Seven Legs Across the Seas Part 19

The Samoan is the native aristocrat of all peoples. In bearing, looks, manners, tidiness, hospitality and pride he leads the world. He is the Polynesian, together with the Maori, the Tongan (Friendly Islander), the Kanaka (of Hawaii), and other tribes living on some of the South Pacific islands. The Samoans number 40,000, about 500 Europeans living in the group.

If one should reach Apia on Sunday he would be apt to find the hair on the heads of a majority of men a yellow and reddish color; and were one to stop at the same port on a Tuesday or Wednesday the hair would be black, the natural color. Coral lime will change the color of hair in two or three days, when he puts on his best lava-lava (kilt; sulu in Fiji), the light-colored hair indicating he is dressed up. The hair is straight, and worn brushed back. The lava-lava is often a bath towel with red stripes. From his waist up he is bare, and he wears no shoes. From waist-line to the cap of the knee he is tattooed. His skin is a gold-bronze color, and he walks with a princely step, but not a swagger stride. Natives are of good size, but not so strongly built as the Zulus.

Samoan women are noted for their beauty, and their comeliness measures up to this coveted distinction not only among the South Sea Islands races, but of native races of the world. They wear the lava-lava, as the men, together with a loose-fitting waist, with short, loose sleeves. Wrappers, however, are sometimes worn. The clothing worn on the islands is made with the object of affording comfort. The hair generally presents a tidy appearance. Flowers, ferns or leaves are often seen deftly placed in the folds of the thick black hair of Samoan women, which usually shines from a liberal application of cocoanut oil. Garlands, worn about the neck, also play a part in their dress. These are sometimes composed of orange blossoms, buds of other flowers, berry-like seeds from trees, small seash.e.l.ls, pits from certain fruits, or of pieces of bone resembling teeth of wild beasts.

As a rule, their expressions are pleasing, and they have a healthy appearance. Some wear sandals, but most natives are in their bare feet. As with the wearing apparel of most races, the lava-lavas and waists are not all of the same color, but vary according to the fancy of the wearer; and the seed of fancy and caprice seems to be implanted in the hearts of women of all races, as manifested not only by the different colors of the lava-lava, but also by the patterns of silks, sealskins, feathers, and precious stones, as the case may be.

These natives are too proud to unload ships, so Nieu "boys," natives from the Savage Islands, are carried from port to port to do the work.

Each Samoan owns a small piece of land, and the copra, cocoa, bananas and other tropical products from this amply supply his needs.

When eating in a Samoan's hut a mat is spread for the visitor to sit on. Another mat is placed before the visitor, which might be termed a tablecloth. A banana-leaf plate, placed on the second mat, may contain a baked fish or perhaps a pigeon. Still another dinner mat, with a banana-leaf plate, contains greens, the taro leaf, and cocoanut cream; then there may be a third course, with mat and "plate," containing a native delicacy. The native beverage, kava, is served in a cocoanut sh.e.l.l by one of the daughters. All the while chatting is going on and compliments paid the visitor by the family through an interpreter, if one cannot speak their language. Sipping liquid is not a custom in Samoa; but swallowing whatever is offered in the nature of drink at one gulp, and then sending the cup spinning back across the mat to the person who served it, is proper. One is supposed to sit cross-legged on a mat during the meal.

Most of the natives seemed to own a horse and buggy, and no signs of poverty are apparent. People are in no hurry in Samoa, which may account for the term, "The land of delicious idleness." The weather is hot, never below 90 degrees in the shade, and hovers about the 100 mark. The temperature does not vary 10 degrees all the year round.

For miles around Apia is a great botanical garden. It is said the best cocoanut palms grow in Samoa; bananas grow as prolific as weeds; the broad-leafed cocoa tree, with its large, purple-covered pods, covers large areas; the papaw, or mummy apple, is seen at every turn; coffee bushes are a luxurious growth; pineapples, mango trees, breadfruit trees, with broad leaves and rough skin--any tree or plant that grows in the tropics may be found in Samoa. The exports from that port are chiefly copra and cocoa. Samoa is the only place in the South Sea Islands where cocoa trees will thrive.

n.o.body locks doors at night, and nothing is ever taken from huts.

Calling on an acquaintance who kept a general store, we found the place filled with Samoans--not room enough to move. He had occasion to step to the rear for some article called for, leaving the goods, which were piled up on the counters, to the mercy of the natives, and much floor s.p.a.ce was taken up with merchandise, too. After the customers had left the store, the storekeeper was asked if he did not fear that his goods would be taken while he was at the rear of the building. "If I had turned around while walking from the front to the rear of the store," he explained, "something would have been missing, for I would have offended their sense of honesty, but by giving no sign of suspicion--trusting them--had I remained away an hour everything in the place would be, on my return, as it was when I went away."

