarmed in the water within the special hollows of the coral reef.
We were more or less ready for the appearance of these little creatures
who, on a certain day of the year and the moon, appear suddenly with the
dawn and disappear with the sunrise until another year. We were
expecting this arrival, which never fails. As I said, it is looked for
ahead; it has its own laws; the scientific ones fail because we have
calculated by our dates, instituted for other reasons than the life of
the _palolo_. Our Samoan friends are in the secret. We white people
compute that the _palolo_ is due at dead low water in the night of the
third quarter of the moon nearest the first of November, but that
reckoning involves Solar and Lunar months, as I intimated.
Our good friends here have been whispering to us and telling us that
this was to happen and they know how to be prepared for it. Certain
plants, certain shrubs blossom; and then you know that the time of the
_palolo’s_ month is drawing near. There are signs in the heavens, and
the moon helps. It is, I think, in its third quarter that the event
takes place. Somebody with us, perhaps several people (because our
village contains important and learned people) mark time during the year
by counting pebbles, and green feathers, and leaves, up to such and such
a day, so that, at a certain moment, our friends can tell us that the
_palolo_ is due next morning.
The third year one has to count a different number of days, but the
creatures down below in the coral know exactly to the minute. The night
is watched through, our people are all ready, are warned at the proper
moment. People from far away are also ready. Our friends have found each
one some proper hole which may be more or less lucky later. We watched
the dawn coming upon us, lighting the breakers on the edge of the reef.
When the breakers withdraw it is slack tide and we watch, and our
friends watch, more intently than we can, the absolute calm of the
water. Then, of a sudden, somebody calls out, “the _palolo_ is there!”
or something like it, and then this empty water is full of long lines of
what seems to be worms, which you scoop up, not so anxiously as those
who care.
A short time, an hour they say but it seemed to me shorter, the sun is
up over the edge and the worm is gone until next year.
It is nothing but something like the thinnest of little seaweed a few
inches long, and you have to accept as a fact that this wriggling mass
is made up of worms.
I wish I could fairly describe the place and scene but you can make it
up for yourself. The scene is one of busy struggle. It is a matter of
food, it is true, also a festival of amusement apart from the picnic
side. Very interesting was the eagerness shown in the catching, by the
few white girls born here, whom I watched. They paddled about, jumped
out with bare feet on to the jagged coral like any Polynesian, but with
that seriousness and ferocity of our race, so different from the easy
good-natured suppleness of the brown skins who seem to be part of the
nature around them.
The dark transparent water inside the reefs, the rosy colouring of the
dawn, the splendour of the sunrise which is at length over land and
water, would have been beautiful enough even without this animation of
human element. But I have not dared taste the _palolo_ even as made up
yesterday with cocoanut milk. I have come to the point of a revolt
against almost all of the food, from cocoanut milk to live fish and
slugs.
Vaiala in Upolu, Sunday, Nov. 23, 1890.
The end of the last week has been filled with festivity. Seu has been
giving a great feast, and this has been a very serious matter. We have
seen other feasts before, but none so successful and so great. The
presents given to Seu and Faatulia, or rather to Vao, their little
daughter, in whose name the feast was given, were larger in number than
we had yet heard of. Among vast quantities of other things were
hecatombs of pigs--in prose fact, three hundred and twenty-five--over
two thousand rolls of _tappa_, and several dozen of “fine mats.” All the
neighbouring houses were in requisition for the guests, who kept coming
from various quarters during the whole week, and especially from Savaii,
where is the stronghold of Faatulia’s family. Faatulia wore the anxious
look of the hostess on her kindly face, and Seu looked worried, a thing
I should have thought impossible. But as I go on you will see how
serious it all is, however gratifying it may be to pride of position.
