Decaying rapidly under the ardent rays of a tropical sun, it exhales a poisonous miasma. But the heat, oppressive and exhausting at times, is nevertheless tempered by the sea and land breezes, which blow daily, alternating with intervals of calm between them. Besides these daily breezes the trade wind blows regularly from the east during the fine season, when the sky is constantly blue and cloudless. Yet with all these alleviations the climate is enervating, and a long residence in it is debilitating to the European frame.[10] Nor are the natives exempt from the noxious effects of an atmosphere saturated with moisture and impregnated with the fumes of vegetable decay. The open nature of their dwellings, which were without walls, exposed them to the heavy night dews and rendered them susceptible to diseases of the chest and lungs, from which they suffered greatly; consumption in its many forms, coughs, colds, inflammation of the chest and lungs, fevers, rheumatism, pleurisy, diarrh[oe]a, lumbago, diseases of the spine, scrofula, and many other ailments are enumerated among the disorders which afflicted them. But the prevailing disease is elephantiasis, a dreadful malady which attacks Europeans and natives alike. There are many cases of epilepsy, and though idiots are rare, lunatics are less infrequent.
Hunchbacks are very common in both s.e.xes, and virulent ophthalmia is prevalent; many persons lose the sight of one eye, and some are totally blinded; not less than a fifth part of the population is estimated to suffer from this malady.[11] Curiously enough, hunchbacks, who are said to be very numerous on account of scrofula, used to be looked on as special favourites of the spirits, and many of them, on growing to manhood, were accordingly admitted to the priesthood.[12]
[10] Ch. Wilkes, _Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition_, ii. 118; Violette, "Notes d"un Missionnaire sur l"archipel de Samoa," _Les Missions Catholiques_, iii. (1870) p. 72 (who, however, affirms that the climate is not unhealthy); T. H. Hood, _Notes of a Cruise in H.M.S. "Fawn" in the Western Pacific_ (Edinburgh, 1863), pp. 144 _sq._; J. B. Stair, _Old Samoa_, pp. 16, 35 _sqq._
[11] Ch. Wilkes, _Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition_, ii. 124 _sq._; J. B. Stair, _Old Samoa_, pp. 165 _sq._, 169 _sq._; G. Brown, _Melanesians and Polynesians_, pp. 180 _sqq._
[12] S. Ella, "Samoa," _Report of the Fourth Meeting of the Australasian a.s.sociation for the Advancement of Science, held at Hobart, Tasmania, in January 1892_, p. 622.
During the stormy season, which lasts from December to April, hurricanes sometimes occur, and are greatly dreaded by the natives on account of the havoc which they spread both among the crops and the houses. A steady rain, the absence of the sun, a deathlike stillness of the birds and domestic animals, and above all the dark and lowering aspect of the sky, are the premonitory symptoms of the coming calamity and inspire general consternation, while the thunderous roar of the torrents and waterfalls in the mountains strike on the ear with redoubled distinctness in the prevailing silence which preludes the storm. Warned by these ominous signs, the natives rush to secure their property from being swept away by the fury of the blast. Some hurry their canoes inland to places of comparative safety; others pile trunks of banana-trees on the roofs of their houses or fasten down the roofs by hanging heavy stones over them; while yet others bring rough poles, hastily cut in the forest, and set them up inside the houses as props against the rafters, to prevent the roof from falling in. Sometimes these efforts are successful, sometimes futile, the hurricane sweeping everything before it in its mad career, while the terrified natives behold the fruits of months of toil, sometimes the growth of years, laid waste in an hour. On such occasions the sh.o.r.es have been seen flooded by the invading ocean, houses carried clean away, and a forest turned suddenly into a bare and treeless plain. Men have been forced to fling themselves flat on the ground and to dig their hands into the earth to save themselves from being whirled away and precipitated into the sea or a torrent. In April 1850 the town of Apia, the capital of the islands, was almost destroyed by one of these cyclones. When the rage of the tornado is spent and calm has returned, the sh.o.r.es of a harbour are apt to present a melancholy scene of ruin and desolation, their sh.o.r.es strewn with the wrecks of gallant ships which lately rode there at anchor, their pennons streaming to the wind. So it happened in the harbour of Apia on March 16th, 1889. Before the tempest burst, there were many ships of various nations anch.o.r.ed in the bay, among them five or six American and German warships. When it was over, all were wrecked and their shattered fragments littered the reefs. One vessel alone, the British man-of-war, _Calliope_, was saved by the courage and skill of the captain, who, seconded by the splendid seamanship of the crew, forced his ship, in the very teeth of the hurricane, out into the open sea, where he safely weathered the storm.[13]
[13] Ch. Wilkes, _Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition_, ii. 72; Violette, "Notes d"un Missionnaire sur l"archipel de Samoa," _Les Missions Catholiques_, iii. (1870) p. 72; F. H. H. Guillemard, _Australasia_, ii. 504; J. B. Stair, _Old Samoa_, pp. 38-41.