Samoans are a religious race. On Sundays the streets are crowded with natives dressed in highly-colored lava-lavas, each carrying a Bible and hymn book. They are good singers.

Only a few miles from Apia, Robert Louis Stevenson, the novelist, lived and died. On Mount Vaca, rising a thousand feet above Apia, his remains lie, and a portion of the tomb may be seen through the thick foliage when sailing into the harbor. His home, "Vailima," is now the residence of the Governor-General.

"Talofa" is the pa.s.sing salute in Samoa, which, translated, is "My love to you." "Tofa" is the parting word on leaving a Samoan home, meaning "good-by."

Foreign labor is imported to work on plantations, as the natives cannot be depended upon; Chinamen are generally employed. And what an improvement the Chinaman is on the Indian coolie!

The Samoan is a fatalist. If the idea comes into his head that he is going to die no power on earth will keep him alive. He gives right up, lies down on the ground, in a boat, or wherever he may be--just makes up his mind that his time has come.

A Samoan chief dressed in war regalia is an object of interest. His well shaped head, covered with a heavy growth of black hair brushed back and glossy from applications of cocoanut oil, rests on a stocky neck. The face is round, complexion bronze, and he generally wears a mustache. In addition to a necklace, thickly studded with polished, round, sharp-pointed pieces of bone, several inches in length, which encircles the neck, a loop of stout cord, ornamented with larger and rougher pieces of bone, resting on the shoulders and extending to below the chest, is worn. Save for the necklace and loop, the warrior is bare to his waist. From waistline to between knee and ankle he is covered with a bulky kilt--often made of bark cloth--this being embellished with fringe, ta.s.sels and ribbon woven from tropical fibers. Plump, but not fat, he stands about 5 feet 6 inches. A rifle is a fighting feature of the chief's equipment, and, like most Samoans, is in bare feet.

Elephantiasis makes its appearance in Samoa, and natives with legs swollen to the proportion of an elephant's may be seen walking any time at a slow, shuffling gait, about the islands. This disease occurs more often in tropical sea sections, and is believed to be caused by a blood parasite. The legs become enormously enlarged, due to inflammation of the skin and obstructed circulation of the blood.

America has adopted a good system of looking after natives' copra produced on the islands of Manua and Tutuila, United States territory.

An officer in charge at Pago-Pago receives the goods, weighs it, gives a receipt for the product, and sells when the market offers the best price. In the meantime, if the native needs money, he can, by applying to the proper officer, have funds advanced to him. When his copra is sold, he is paid the full price.

[Ill.u.s.tration: INTERIOR OF SAMOAN HOME, BUILT OF BREADFRUIT TREE, SECURED BY COIR; NO NAILS USED.

SAMOA.]

The huts or homes of the Samoans, circular in form, are the best built of those of any native races. From a heavy center upright beam, 12 to 16 feet in length, scantlings extend to a circular support, which rests on posts three feet high. The roof, composed of cocoanut palm leaves, is secured to breadfruit wood scantlings. Palm-leaf curtains, the width of the s.p.a.ce from post to post, are attached to the circular timber. During the day the shades are raised all round, allowing air to pa.s.s through, and at night they are lowered. As an additional means of cooling the home, a strip of pebbles, two feet wide, extends around the hut, mats covering the floor s.p.a.ce each side of the circle of small stones. The bed is composed of half a dozen to a dozen cocoanut-leaf mats, four feet wide and six feet in length, and white cotton sheets, laid on the floor. In the morning the bedding is rolled together, placed on poles above, and taken down at bedtime. As chairs do not figure in the furnishing of a Samoan home, a leaf mat is used as a seat.

Though Samoans will not unload ships, they have no objection to washing clothes. They board vessels in the harbor and solicit laundry work, charging eight cents apiece. For a white suit of drill they charge only eight cents, a pair of socks or a collar costing the same.

On a sailing ship, and on a naval cutter plying between Pago-Pago and Apia (both seen here), also on a schooner at Dunedin, N. Z., were the only instances since leaving New York when the Stars and Stripes was observed flying from vessels.

Upolu Island, on which Apia is located, is second in area to Savaii, being 38 miles long and 12 wide. Samoa is one place in the Southern Pacific Ocean that Abel Tasman was not the first to set eyes on, this group being discovered by Captain Roggeville, in 1721.