The house of Seu was charmingly decorated with _tappa_, even to the
floor, so as to remind me, but I own, more pleasantly, of our most
æsthetic studios. In others, there were few European visitors, and more
packing of Samoans. In one other especially, I think loaned by the King,
a collection of _taupos_ from various localities filled the space by the
posts, so as to make the hut look like a basket of flowers. Far in the
central penumbra, two female giants sat all decorated, and around them
the backs and waists of the others looked like a garden of dahlias and
brown skin. For some were “faa Samoa”--others were more or less
“_papalagi_” foreigners. In that case, however, their waist coverings
were amusing. Some had corselets of leaves lapping over like Etruscan or
Greek plate armour. Others had coloured netting, others had _tappa_ cut
out with various openings, like some heathen dream of “insertions” (I
think women call it so). One girl had a corselet of cut paper of many
colours, making her look like a flower-bed, her oiling giving to the
paper a look of leafage. There were dresses of the usual variety and in
one case a large number of flower petals caught up one by one in the
locks of the hair. In another the whole hair had been filled with little
light blue bits of paper cut like petals. Mind you, all this was
beautiful, funny as it was, and upon the green grass background, made,
as I said, a basket of flowers. The brown skins that were not covered
glowed like fruit. In perfect taste, for even garlands are gawky
compared to the ineffable logic that the human frame carries with it,
one good girl had no covering to her body, and this savage from the
farther back country had a face that looked like the Italians’. In the
shadow, playing with a bambino, she made a madonna. The reason of it
came to me suddenly--her hair was down upon the forehead in the two
large folds that we associate with the Italian way, and a great look of
seriousness was added to the disdainful kindness of the face. Behind
her head the hair was full, in a mass whose colour was blond with
liming, and made a great capital for the column of her torso seen with
arms hidden in front. Of her I have made some studies, and posed her for
photographs, and later, on the next night, she gave us a _siva_ in our
own house; Adams and I having duly called upon her, as if we were young
men, with five loaves of bread, and two tins of salmon, as is the proper
thing for youthful admirers like ourselves.
Around this beehive of yellow and black were assembled matrons and
children and boys, waiting for the later food, of which they as
relatives would have the larger part.
Far off, in another part of the grounds, Lima, known as John Adams,
presided over the food; and in front of him a vast mass of pigs and
bananas and taro, etc., etc., littered the ground. John told us about it
in a high-pitched voice, with an accent that brought back indefinable
associations. Whom did I know of the old school with such perfect
intonation in English, and a diction that implied the gentleman by
accepted tradition? Could it have been some old officer of the
navy--could it have been some far-back Englishman or antique Southerner?
But John, even in his exterior manner, brought back all the feeling that
we do not speak English as well to-day as once was done, and that our
refinement of manner and accent has disappeared.
The feast had begun; under long stretches of _tappa_ supported by poles,
guests were assembled around the tables of banana leaf, while we
wandered about, made prudent by former disasters in diet. It was
pleasant to see the triumphant carrying of great pigs by the young men,
garlanded and cinctured: the platforms of sugar-cane and taro disposed
in a show, as if growing in some impossible yet graceful way--the taro
like grapes on a vine.
Then we wandered back to our _taupos_ in their home. They were feasting
in a circle around the banana trays. Two men were hewing the pigs into
segments, with the _swish_ so well described by my Chinese philosopher,
Chuang Tseu, in his chapter of the “Rising Clouds”--if that be the one.
Two older women stalked about amid the food, who caught these chunks of
meat and tossed them to the _taupos_. Occasionally they varied this by
assorted lots of taro or cooked food. Do not suppose by this that these
vigorous maidens were bolting their food. No, all this was Samoan and
communistic; no one lives for himself here, but for the lot. These good
girls were hard at work, passing all this to old women with baskets, and
two young people who sat on the edge of the hut with feet outside,
impatiently urged them. “Wait,” they said, “wait; our turn in a moment,”
and amid laughter and chattering and long reproofs of the old women, the
food came to them in turn. I suppose the _taupos_ managed to get
something, but if they did, they deserved it for the work they had in
passing the food away. This is Samoa--where a gift is shared or given
away. When we called later on one of the _taupos_, as I told you, and
carried our little gifts, half of them were at once given to the owners
of the house, and the other half to some chief who happened to be
present. All this as a matter of course, with fair counting, as in a
commercial firm. Even the cigar accepted by the fair one, passed in a
few seconds to her nearest neighbour. Some one was telling me yesterday,
of having given a cigar a few days ago to a Samoan, who had just bitten
it, when another passing asked for it. Thereupon it was handed away, as
a matter of course. “Why did you give that?” the white man said.
“Because he asked,” said the Samoan.
“But is there no further reason?”
“Yes; I might some day want a cigar, and if he had one, I should ask.”
The community of friends and relatives is a sort of bank where you
deposit and draw as you may need. So for Seu’s food: almost all is given
to him. It is given out, sent away if people are not there; a procession
of people carrying things from the feast, filed along all the afternoon.
After the feast, a _siva_ in the open air, where Fanua danced. The crowd
was full all about her and her assistants, girls and men. The occasion
was a notable one. Two white missionaries with their wives were present,
and the _siva_ was danced before them. Henceforward the excommunication
will be difficult, unless the native preachers insist upon having their
own way. But we shall have been present at this great event. I spoke to
one of the missionaries for a moment, a rather interesting man, who
talked a little about his hopes for the Samoans, their conservatism, and
their not being emotional, however excitable they might appear to be, so
that things once impressed upon them had a fair chance of thriving.