A special interest attaches to Samoa in so far as it is now commonly believed to be the original seat of the Polynesian race in the Pacific, from which their ancestors gradually dispersed to the other islands of that vast ocean, where their descendants are settled to this day.
Polynesian traditions point to such a dispersal from Samoa as a centre, and they are confirmed by the name which the various branches of the race give to their old ancestral home. The original form of that name appears to have been Savaiki, which through dialectical variations has been altered to Hawaiki in New Zealand, to Hawaii in the Sandwich Islands, to Havaii in Tahiti, to Havaiki in the Marquesas, and to Avaiki in Rarotonga. In the Samoan dialect, which of all the Polynesian dialects alone retains the letter S, the word presumably appears as Savaii, the name of the largest island of the group, which accordingly may be regarded, with some probability, as the cradle-land of the Polynesians in the Pacific; though native traditions indicate rather Upolu or Manua as the place from which the canoes started on their long and adventurous voyages. On the other hand in favour of Savaii it has been pointed out that the island holds a decided superiority over the other islands of the group in respect of canoe-building; for it possesses extensive forests of hard and durable timber, which is much sought after for the keels and other parts of vessels; indeed, the large sea-going canoes were generally, if not always, built on Savaii, and maritime expeditions appear sometimes to have started from its sh.o.r.es.[14] In proof that the Samoans have long been settled in the islands which they now occupy, it may be alleged that they appear to have no tradition of any other home from which their ancestors migrated to their present abode. With the single exception of a large village called Matautu in Savaii, the inhabitants of which claim that they came originally from Fiji, all the Samoans consider themselves indigenous.[15] The Samoans and Tongans, says Mr. S. Percy Smith, "formed part of the first migration into the Pacific, and they have been there so long that they have forgotten their early history. All the numerous legends as to their origin seem to express their own belief in their being autochthones, created in the Samoan Islands."[16]
[14] Horatio Hale, _Ethnography and Philology of the United States Exploring Expedition_ (Philadelphia, 1846), pp.
119 _sqq._; J. E. Erskine, _Journal of a Cruise among the Islands of the Western Pacific_, pp. 102 _sq._; J. B. Stair, _Old Samoa_, pp. 271 _sqq._ (compare _id._ p. 34 as to the timber and canoe-building of Savaii); G. Brown, _Melanesians and Polynesians_, pp. 358, 371 _sq._; A. C. Haddon, _The Wanderings of Peoples_ (Cambridge, 1919), p. 36; A. H. Keane, _Man Past and Present_ (Cambridge, 1920), p. 552. That the Samoan language, alone of the Polynesian dialects, retains the S sound, is affirmed by Ch. Wilkes (_Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition_, ii. 123). In some of the islands the name of the ancient fatherland of the race (Hawaiki, etc.) has been applied or transferred to the spirit-land to which the souls of the dead are supposed to pa.s.s as their final abode. See S. Percy Smith, _Hawaiki_, pp. 46 _sqq._; E. Tregear, _Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary_, pp. 56 _sqq._, _s.v._ "Hawaiki."
