Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before Part 13

"Cocoa-nut, cocoa-nut, Only a _husk_!"

But the wind was taken out of his sail by the laughter and antics of his friend on the beach shouting after him:

"Moa, moa, lulu!"

"Fowl, fowl, only an _owl_!"

They had _sundry other amus.e.m.e.nts_. Swimming in the surf on a board, and steering little canoes while borne along on the crest of a wave towards the sh.o.r.e, were favourite juvenile sports. Canoe-racing, races with one party in a canoe and another along the beach, races with both parties on land, climbing cocoa-nut trees to see who can go up quickest, reviews and sham-fighting, c.o.c.k-fighting, tossing up oranges and keeping three, four, or more of them on the move: these and many other things were of old and are still numbered among Samoan sports.

The teeth and jaws, too, are called into exercise. One man would engage to unhusk with his teeth and eat five large native chesnuts (_Tuscapus edulis_) before another could run a certain distance and return. If he failed, he paid his basket of cocoa-nuts, or whatever might be previously agreed upon.

Our juvenile friends will be sure to recognise some of their favourite amus.e.m.e.nts in this description, and will, perhaps, feel inclined to try the novelty of some of these Samoan variations. What a surprising unity of thought and feeling is discoverable among the various races of mankind from a comparison of such customs as these!

CHAPTER XI.

MORTALITY, LONGEVITY, DISEASES, ETC.

Mortality, longevity, diseases, and the treatment of the sick, will now form the subject of a few observations; and here we begin with--

_Infants._--Before the introduction of Christianity probably not less than two-thirds of the Samoan race died in infancy and childhood. This mortality arose princ.i.p.ally from carelessness and mismanagement in nursing; evils which still prevail to a great extent. Even now, perhaps, one-half of them die before they reach their second year. The poor little things are often carried about with their bare heads exposed to the scorching rays of a vertical sun. Exposure to the night-damps also, and above all stuffing them with improper food, are evils which often make us wonder that the mortality among them is not greater than it is. The Samoans were always fond of their children, and would have done anything for them when ill; but, with the exception of external applications for skin diseases, they had no proper remedies for the numerous disorders of children. Were their care in preventing disease equal to their anxiety to observe a cure when the child is really ill, there would probably be less sickness among them, and fewer deaths.

_Adults._--The universal opinion of the natives is that the mortality is now greater among young and middle-aged people than it was formerly. "It was common," they say, "to see three or four old men in a house, whereas you rarely see more than one now." Among a people dest.i.tute of statistics or records of any kind, it is difficult to speak correctly of an earlier date than 1830. Since that time, however, the population has been remarkably stationary. We have not observed any marked disproportion in the deaths of adults of any particular age compared with other parts of the world. A person died in 1847 who was present at the ma.s.sacre of M. de Langle and others connected with the exploring expedition of La Perouse in 1787, and who was then a youth of about fourteen years of age. Judging from his appearance, we may suppose that there are some in every village who must be sixty, seventy, and even eighty years of age.

They have stories of a _giant race_, and tell particularly of one called _Tafai_. He was very tall and strong, but not cruel to any one.

He could throw a long cocoa-nut tree at the rocks as if he were but hurling a thin spear. He plucked up by the roots a great Malili tree, eighty feet high, carried it off on his shoulder, branches and all, and could throw it up and catch it again as if he were playing with a small crab. It is said, too, that so great was his weight, if he put his foot on a rock it left a footprint as if the rock had been soft sand.

_Diseases._--Pulmonary affections, paralysis, diseases of the spine producing humpback, ophthalmia, skin diseases, scrofulous, and other ulcers, elephantiasis, and a species of leprosy, are among the princ.i.p.al diseases with which they were afflicted. Ophthalmia and various diseases of the eye were very prevalent. There were few cases of total blindness; but many had one of the organs of vision destroyed. Connected with diseases of the eye, pterygium is common; not only single, but double, triple, and even quadruple are occasionally met with. The leprosy of which we speak has greatly abated. The natives say that formerly many had it, and suffered from its ulcerous sores until all the fingers of a hand or the toes of a foot had fallen off. Elephantiasis, producing great enlargement of the legs and arms, has, they think, somewhat abated too; only, they say, it prevails among the _young_ men more now than it did formerly.

Insanity is occasionally met with. It was invariably traced in former times to the immediate presence of an evil spirit. If furious, the party was tied hand to hand and foot to foot until a change for the better appeared. Idiots are not common. Consumption they call "Moomoo;" and there were certain native doctors who were supposed to be successful in spearing the disease, or rather the spirit causing it. The doctor when sent for would come in, sit down before the patient, and chant as follows:--

"Moomoo e! Moomoo e!

O le a ou velosia atu oe;"

which in English is--

"O Moomoo! O Moomoo!

I'm on the eve of spearing you."