We reached Apia on a Sydney Sunday (Eastern time), which was Sat.u.r.day in Apia (Western time). Naturally, Sydney's Monday was Apia's Sunday, so we had two Sat.u.r.days and two Sundays that week. It is difficult for the layman to understand how twelve hours can make a day, as we appeared to lose one after crossing the line of the 180th meridian from east to west.

A weekly newspaper of 48 columns, 25 of these advertis.e.m.e.nts, is published in Apia. Only 200 Europeans live in the town, yet a newspaper of that size appears to flourish.

The American consul called at the ship one evening in tropical evening dress to have a chat with the American pa.s.sengers--four in number. He asked the captain of the vessel, who was a Britisher, to blow his whistle three times on sailing out of the harbor, when he would acknowledge the salute by lowering the flag on the staff at the consulate. The captain kept his word, the following day, but the flag did not move. There is nothing strange about such forgetfulness, however, for the consulate is located in "The Land of Delicious Idleness."

CHAPTER V

We will now say "Tofa" to that splendid race and their pretty islands and make a start for Tonga, when the day "lost" will be reclaimed, as we recross the 180th meridian. The captain did not turn back the ship's clock here, but kept the Sydney time.

Pa.s.sing between two prominent stone walls, we entered the harbor of Vavau, Tonga, another group of the South Sea Islands. This group appears on some maps as the Friendly Islands. Abel Tasman, who discovered so many countries before any one else, but allowed others to claim what he first saw, discovered the Tongan group in 1643. Over a hundred years later Captain James Cook, the explorer, made three visits to these islands, before and after he had planted the British flag on Australia and New Zealand. The Tongans have always had self-government, but the group is under the protection of the British.

The native ruling power is King George Tubou II. Parliament consists of 32 elected representatives and an equal number of hereditary chiefs, all of native birth. The islands also boast a Prime Minister, a Chancellor of the Exchequer, a Chief Justice and other high officials.

King George Tubou II., at the opening of Parliament, wears a European court suit, a gold and jeweled crown, and a long mantle of crimson velvet trimmed with ermine, which is supported by two boys attired in tights, trunks, and feathered caps, while the king's soldiers line the highway along which the royal procession marches. To maintain that standard of royalty the natives are taxed $10 each a year, with maturity age at 16. The native head tax in Fiji is $5, and in Samoa $3, so the Tongan pays highly for the royal atmosphere he breathes.

The harbor of Vavau is the prettiest we have seen, but it would not be advisable to make that statement in Sydney, Australia. While the striking panorama offered by Sydney's is absent here, Nature's lavish tropical adornment offsets that feature, wrought mainly by the hand of man, in the former. For seven miles, from the imposing Heads to the small town at the other end, the sh.o.r.es are studded with cocoanut palms, and the bay is beautifully bedecked with small and pretty islands, thickly verdured with a moistened growth, the fronds of the cocoanut palm and leaves of the banana bush growing on these dipping their points into the still, mirror-like blue water from every side.

Smaller vegetation grows upward for a time, but later yields to the seductiveness of the clear, calm, coral-reflected water, when the bright, tender tips of these become fondled, as it were, by the gentle ripples, adding more attractiveness to this unusual scene of natural beauty. These islands would remind one of a flower-pot overgrown with drooping ferns. The vessel is pointed straight, then veers, when the foliage of one of these green barriers seems almost to brush the water-line of the ship. After a turn in another direction, the course is straight again for a short distance. Another of these pretty islands is seen just ahead, when the vessel slants and seem to barely miss caressing the foliage drooping into the water. All the while the palm-studded sh.o.r.e maintains its most p.r.o.nounced beauty. Traveling through Vavau harbor is like sailing through an enchanted botanical garden.

"Malolelei," the word a visitor first hears from a Tongan, is "Good day" in the native language. One soon asks another who knows how to p.r.o.nounce the word to teach him the vernacular, for the salute is supposed to be returned. Every one says "Malolelei."

The Tongan is very friendly to the whites, which explains how the name "Friendly Islands" came to be applied to the Tongan group. Mariners, in early days, when shipwrecked on the sh.o.r.es of these islands, were killed, cut up, and made stew of. But nowadays they would be fed, housed and receive any and every attention that would make their misfortune easier to bear. Were a white man known to be in need, every native would feel it his duty to help relieve him. Each would bring with him food, and if the hungry man could eat all that was brought to him he might live to be as old as Methuselah without worrying about money to pay his board bill.

"The Sun is dead!" was the term used by the natives to describe a total eclipse of the sun that took place while traveling through the South Sea section of the journey. The words were spoken in a solemn tone, and it was amusing to note the difference in their voices and faces when, the eclipse being over, they shouted, "The Sun is alive again!"