And thereupon we proceeded (those of us who were tired) to get away--not
without, however, looking once more at another _siva_ getting under way,
with some of the many _taupos_ and their male assistant dancers, to see
them oil. Some one ran around offering the liquid, which was poured full
upon everything, dress and person. And being introduced, I shook the
oily palms of some of the girls and of one splendid chief--who might
have been drier. Then, later, Adams and I called on our _taupo_ friend,
whose home we proposed to drop into next week in our travels, and who is
visiting near us. We arranged with Meli Hamilton as our _tulafale_ for a
_siva_ in our own house. There at night the _taupo_ came, in the pouring
rain, and I sat in my own comfortable chair, with Mrs. Parker next to
me, and felt at home; for in the shadow I could close my eyes or look
on while the figures danced in shadow or in light.
The next day we were summoned again to Seu’s feast. A _siva_ would be
danced for us _papalagi_ who had been too crowded the day before. So
that we went to see the comedy, which began seriously enough. We sat a
while in Seumanu’s house, filled with friends and relatives, while a
woman, an ex-_taupo_, carefully unfolded the presents of “fine mats,”
saying what they were for, and from whom, and occasionally something of
their history. For the “fine mat” is the great possession--the heirloom,
the old silver, the jewels of the Samoan. And one tattered piece that
was held up for show, sewed together, its trimming of feathers all gone,
and full of holes, was looked at with respect; it had been _royal_.
Around these mats cluster romance and story--war and quarrels--and the
idea of the palladium, the insignia of power. The mat has been given at
marriage and at birth, and has been worn on great occasions--it has
witnessed those scenes, and besides carries money value. Its very stains
tell stories of those events in life. So that Seu’s thirty odd mats were
quite an affair, exclusive of the pile of two thousand pieces of
_tappa_. As soon as the mats had been counted over, and admired, and a
polite discussion arose, our hostess insisting that it must be a bore
for us to look over all this, the polite guests insisting that nothing
could be more entertaining.
Then John Adams (Lima), in his fine old-fashioned voice and way, cried
out that if we wished, a _siva_ was getting ready in the next house, and
as our adviser whispered to us that we had better be away, for that now
the real work had begun. It was for Seu and Faatulia and the family
group to decide as to who should be the people to whom all these gifts
were to be made over. A few they might keep, but the mass must go. Every
giver had a right to something, if possible finer than his gift: and
here was a ploy, as Sir Walter says. Everything must be according to
dignity and family and precedence, and everything that society means
everywhere. Think of the heart-burnings, jealousies, affronts, etc.,
that hung in the balance. Many a time in Samoa, war has begun by some
error in such adjustments. No wonder that we were better out of the way.
Even to-day, we are told that several days more, a whole week, will be
consumed in these weighty questions, and Seu is to wear his look of
worry for days.
Adams and I sat on branches: I, on the right, Adams, on the left of her
Majesty the Queen, while a siva of two pretty children, little _taupos_,
daughters of a chief of Savaii, and of two young men, went on before us
in the sweet light, half sunlight and half rain. These two little girls,
Selu’s daughter and her little friend, the daughter of a chief of Iva,
gave us an infantile imitation, while another chief played buffoon, to
give them courage and protect them from serious attention. And this time
Fanua sat behind us, and looked on, alongside of many young girls and
women whom we have learned to know a little.
Up to this time, the terrible ordeal of decision of presents must have
gone on, and will not be through until late next week, when we hope to
get Seumanu on another malaga; but this time at our own pleasure, and
with the hope of making sketches and studies with more leisure, and with
a better knowledge, for as you know, he who runs finds it difficult to
read, and there is nothing that I abhor more than the carrying of the
studio sight into other visions.
Only the poet is free, whether he be painter or writer, for with him
subjects are only excuses, and as Fromentin has put it so perfectly,
Delacroix’s three months of Morocco contain all that has been said and
will be said of the east and south of the Mediterranean. But we cannot
all be great people like Delacroix, nor great painters like him, nor
perhaps was he at all aware in early life of his always having achieved.
But he tried probably, to be exact and faithful, as any one of us might
do.
The weather is again beautiful; to-day is all blue and triumphant;
indeed, the sky is bluer than it was, although the grass is yellower,
and in the afternoon late, the clouds of the horizon are radiant in
violet and rose. Fanua has come up to see me, with the Queen’s little
daughter all clad in pink, who has been living in Fiji, and talks
English quite well, and says like a child, that she likes Fiji better
than Samoa. Service at the little church opposite is just over, where
Fanua has been, and where I have heard the voice of Otaota’s father
preaching. He has called upon me, apparently interested in questioning
about the Mormons, who have sent missionaries here, and whose wives
often canter past, against the blue background of the sea. Otaota’s
father is not a little proud of his preaching, which indeed sounds well
out of the church windows, and he asks me why I don’t come in to listen
more closely. His parishioners sit on mats, and I sometimes lend some of
mine to stray visitors, especially to members of our crew. The men sit
on one side, the women on the other: and files of women, especially,
walk along with mats under their arms or over their heads, or held in
front of them; and occasionally a child is carried outside on the hip.
