WARS.
The murder of a chief, a disputed title, or a desire on the part of
one, two, or more of the districts, to be considered stronger and of
more importance than the rest, were frequent causes of war in Samoa.
Hostilities were often prevented by such acts as giving up the
culprit, paying a heavy fine, or by bowing down in abject submission,
carrying firewood and small stones used in baking a pig, or, perhaps,
a few bamboos. The firewood, stones, and leaves, were equivalent to
their saying, "Here we are, your pigs, to be cooked if you please; and
here are the materials with which to do it." Taking bamboos in the
hand was as if they said, "We have come, and here are the knives to
cut us up." A piece of split bamboo was, of old, the usual knife in
Samoa. If, however, the chiefs of the district were determined to
resist, they prepared accordingly. The boundary which separated one
district from another was the usual battlefield; hence the villages
next to that spot, on either side, were occupied at once by the
troops. The women and children, the sick and the aged, were cleared
off to some fortified place in the bush, or removed to some other
district which was either neutral, or could be depended upon as an
ally. Movable property was either buried, or taken off with the women
and children. The wives of the chiefs and principal men generally
followed their husbands wherever they might be encamped, to be ready
to nurse them if sick or wounded. A heroine would even follow close
upon the heels of her husband in actual conflict, carrying his club or
some other part of his armour.
It was common for chiefs to take with them a present of fine mats when
they went to another district to solicit help in war, but there was no
standing army or regularly paid soldiers anywhere. When the chiefs
decided on war, every man and boy under their jurisdiction old enough
to handle a club had to take his place as a soldier, or risk the loss
of his lands and property, and banishment from the place.
In each district there was a certain village, or cluster of villages,
known as "the advance troops." It was their province to take the lead,
and in battle their loss was double the number of that of any other
village. Still they boasted of their right to lead, would on no
account give it up to others, and talked in the current strain of
other parts of the world about the "glory" of dying in battle. In a
time of peace the people of these villages had special marks of
respect shown to them, such as the largest share of food at public
feasts, flattery for their bravery, etc.
While war was going on the chiefs and heads of families united in some
central spot, and whatever they decided on, either for attack or
defence, the young men endeavoured implicitly to carry out. Their
weapons were clubs, spears, and slings. Subsequently, as iron was
introduced, they got hatchets, and with these they made their most
deadly weapon, viz. a sharp tomahawk, with a handle the length of a
walking-stick. After that again they had the _civilised_ additions of
swords, pistols, guns, and bayonets. Around the village where the war
party assembled they threw a rough stockade, formed by any kind of
sticks or trees cut into eight feet lengths, and put close to each
other, upright, with their ends buried two feet in the ground. The
hostile parties might be each fortified in this way not more than a
mile from each other, and now and then venture out to fight in the
intervening space, or to take each other by surprise at weak or
unguarded points. In their war canoes they had some distinguishing
badge of their district hoisted on a pole, a bird it might be, or a
dog, or a bunch of leaves. And, for the bush-ranging land forces, they
had certain marks on the body by which they knew their own party, and
which served as a temporary watchword. One day the distinguishing
mark might be blackened cheeks; the next, two strokes on the breast;
the next, a white shell suspended from a strip of white cloth round
the neck, and so on. Before any formal fight, they had a day of
feasting, reviewing, and merriment. In action they never stood up in
orderly ranks to rush at each other. According to their notions that
would be the height of folly. Their favourite tactics were rather of
the surprise and bush-skirmishing order. In some of their fights in
recent times I have known of from two to fifty killed on each side in
a battle, never more. Prisoners, if men, were generally killed; if
women, distributed among the conquerors. In a battle which was fought
in 1830 a fire was kindled and many of the prisoners were burned.
Their heroes were the swift of foot, like Achilles or Asahel; men who
could dash forward towards a crowd, hurl a spear with deadly
precision, and stand for a while tilting off with his club other
spears as they approached him within an inch of running him through.
They were ambitious also to signalise themselves by the number of
_heads_ they could lay before the chiefs. No hero at the Grecian games
rejoiced more over his chaplet than did the Samoan glory in the
distinction of having cut off a man's head. As he went along with it
through the villages on the way to the place where the chiefs were
assembled, awaiting the hourly news of the battle, he danced, and
capered, and shouted, calling out every now and then the name of the
village, and adding, "I am So-and-so, I have got the head of such an
one." When he reached the spot where the chiefs were met, he went
through a few more evolutions, and then laid down the head before
them. This, together with the formal thanks of the chiefs before the
multitude for his bravery and successful fighting, was the very height
of a young man's ambition. He made some giddy, frolicsome turns on his
heel, and was off again to try and get another victim. These heads
were piled up in a heap in the malae or public assembly. The head of
the most important chief was put on the top, and, as the tale of the
battle was told, they would say, "There were so many heads, surmounted
by the head of So-and-so," giving the number and the name. After
remaining for some hours piled up they were either claimed by their
relatives or buried on the spot. A rare illustration of this ambition
to get heads occurred about thirty years ago. In an unexpected attack
upon a village one morning a young man fell stunned by a blow.