Then he would rise up, flourish about with his spear over the head of the patient, and leave the house. No one dared speak or smile during the ceremony. Influenza is a new disease to the natives. They say that the first attack of it ever known in Samoa was during the Aana war in 1830, just as the missionaries Williams and Barff, with Tahitian teachers, first reached their sh.o.r.es. The natives at once traced the disease to the foreigners and the new religion; the same opinion spread through these seas, and especially among the islands of the New Hebrides. Ever since there have been returns of the disease almost annually. It is generally preceded by unsettled weather, and westerly or southerly winds. Its course is generally from east to west. It lasts for about a month, and pa.s.ses off as fine weather and steady trade-winds set in. In many cases it is fatal to old people and those who have been previously weakened by pulmonary diseases. There was an attack in May 1837, and another in November 1846, both of which were unusually severe and fatal. They have a tradition of an epidemic, answering the description of cholera, which raged with fearful violence probably about eighty years ago. In 1849 hooping-cough made its appearance, and prevailed for several months, among adults as well as children. A good many of the children died. In 1851 another new disease surprised the natives--viz. the mumps. It was traced to a vessel from California collecting pigs, and soon spread all over the group. Scarcely a native escaped. It answered the usual description of the attack given in medical works, and pa.s.sed off in ten days or a fortnight. Hitherto they have been exempt from small-pox. Some years ago the missionaries vaccinated all the natives, and continue to do so as often as a supply of vaccine lymph is obtained.

_Medicine._--The Samoans in their heathenism seldom had recourse to any internal remedy except an emetic, which they used after having eaten a poisonous fish. Sometimes juices from the bush were tried; at other times the patient drank on at water until it was rejected; and, on some occasions, mud, and even the most unmentionable filth, was mixed up and taken as an emetic draught. Latterly, as their intercourse with Tongans, Fijians, Tahitians, and Sandwich Islanders increased, they made additions to their _pharmacopia_ of juices from the bush. Each disease had its particular physician. Shampooing and anointing the affected part of the body with scented oil by the native doctors was common; and to this charms were frequently added, consisting of some flowers from the bush done up in a piece of native cloth and put in a conspicuous place in the thatch over the patient.

The advocates of _kinnesipathy_ would be interested in finding, were they to visit the South Seas, that most of their friction, percussion, and other manipulations, were in vogue there ages ago, and are still practised. Now, however, European medicines are eagerly sought after; so much so, that every missionary is obliged to have a dispensary, and to set apart a certain hour every day to give advice and medicine to the sick.

As the Samoans supposed disease to be occasioned by the wrath of some particular deity, their princ.i.p.al desire, in any difficult case, was not for medicine, but to ascertain the cause of the calamity. The friends of the sick went to the high priest of the village. He was sure to a.s.sign some cause; and, whatever that was, they were all anxiety to have it removed, as the means of restoration. If he said they were to give up a canoe to the G.o.d, it was given up. If a piece of land was asked, it was pa.s.sed over at once. Or, if he did not wish anything particular from the party, he would probably tell them to a.s.semble the family, "confess, and throw out." In this ceremony each member of the family confessed his crimes and any judgments which, in anger, he had invoked on the family or upon the particular member of it then ill; and, as a proof that he revoked all such imprecations, he took a little water in his mouth, and spurted it out towards the person who was sick.

In _surgery_, they lanced ulcers with a sh.e.l.l or a shark's tooth, and, in a similar way, bled from the arm. For inflammatory swellings they sometimes tried local bleeding; but shampooing and rubbing with oil were the more common remedies in such cases. Cuts they washed in the sea, and bound up with a leaf. Into wounds in the scalp they blew the smoke of burnt chestnut wood. To take a barbed spear from the arm or leg they cut into the limb from the opposite side and pushed it right through. Amputation they never attempted.

The _treatment of the sick_ was invariably humane, and all that could be expected. They wanted for no kind of food which they might desire, night or day, if it was at all in the power of their friends to procure it. In the event of the disease a.s.suming a dangerous form, messengers were despatched to friends at a distance that they might have an opportunity of being in time to see and say farewell to a departing relative. The greater the rank the greater the stir and muster about the sick of friends from the neighbourhood and from a distance. Every one who went to visit a sick friend supposed to be near death took with him a present of a fine mat, or some other kind of valuable property, as a farewell expression of regard, to aid in paying native doctors or conjurors, and to help also in the cost of pigs, etc., with which to entertain the friends who were a.s.sembled.

