[ HOME ]

Rumours of War - Native Signs - Indication by Visitors - Oldhand Prophecies - A Well-informed Man - Signs of Peace - House Construction - Trades Unionism - Stone House - Building Material - Primitive Man - Dragging the Log - Lady Thatchers - A Nailless House - Tropical Shower - Probable Volcano - Left in Charge.

EARLY in February we heard some very disquieting rumours of the likelihood of war once more breaking out, but although there had been plainly visible a more than ordinary amount of uneasiness in the Samoan Government, no reliable information could be obtained that it meant anything more than the usual Parliamentary squabbles over trifles.

However, we determined to take a short cruise in the neighbouring country, and see what the natives were about in their towns. Whether they were building new houses and keeping up their cultivation, which would be confirmative of peace, or whether they were indulging more than usual in 'Fonos' (councils), a sure indication of some disturbing element abroad, either local or widespread; and if it should be the latter, these 'Fonos' would be assembled generally in all the towns.

One can at all times make a very good guess at what may be in the wind by ascertaining who has been or is visiting in the neighbourhood, for the presence of certain people is quite sufficient indication of mischief. A great many of the alarming rumours which crop up every now and again have their origin with the old hands, who from their long residence pose as oracles, and authoritatively utter, for the benefit of more recent arrivals, certain information of what is to happen in the future. If any doubt be expressed they get annoyed. These men acquire their initial facts from their Samoan wives' relations, who are always visiting, and always ready to give any sort of news that they think will interest the old man; and if they have heard no news, they will soon invent some. To this the recipient adds his own experience of natives, perhaps forty years old, and the result is some alarming rumour which does not lessen in intensity the further it travels.

I heard one white, long-timed sojourner in the Pacific take a judicial oath that nothing happened in Samoa that he did not know of through his wife's relations.

We were to have made up an official party, but the others hung back on account of the threatening weather, so G. and I rode out alone. We had not gone more than ten miles before it was evident, according to all recognised native signs, that no disturbance was contemplated in the immediate vicinity of Apia. New houses were to be seen going up all round, and with the exception of the necessary artificers and individuals required for the domestic duties of the houses, the towns were almost deserted, the inhabitants being back in the bush cutting building material for their edifices, or working on their plantations; and not a single 'Fono' had lately been held, nor was there any rumour of such for the future. All was, indeed, very satisfactory for the cause of peace.

I had, during our travels, the opportunity of inspecting the various buildings in course of construction-some of which were of large size-and found in them a new and very interesting study. The Samoans are strictly conservative in their ideas of constructing houses, which are built of one universal pattern throughout the whole group, and at first sight put one in mind of exaggerated beehives. The shape is that of an oval, more or less flattened at the sides; they sometimes approach the complete circular tracing, but never entirely. The rounded ends are carried in the same horizontal parallel curve of gradually lessening diameter right to the top of the roof of the flat-sided or centre part of the house with a correctness which, for natives without the aid of mathematical instruments, is truly wonderful. The beams forming the ends and supporting the curved roof are not made in one piece, or of wood naturally bent, but are honestly carpentered out of the log, each one being made up of eight or more different short pieces spliced into one another and bound with sinnet.

When beginning to build, the centre part is first put up - that is comparatively plain work; but that finished, the scientific portion commences. A most bewildering sort of scaffolding is now erected at either end, evidently constructed in accordance with some acknowledged rule for building. From this, facing outwards towards the end part of the house, project poles, slanting upwards towards the roof, or rather towards where the roof is going to be, beginning at the roof-plate, and fixing with their ends the position for the curved roof-beams. These beams are not placed horizontally, but spring from the roof-plate about five feet from the ground, supported 'by posts at intervals of about six feet, the centre of them rising higher and higher, according to the height required. By what rule all this is engineered is difficult to ascertain, but it must be something beyond mere rule-of-thumb, from the regularity of the work. A house may have one or two posts, which, with transverse beams attached to the side-plates, support the roof, and preserve the strength and shape of the house. The skeleton finished, thin rafters are fastened with sinnet vertically from crown to roof-plate, and on these is secured the thatch of sugar-cane leaves, forming a lasting covering sometimes two feet thick, which, barring accidents, such as extra strong winds, does not require renewal for at least seven years. Sometimes the ends of these houses are covered in permanently with woven bamboo or other material, though, as a rule, a house is left open night and day all round; but when any necessity arises, such as too much rain, sun, or wind, it can be completely closed in with cocoa-nut mats hung all round, arranged and worked exactly as venetian blinds are at home. The floor is made quite level, and composed of a considerable depth of jet-black water-worn volcanic pebbles, over which are spread the mats to sit upon. There is always one circular fireplace in each house about two feet in diameter, and often two of them; they are not used for cooking purposes, but merely for keeping up a light.

House-building in Samoa partakes quite of the nature of a ceremony, and is by no means to be indulged in cheaply, even though the party erecting the house may be a high chief, and by custom entitled to the free work of the people. Each stage of the work has to be settled for at prescribed periods, or the architects will at once stop work, leaving the unfinished house to stand as a monument to the implied meanness of the owner-a stigma which no Samoan can ever endure, even if he has to go begging all round the country and ruin all his relations to get the requisite coin. Terms must be made with the artificer who commenced the work, for strict Samoan custom forbids any carpenter from taking up work that a former one has deserted in disgust (very similar to trades' unionism). Feasting and Kava drinking goes on the whole time, and the finale is a presentation of fine mats to all concerned. Carrying and plaiting the thatch on to reeds about five feet long is especially the women's work, who also fetch the stones for the floor, but the men fix the former and spread the latter. On the cross-beams fastened to the centre poles are placed all their riches in mats, siapos, etc. also, during the day, the sleeping apparatus; whilst all round the outside edge of the house, more especially at the two ends, are placed the boxes and chests of the family, all carefully locked, containing their finery and smaller articles of value. Outside the house, to the depth of twenty or thirty yards, a space is kept quite bare of grass or weeds, mainly for the purpose of drying clothes upon. The duty of keeping this in order devolves upon the women, who generally devote an hour or so to the work morning and evening.