Little of interest is to be seen at Vavau, as only 60 white persons live here, most of them traders. Native meat is scarce, as practically no grain or potatoes grow in tropical countries, so European food staples have to be imported to the islands of the South Seas. As an offset for these importations, bananas, copra and pineapples are exported to either Auckland or Sydney.

"Good-by to chops and juicy steaks--canned meat for you henceforth"--were the parting words an Australian received who left the ship at a Tongan port. He had decided to make his home in Tonga, and no person would feel the loss of a mutton chop more keenly than an Australian.

We again sail through Vavau's botanical harbor, and next stop at Haapai, a port on another island of the group. Traveling from South Sea ports, the deck of a ship is crowded with natives, whose bodies shine with cocoanut oil, and all have cocoanut palm leaf baskets and banana-leaf plates. Sometimes a piece of purple-colored taro is bitten off and eaten, or a dozen cocoanuts are tilted and natives drink the liquid; then a whole orange may be forced inside the mouth, when a series of prying with the fingers takes place, causing contortions of the face, in the effort to squeeze out the juice, when the caved-in orange will be withdrawn and thrown away. All are bareheaded, wearing vari-colored kilts and waists, and everybody happy and seemingly well fed. A feature of the Tongan's "luggage" is the great quant.i.ty of food each brings with him. They have good faces, but are not up to the general appearance of the Samoan.

The sh.o.r.e on which the little town of Haapai is built is a picture.

Lined with an unbroken row of cocoanut palms, as far as one could see over the tops of these there was no other growth. Coral reefs are very pretty here, and tiny bright blue fish dart like b.u.t.terflies from caves in the reefs and in turquoise-blue pools. At some places the bottom of the sea is like a garden, as growing therefrom is peculiar colored seaweed, striped and spotted sh.e.l.ls being numerous.

Tonga homes cannot compare with those of Samoa. They are hayrick shaped, seldom have a window, and two doors generally lead to the inside. The floors are covered with cocoanut-leaf mats, and the beds are of mats of the same material. A lantern is used to light their huts at night; the oil burned in these comes from the United States. A big circular wooden bowl, with legs cut from the heart of a large tree, used to mix the native drink in, is another important utensil in the Tongan home; the bottom is of a slaty-blue color. Cocoanut-sh.e.l.l cups figure prominently in native utensils. Some Tongans, however, live in frame houses, roofed with iron.

A native drink, known as kava, is universally used throughout the islands of the South Pacific Ocean. The drink is made from the root of a shrub, which is sometimes pounded into small pieces with stones, but of late years graters have been used; and coffee-grinders serve the purpose still better. Gratings from the root are placed in the wooden bowl, and water is poured on these. The coa.r.s.er grounds are strained from the kava by gra.s.s or fibers from the bark of certain shrubs or trees. A European would have to acquire a liking for this native drink, as at first it tastes like a mixture of soapsuds and ginger.

When drunk to excess it does not affect the head, but the legs become paralyzed for a few hours; blindness also follows its abuse. Kava is served in cocoanut cups.

Tongans number but 21,000, and all belong to some religious denomination. Church collections are taken only once a year. The "basket" is never pa.s.sed for contributions. A wooden bowl or a galvanized kettle is placed under the pulpit, and each goes forward and puts his contribution in the "box." A majority, 18,000 out of the 21,000, are identified with the Wesleyan Church, and this number contributes the sum of $25,000 a year. They build their own churches and give their services free. Few nails are used in these buildings, the timbers being secured by coir, or cinnet. If the wood be dark, the brown fibers of the cocoanut are dyed the color of the wood that is to be lashed. The cinnet lashing seen in the church buildings is splendidly done, and often resembles carving. The Tongans hold their churches in much reverence. At some frame houses in the towns is seen a round galvanized tank to hold rain water running from the roof.

However, they consider it sacrilege to conserve the water running from the roof of a church.

A traveling acquaintance who had lived in Tonga for years was asked if white people locked their doors at night. "Yes," he replied, "the kitchen door--to keep the cats out."

Poverty is unknown here, as are jails. Each Tongan has 8 acres of land, and the copra from that area not only furnishes sufficient money to buy what is needed but allows a small surplus besides.

Not one murder has taken place in the group in over 20 years, and then a white man was mixed up in it. This will seem more remarkable when it is remembered that almost every native carries a big knife, with which to shuck cocoanuts and cut the stems of bananas. But two races live in Tonga--300 whites and the balance Tongans.

One hundred islands compose this group, Tongatabu, on which the capital is built, being the largest and most important. That island is 20 miles long and 12 miles wide.