Presently he recovered consciousness, felt the weight of some one
sitting on his shoulders and covering his neck, and the first sounds
he heard was a dispute going on between two as to which of them had
the right to cut off his head! He made a desperate effort, jostled the
fellow off his back, sprang to his feet, and, with his head all safe
in his own possession, soon settled the matter by leaving them both
far behind him.
The headless bodies of the slain, scattered about in the bush after a
battle, if known, were buried, if unknown, left to the dogs. In some
cases the whole body was pulled along in savage triumph and laid
before the chiefs. One day, when some of us were in a war-fort
endeavouring to mediate for peace, a dead body of one of the enemy was
dragged in, preceded by a fellow making all sorts of fiendish
gestures, with one of the legs in his teeth cut off by the knee.
Connected with Samoan warfare several other things may be noted, such
as consulting the gods, taking a priest to battle to pray for his
people and curse the enemy, filling up wells, destroying fruit-trees,
going to battle decked off in their most valuable clothing and
trinkets, haranguing each other previous to a fight, the very
counterpart of Abijah the king of Judah, and even word for word, with
the filthy-tongued Rabshakeh.
If the war became general, and involving several districts, they
formed themselves into a threefold division of highway, bush, and
sea-fighters. The fleet might consist of three hundred men, in thirty
or forty canoes. The bushrangers and the fleet were principally
dreaded, as there was no calculating where they were, or when they
might pounce unawares upon some unguarded settlement. The fleet met
apart from the land forces, and concocted their own schemes. They
would have it all arranged, for instance, and a dead secret, to be off
after dark to attack a particular village belonging to the enemy. At
midnight they would land at an uninhabited place some miles from the
settlement they intended to attack. They took a circuitous course in
the bush, surrounded the village from behind, having previously
arranged to let the canoes slip on quietly, and take up their position
in the water in front of the village. By break of day they rushed into
the houses of the unsuspecting people before they had well woke up,
chopped off as many heads as they could, rushed with them to their
canoes, and decamped before the young men of the place had time to
muster or arm. Often they were scared by the people, who, during war,
kept a watch, night and day, at all the principal openings in the
reef; but now and then the plot succeeded and there was fearful
slaughter. It was in one of these early morning attacks from the fleet
that the young man to whom I have referred had such a narrow escape.
That morning many were wounded, and the heads of thirteen carried off.
One of them was that of a poor old man, who was on his knees at his
morning devotions, when off went his head at a blow. In another house
that same morning there was a noble instance of maternal heroism, in a
woman who allowed herself to be hacked from head to foot, bending over
her son to save his life. It is considered cowardly to kill a woman,
or they would have despatched her at once. It was the head of her
little boy they wanted, but they did not get it. The poor woman was in
a dreadful state, but, to the surprise of all, recovered.
It is now close upon a hundred years since the Samoans had their first
serious quarrel with Europeans, and which ended in a fight. I refer to
the massacre at Tutuila of M. de Langle and others belonging to the
expedition under the unfortunate La Perouse in 1787, and which branded
the people for well-nigh fifty years as a race of treacherous savages
whose shores ought not to be approached. Had the native version of the
tale been known, it would have considerably modified the accounts
which were published in the voyages of La Perouse. The origin of the
quarrel was not with the party who went on shore in the boats. A
native who was out at the ship was roughly dealt with, for some real
or supposed case of pilfering. He was fired at and mortally wounded,
and when taken on shore bleeding and dying, his enraged friends roused
all on the spot to seek instant revenge. Hence the deadly attack on
the party in the boats at the beach, in which the stones flew like
bullets and ended in the death of M. de Langle, his brother officer,
and ten of the crew. The natives wound up the bodies of the Frenchmen
in native cloth and decently buried them, as they were in the habit of
burying their own dead. The only inference which ought to have been
drawn from this tragic occurrence was that heathen natives have a
keen sense of justice, and that if men will go on the disproportionate
principle of a life for a tooth, and shoot a man for a perfect trifle,
they must abide by the consequences. It is almost certain to be
avenged, and, alas! it is often the case that vengeance falls not on
the guilty, but on some unsuspecting visitor who may subsequently
follow.