[15] G. Brown, _Melanesians and Polynesians_, pp. 360 _sq._ As to the Fijian colony in Savaii, compare T. H. Hood, _Notes of a Cruise in H.M.S. "Fawn" in the Western Pacific_ (Edinburgh, 1863), pp. 117 _sq._
[16] S. Percy Smith, _Hawaiki_, pp. 114 _sq._
-- 2. _The Samoan Islanders, their character_
In spite of the many diseases prevalent among them, the Samoans are commonly reckoned among the finest, as well as the purest, specimens of the Polynesian race. Like the Tongans, whom they closely resemble, they are generally tall and shapely, with full rounded faces and limbs, but without that grossness and laxity of fibre common in the Tahitians. The average height of the men is said to be five feet ten inches, but some of them are over six feet with the thews and sinews of a Hercules. Their features, though not always regular, are commonly pleasing; and in particular the forehead is remarkable for its ample development, which, with the breadth between the eyes, gives to the countenance an expression of n.o.bleness and dignity. Some of the young men especially are models of manly beauty; we read of one who, having decked his hair with the flowers of the scarlet hibiscus, might have sat for an Antinous. The women are comely enough, but strikingly inferior to the men in point of personal beauty. The prevailing colour is a light copper or olive brown, but the shade varies a good deal, deepening somewhat in fishermen and others who are much exposed to the sun; but it never approaches the dark chocolate tint, or Vand.y.k.e brown, of the Melanesians. Their hair is usually black and wavy, sometimes curly; but hardly a vestige is to be seen among them of the crisped and woolly hair and dusky complexion of the Melanesians, their neighbours on the west.[17]
[17] Horatio Hale, _Ethnography and Philology of the United States Exploring Expedition_, pp. 10 _sq._; Ch. Wilkes, _Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition_, ii. 125 _sq._; J. E. Erskine, _Journal of a Cruise among the Islands of the Western Pacific_, pp. 41, 51; C. E. Meinicke, _Die Inseln des Stillen Oceans_ (Leipzig, 1875-1876), ii. 110 _sq._; G.
Turner, _Samoa_, p. 3; J. B. Stair, _Old Samoa_, p. 58; G.
Brown, _Melanesians and Polynesians_, pp. 55 _sq._
The prepossessing appearance of the Samoans on the whole does not belie their character. They are reputed to be the most refined and civilised of all the native races of the Pacific, and this superiority is said to manifest itself in their social and domestic life.[18] The Samoans, we are told, are a nation of gentlemen and contrast most favourably with the generality of the Europeans who come among them.[19] They are said to carry their habits of cleanliness and decency to a higher point than the most fastidious of civilised nations;[20] and the Samoan women appear to be honourably distinguished by their modest behaviour and fidelity in marriage, qualities which contrast with the profligacy of their s.e.x in other branches of the Polynesian race.[21] Equally honourable to the men are the respect and kindness which, according to the testimony of observers, they pay to their women, whom they are said to regard as their equals.[22] The aged were treated with respect and never abandoned; and strangers were always received in the best house and provided with food specially prepared for them.[23] Infanticide, which was carried to an appalling and almost incredible extent among some of the Polynesians,[24] was unknown in Samoa; abortion, indeed, was not uncommon, but once born children were affectionately cared for and never killed or exposed.