The following story ill.u.s.trates the ideas and doings of the people at such a time:--

Tuitopetope and Tuioleole were two brother conjurors belonging to Upolu who had been on a visit to Tutuila. On their return they landed at night at Aleipata just as messengers were running from place to place to inform the friends of the dangerous illness of the chief Puepuemai. The two looked into the house, and there they saw a number of G.o.ds from the mountain called Fiso sitting in the doorway. They were handing from one to another the soul of the dying chief. It was wrapped up in a leaf, and had been pa.s.sed by the G.o.ds inside the house to those sitting in the doorway. One of them said to Tuitopetope, "You take this," and handed the soul to him. He took it. The G.o.d mistook him in the dark for another of their G.o.d party. Then all the G.o.ds went off, but Tuitopetope remained in the village and kept the soul of the chief.

Next morning some women of the family were sent off with a present of fine mats to fetch a noted priest doctor. Tuitopetope and his brother, who were sitting on the beach as they pa.s.sed along, asked where they were going with that bundle of property. "To fetch a doctor to Puepuemai," was the reply. "Leave it here," said they, "and take _us_." "Lads! you are joking," said the women. "No, we are not; _we_ can heal him." The women went back to the house to consult again with the friends a.s.sembled around the dying man. All agreed to let the young men come and do what they could.

Tuitopetope and his brother were accordingly sent for. The chief was very ill, his jaw hanging down, and apparently breathing his last.

They undid the leaf, let the soul into him again, and immediately he brightened up and lived. It was blazed abroad that Puepuemai was brought to life again by Tuitopetope and his brother, and they gained a wonderful celebrity. It was supposed they knew everything and could do anything; and so they were sent for by chiefs all over the group to heal the sick and find out the guilty in thieving and other criminalities.

CHAPTER XII.

DEATH AND BURIAL.

Whenever the eye was fixed in death the house became a scene of indescribable lamentation and wailing. "Oh, my father, why did you not let me die, and you live here still?" "Oh, my brother, why have you run away and left your only brother to be trampled upon?" "Oh, my child, had I known you were going to die! Of what use is it for me to survive you; would that I had died for you!" These and other doleful cries might have been heard two hundred yards from the house; and they were accompanied by the most frantic expressions of grief, such as rending garments, tearing the hair, thumping the face and eyes, burning the body with small piercing firebrands, beating the head with stones till the blood ran, and this they called an "offering of blood"

for the dead.

After an hour or so the more boisterous wailing subsided, and, as in such a climate the corpse must be buried in a few hours, preparations were made without delay. The body was laid out on a mat, oiled with scented oil, and, to modify the cadaverous look, they tinged the oil for the face with a little turmeric. The body was then wound up with several folds of native cloth, the chin propped up with a little bundle of the same material, and the face and head left uncovered, while, for some hours longer, the body was surrounded by weeping relatives. If the person had died of a complaint which carried off some other members of the family, they would probably open the body to "search for the disease." Any inflamed substance they happened to find they took away and burned, thinking that this would prevent any other members of the family being affected with the same disease. This was done when the body was laid in the grave.

While a dead body was in the house no food was eaten under the same roof; the family had their meals outside, or in another house. Those who attended the deceased were most careful not to handle food, and for days were fed by others as if they were helpless infants. Baldness and the loss of teeth were supposed to be the punishment inflicted by the household G.o.d if they violated the rule. Fasting was common at such times, and they who did so ate nothing during the day, but had a meal in the evening. The fifth day was a day of "purification." They bathed the face and hands with hot water, and then they were "clean,"

and resumed the usual time and mode of eating.

The death of a chief of high rank was attended with great excitement and display; all work was suspended in the settlement; no stranger dared to pa.s.s through the place. For days they kept the body unburied, until all the different parties connected with that particular clan a.s.sembled from various parts of the islands, and until each party had, in turn, paraded the body, shoulder high, through the village, singing at the same time some mournful dirge. The body, too, was wrapped up in the most valuable fine mat clothing which the deceased possessed.

_The burial_ generally took place the day after death. As many of the friends as could be present in time attended. Every one brought a present, and the day after the funeral these presents were all so distributed again as that every one went away with something in return for what he brought. The body was buried without a coffin, except in the case of chiefs, when a log of wood was hollowed out for the purpose. The body being put into this rude encas.e.m.e.nt, all was done up again in some other folds of native cloth, and carried on the shoulders of four or five men to the grave. The friends followed, but in no particular order; and at the grave again there was often further wailing and exclamations, such as, "Alas! I looked to you for protection, but you have gone away; why did you die? would that I had died for you!"

_The grave_ was called "the fast resting-place," and in the case of chiefs, "the house thatched with the leaves of the sandal wood,"

alluding to the custom of planting some tree with pretty foliage near the grave. There was no village burying-ground all preferred laying their dead among the ashes of their ancestors on their own particular ground. They carried the skulls of their dead from a land where they had been residing during war back to the graves of their fathers as soon as possible after peace was proclaimed. The grave was often dug close by the house. They made it about four feet deep, and after spreading it with mats, like a comfortable bed, there they placed the body with the head to the rising of the sun, and the feet to the west.

