Deep in every heart there seems to be a longing for a more primitive
existence; and though in practice it is often an illusion, the South
Seas lend themselves better to such dreams than any other part of the
world. There are fewer races more attractive than the Polynesians.
Frank, winning, gay and extraordinarily well-mannered, the higher types
are often remarkably good-looking, and scarcely darker than Southern
Europeans. Some aspects of their life are truly poetic. Half naked, with
flowers in their hair, and just sufficient work to keep them in superb
physical condition, they have an almost unlimited leisure to share with
the wayfarer in their midst. And dirt, that greatest of all human
barriers, is nonexistent. No people are cleaner; none have so intense a
personal self-respect. One wonders sometimes whether it is not the white
man who is the savage, and these in some ways his superiors.
I went to the Pacific when I was a boy of twenty, remaining there till I
was twenty-eight. For two years I sailed in various ships, visiting not
only all the principal groups, but stopping at many a lost little
paradise like Manihiki, Nieue or Gente Hermosa, which lie so lonely and
apart that the rare stranger is greeted with open arms. Then, settled
in Samoa, I learned the language as only the very young can learn it,
and incidentally had a small part in the civil wars of that period. I
was brought into intimate contact with many powerful chiefs, and became
so wholly a Samoan that I once barely escaped assassination. I certainly
have some claim to know South Sea life from the inside--from the
native's side--and this must be my excuse for the present volume.
That my stories should deal so often with the loves of white men and
brown women is inevitable. The white man and the brown girl--that is the
oldest story in the South Seas and the newest. The children of the sun
are very easy-going; their standards are not our standards; they live
for the moment, and love as lightly. It is often the white man who
suffers, and not the maid with the sparkling eyes and radiant smile. He
may take regrets away with him; perhaps one of those inner wounds that
never heal, while she marries a native missionary and lives happily ever
afterwards. Polynesians always live happily ever afterwards, no matter
what happens.
Yet do not think I am disparaging them. They probably have as much to
teach us as we them. Courtesy, kindliness, good humor, a charming
acceptance of life, and if the need comes for it an intrepid courage,
all these, and more, are theirs. As I see the faces of my old friends
through the mist I feel an undying affection for them. I shared their
lives, their secrets, their happy days and their tragic days "in the
diamond morning of long ago." I was the confidant in many a runaway
match; was the writer of war epistles that the bearer was directed to
eat if pursuit grew too hot; I had a little domain of my own where my
word was law--an "out-island" village, living in a perpetual feud with
its neighbors. Was this really myself--this tall youth in the
whale-tooth necklace and girded tappa marching with his brother chiefs
in stately procession? Incredible--yet it was. Was it I whose hand was
kissed by this stalwart warrior whom I see flinging himself from his
horse and running towards me with the sun glinting on his
cartridge-belt? Incredible--yet it was. Was it really I, at the helm of
that boat, the leader of twenty young men who were to play cricket by
day and dance by night, halfway round Upolu? Incredible--yet it was.
"Ina o mulumuluina o'u vae i le suasusu; na faapunaia mai foi e le papa
tafe suauu mo a'u."
My publishers have been encouraged to reissue the present volume,
enlarged by the addition of several new tales. Whatever their demerits
may be, my stories are at least true to a picturesque and little known
life that is fast passing away.