There is, some distance away in the bush behind Apia, the remains of a stone house said to have been built by the devil. Some of the rocky uprights are certainly standing there, and the usual 'trace' of a Samoan house can be easily determined; but whether it ever had a roof, or was merely a sort of Pacific Stonehenge, cannot be determined. At all events, of the roof (if ever there was one) no remains of any sort of stone that might form an arch are to be found. Some travellers have reported the stone pillars as having been hewn, but that is a mistake; they are merely flakes split off the rock not far off, without the faintest sign whatever of any sort of working. A description of the house and the journey to it will be found in the next chapter.

When a house is to be built for a chief, all the villages in the neighbourhood acknowledging his sway are put under contribution for the various materials required. After arranging exactly what each is to supply, working-parties go into the bush in search of that which they are told off to furnish. Each log for posts, etc., is felled and squared-up on the spot, and, when ready, the working-party harness themselves to it, and with loud shouts and all sorts of pantomime drag it from the bush to the building site. All engaged in the work are dressed most fantastically, wearing every kind of bush ornament procurable. They crown their heads with heavy garlands of bush creepers, thickly studded with the brightest-coloured bush flowers. Some make themselves very graceful hats from the young banana-leaf, others render themselves more ferocious-looking than they are in reality by indulging in huge turbans constructed from the withered leaf of the same tree. Sashes and necklaces in every conceivable fashion of every obtainable bush material adorn their dusky bodies, and for the time the native. 'siapos' or the European waist-cloth is replaced by thick girdles of long leaves. Altogether their appearance is most weird and strikingly primitive. I don't know anything to compare it to. Meeting such a party for the first time away in the bush, one feels inclined to remark to one's self: 'I have at last met with specimens of the original man; but how amiable he is .There is nothing savage about him but his appearance.' In fact, from the jolly crowned Bacchic appearance and the boisterous good-nature of the crowd, one feels greatly tempted to lay hold of the rope and give a hand in the work. With yells and songs the log is dragged along, the leaders continually shouting out words of encouragement, and every now and then suddenly darting out from the rear, dancing furiously and brandishing in a most dangerous manner their wood-cutting axes. Arriving in the vicinity of the building site, the pace increases, as also does the hauling song; the leaders dance round and round their men more and more frantically, throwing their axes high in the air and dexterously catching them again as they fall.

The party at last breaks into a regular run, when with one great shout, more like a huge sigh than anything else, the work is finished and the log delivered over into the builders' hands. The bush crowd disperse to their homes, and all is quiet once again. The fetching and weaving of the thatch is peculiarly the women's department. Early in the morning all the women in the town assemble, and in single file off they go to the sugar-cane patches, where each one cutting as much as she can carry on her back, they form up again and troop off to the town, laughing, joking, and singing; and if ever they come upon a flower, it is more than ten to one that it is transferred to their hair.

The ladies, like the men, on these occasions love to dress after the Adamite plan, in nothing but the natural products of their native bush; and very charming nice-looking girl looks when so simply arrayed. To new arrivals this costume appears somewhat pronouncedly scanty; but it is natural, and suits every requirement of the climate and the people.

After the thatching stuff is brought home, the women, and sometimes the men as well, weave the cane-leaves loosely on to reeds about three or four feet long, the ends of the leaves hanging downwards. The lengths are then damped and pressed with heavy stones for one or two days, and when ready are fastened to the rafters with sinnet, commencing at the eaves, one length overlapping the other, until the whole roof is covered sometimes to a thickness of two feet. Such a roof is calculated to be good for seven years. The roofing is essentially the men's work, but that finished, the women appear once again on the scene, when, after making their cocoa-nut-leaf baskets, they go down in a troop to the sea-beach, returning loaded with small black volcanic pebbles, which are spread to a considerable depth to form a floor. The ground-plan of the house is then fenced round with large stones, and nothing more remains than to make venetian blinds of cocoa-nut leaves and hang them all round the house from the caves, when the tenement is complete. Of the woods, employed in house-building, that of a species of breadfruit is preferred above all others, as being vastly more durable. There is not one single nail in a purely Samoan house, all the joints and fastenings are made with sinnet or native string, manufactured from the cocoa-nut fibre.

The shipping arrivals about this time became of great importance, for the stock of flour on the beach had almost run out ' which meant, if not semi-starvation, still, for Europeans, a great deprivation; and on our baker giving notice that he had only one day's supply left and intended to keep that himself, we went all over the town in search of biscuit, and could buy none. Here was a pretty mess, which lasted for quite a fortnight, when the anxiously-looked-for relief arrived in the shape of a vessel from New Zealand, and the baker set to work again to the satisfaction of all, including the Samoans, who are very fond of ' Papalagi felour,' as they call bread.

On the 23rd a Yankee three-masted schooner arrived from San Francisco, on board which, on her return voyage, the British Consul whose place I was to take determined to secure his passage, and from that date to the 13th March, when the Freemont took her departure, we were busily employed arranging matters for the new administration of the office.

PREVIOUS CHAPTER NEXT CHAPTER