With the body they deposited several things which may have been used during the person's illness, such as his clothing, his drinking-cup, and his bamboo pillow. The sticks used to answer the purpose of a pick-axe in digging the grave were also carefully buried with the body. Not that they thought these things of use to the dead; but it was supposed that if they were left and handled by others further disease and death would be the consequence. Other mats were spread over the body, on these a layer of white sand from the beach, and then they filled up the grave. The spot was marked by a little heap of stones a foot or two high. The grave of a chief was neatly built up in an oblong slanting form, about three feet high at the foot and four at the head. White stones or sh.e.l.ls were intermixed with the top layer, and if it had been a noted warrior his grave might be surrounded with spears, or his club laid loosely on the top.

_Embalming_ was known and practised with surprising skill in one particular family of chiefs. Unlike the Egyptian method, as described by Herodotus, it was performed in Samoa exclusively by women. The viscera being removed and buried, they, day after day, anointed the body with a mixture of oil and aromatic juices. To let the fluids escape, they continued to puncture the body all over with fine needles. In about two months the process of desiccation was completed.

The hair, which had been cut and laid aside at the commencement of the operation, was now glued carefully on to the scalp by a resin from the bush. The abdomen was filled up with folds of native cloth; the body was wrapped up with the same material, and laid out on a mat, leaving the hands, face, and head exposed. A house was built for the purpose, and there the body was placed with a sheet of native cloth loosely thrown over it. Now and then the face was oiled with a mixture of scented oil and turmeric, and pa.s.sing strangers were freely admitted to see the remains of the departed. Until about twenty years ago there were four bodies laid out in this way in a house belonging to the family to which we refer, viz. a chief, his wife, and two sons. They were laid on a platform raised on a double canoe. They must have been embalmed upwards of thirty years, and although thus exposed, they were in a remarkable state of preservation. They a.s.signed no particular reason for this embalming, further than that it was the expression of their affection to keep the bodies of the departed still with them as if they were alive. None were allowed to dress them but a particular family of old ladies, who all died off; and, as there was a superst.i.tious fear on the part of some, and an unwillingness on the part of others, to handle them, it was resolved at last to lay them underground.

_Burnings for the dead._--On the evening after the burial of any important chief his friends kindled a number of fires at distances of some twenty feet from each other, near the grave; and there they sat and kept them burning till morning light. This was continued sometimes for ten days after the funeral; it was also done before burial. In the house where the body lay, or out in front of it, fires were kept burning all night by the immediate relatives of the departed. The common people had a similar custom. After burial they kept a fire blazing in the house all night, and had the s.p.a.ce between the house and the grave so cleared as that a stream of light went forth all night from the fire to the grave. The account the Samoans give of it is, that it was merely a light burning in honour of the departed, and a mark of tender regard.

_The unburied_ occasioned great concern. No Roman was ever more grieved at the thought of his unburied friend wandering a hundred years along the banks of the Styx than were the Samoans while they thought of the spirit of one who had been drowned, or of another who had fallen in war, wandering about neglected and comfortless. They supposed the spirit haunted them everywhere, night and day, and imagined they heard it calling upon them in a most pitiful tone, and saying, "Oh, how cold! oh, how cold!" Nor were the Samoans, like the ancient Romans, satisfied with a mere "_tumulus inanis_" at which to observe the usual solemnities; they thought it was possible to obtain the soul of the departed in some tangible transmigrated form. On the beach, near where a person had been drowned, and whose body was supposed to have become a porpoise, or on the battlefield, where another fell, might have been seen, sitting in silence, a group of five or six, and one a few yards before them with a sheet of native cloth spread out on the ground in front of him. Addressing some G.o.d of the family he said, "Oh, be kind to us; let us obtain without difficulty the spirit of the young man!" The first thing that happened to light upon the sheet was supposed to be the spirit. If nothing came it was supposed that the spirit had some ill-will to the person praying. That person after a time retired, and another stepped forward, addressed some other G.o.d, and waited the result. By-and-by something came; gra.s.shopper, b.u.t.terfly, ant, or whatever else it might be, it was carefully wrapped up, taken to the family, the friends a.s.sembled, and the bundle buried with all due ceremony, as if it contained the real spirit of the departed. The grave, however, was not the hades of the Samoans, as we have already seen in Chapter III.

Prayers at the grave of a parent or brother or _chief_ were common.

Some, for example, would pray for health in sickness and might or might not recover. A woman prayed for the death of her brother, he died, but soon after she died also. A chief promised to give a woman some fine mats, he deceived her, and off she went and prayed at the grave of his predecessor in the t.i.tle. The man took ill and died. She confessed what she had done, but said she did not pray for death, but only _pain_ to make him smart for his deceit. And so the custom was carried on, but with fluctuating belief in its efficacy.

CHAPTER XIII.

HOUSES.