There is a small post near by, upon which is a small bell, and a ladder
to get to it, all under a tree, and some young girl or boy rings the
clapper with great zeal. I have made a sketch of one of them who
accidently set about a missionary work, without putting on her _tiputa_,
to cover her bosom, and who was worried as I sketched her, between the
propriety of carrying out her “missionary work” and her want of
missionary propriety.
Fanua has left, after sending for the child of a neighbour and caressing
it during part of our supposed conversation. They say that she is
thinking of marrying, and certainly she will make a nice wife and mother
if one can judge by looking at her. Is there anything sweeter than a
woman caressing a child? and how fond these Samoans are of children.
They swarm about as free as birds, rarely checked; the owner of our
house, the chief Magogi, looks more good-natured and smiling than ever,
when after his fishing, and leaving a fish with us, he parades about
with his child in his arms. Like a woman, he even carries him when he is
attending to something else. And Tofae is as gentle to little George
(the son of the late English Consul, and of Tāelē) whom he has adopted,
as if he were a mother. When he and other chiefs, in the afternoon, sit
about on the grass, far interspersed, some ten or twenty feet from each
other, in Samoan fashion, little George creeps up and nestles against
him, making with him the only group in the big circle.
Fanua has gone, and from Mataafa’s house begins a hymn. I recognize the
ancient sound of the Ave Maria Stella (for Mataafa is a
Catholic)--another version of the Vallis Lachrymarum that Otaota’s
father was urging on his people an hour ago: “It is morning and you
dance--but night is coming and then----” The Samoan smile is proof
against anything--but Mataafa is grave and somewhat sad, and must take
things on a scale far different. The mournful dignity of his position--a
king is always a king, and he has been a real one--of highest birth and
greatest capacity--must always oppress him. And he has no future, I
fear, for his holding power might be against the interests of Germany,
to which England will always accede as a bargain, and to which we will
yield, for we don’t care, and we are not yet aware of our enormous
strength, to be used for ill or for good, and we sell it willingly for
anything.
The former German ruler here knew all about it, for the Germans have
every power of measuring us, and he said to our representative:
“You are really weak--like all Republicans--always at the mercy of
little home events, and any one of you will trade for some personal
advantage. You can have no policy, that any one of you in politics would
not break through, to play a trick on the political adversary; and then
you have no fleet nor army, to show to others what you could do. Before
you can make up your mind to anything we shall have taken Samoa for
ourselves.”
God willed it otherwise, but the German had measured us, at least as we
are to-day.
The moon is almost full, and comes up in the night, while the sun is
still lighting the sky with pink. Around her a single cloud is greenish
white, while the entire sky is suffused with rose. The breakers are rosy
white; the sea is of a daylight blue, the furthest distance is lit up,
and a rose-coloured cloud hangs on the horizon far below the moon, while
her wake cuts in silver across the sunlit sea and surf.
The western sky is all afire, and against it, when the eye is protected,
the shadows of the moonlight fall with extreme clearness and precision.
The beauty is ineffable; a little sarcasm comes up into my mind--a
reminiscence of the theatre, of a too perfect arrangement, in which the
machinist has combined too much together, the sun and the moon both
equally splendid--night together with day. I am sure that no one would
believe it if painted, and most would _know_ it was incorrect. This
disturbs my peace--but only a little. The good that comes from seeing
through our teachers, is that at length we have no more use for them,
and the remainder of life is more economical. And indeed, the world
about me here seems to say, “See with how little we can be rich!”
Another Samoan Malaga, Nov. 30th.
Fagaloa Bay, on the N. E. side of Upolu.
We are on another malaga. I have not quite recovered from illness, so
that the trip is not all enjoyment, and I write to you in some dejection
and with an effort. We are going around the island, some hundred miles,
in our two boats; our own managed by Samau, the _tulafale_, as coxswain,
with four men to carry provisions, etc., and plenty of luggage and food
for all of us; and Seumanu’s boat with ten rowers. We left the day
before yesterday, in the early dove-coloured morning, all grey with
partial rain, the mountains covered at top, and low down in the gorges,
the mist and smoke from villages rising up in straight lines that looked
like enormous waterfalls. Our first landing was at Falefä, where a river
falls over wide rocks in its way to the sea, not so differently from
other pretty waterfalls, except that it makes a broad spread of water
that joins the sea, so that from some points one might imagine that the
ocean runs in to meet it.