[25] Wives and slaves were never put to death at a chief"s burial, that their souls might attend their dead lord to the spirit land[26], as was the practice in some of the other islands, even in Tonga. Again, human sacrifices were not offered by the Samoans to the G.o.ds within the time during which the islands have been under the observation of Europeans; but in some of the more remote traditions mention is made of such sacrifices offered to the sun. Thus it is said that in the mythical island of Papatea, somewhere away in the east, the sun used to call for two victims every day, one at his rising and another at his setting. This lasted for eighty days. At such a rate of consumption the population of the island was rapidly wasting away. To escape the threatened doom, a brother and sister, named Luama and Ui, fled from Papatea to Manua, the most easterly of the Samoan islands, but they found to their consternation that there too, the sun was demanding his daily victims. Every house had to supply a victim in succession, and, when all had yielded the tribute, it came to the first house in turn to renew the sacrifice. The victim was laid out on a panda.n.u.s tree, and there the sun devoured him or her. When the lot fell on Luama, his heroic sister Ui insisted on taking his place, and lying down, she cried, "O cruel sun! come and eat your victim, we are all being devoured by you." But the amorous sun fell in love with her and took her to wife, at the same time putting an end to the human sacrifices. Another story affirms that the heroine was a daughter of the King of Manua, and that he yielded her up as an offering to the sun in order to end the sacrifices by making her the saviour of the people.[27]
[18] S. Ella, "Samoa," _Report of the Fourth Meeting of the Australasian a.s.sociation for the Advancement of Science, held at Hobart, Tasmania, in January 1892_, p. 634.
[19] T. H. Hood, _Notes of a Cruise in H.M.S. "Fawn" in the Western Pacific_ (Edinburgh, 1863), pp. 59 _sq._
[20] J. E. Erskine, _op. cit._ p. 110
[21] Ch. Wilkes, _op. cit._ ii. 125; J. E. Erskine, _op. cit._ p. 110
[22] Ch. Wilkes, _op. cit._ ii. 148; Violette, " Notes d"un Missionnaire sur l"archipel de Samoa," _Les Missions Catholiques_, iii. (1870) p. 156; J. L. Brenchley, _op. cit._ p.
77; S. Ella, _op. cit._ pp. 628 _sq._; G. Brown, _op. cit._ pp.
43, 410.
[23] G. Brown, _op. cit._ p. 410.
[24] For some evidence of the practice see John Turnbull, _Voyage round the World_ (London, 1813), pp. 363 _sq._; C. S. Stewart, _Journal of a Residence in the Sandwich Islands_ (London, 1828), pp. 251 _sqq._; P. Dillon, _Voyage in the South Seas_ (London, 1829), ii. 134; William Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, Second Edition (London, 1832-1836), i.
248 _sqq._; J. Williams, _Narrative of Missionary Enterprises in the South Sea Islands_ (London, 1838), pp. 479-486. According to Stewart, in those parts of Hawaii to which the influence of the missionaries had not penetrated, two-thirds of the infants born were murdered by their parents within the age of two years. In Tahiti three women, questioned by Mr. Williams, acknowledged that they had killed twenty-one of their children between them.
Another, at the point of death, confessed to him, in an anguish of remorse, that she had destroyed sixteen of her children.
[25] G. Turner, _Samoa_, p. 79. Compare J. Williams, _op. cit._ p. 479; S. Ella, _op. cit._ p. 621; G. Brown, _Melanesians and Polynesians_, p. 47.
[26] G. Brown, _Melanesians and Polynesians_, p. 219.
[27] G. Turner, _Samoa_, pp. 201 _sq._ Compare G.
Brown, _Melanesians and Polynesians_, pp. 230 _sq._; J.
Williams, _Narrative of Missionary Enterprises in the South Sea Islands_, p. 471; J. B. Stair, _Old Samoa_, p. 210.
The Samoans, when they became known to Europe in the nineteenth century, did not habitually indulge in cannibalism; indeed, according to John Williams, one of the earliest missionaries to the islands, they spoke of the practice with great horror and detestation.[28] But we have the testimony of other early missionaries that in their wars they occasionally resorted to it as a climax of hatred and revenge, devouring some portion of an enemy who had rendered himself peculiarly obnoxious by his cruelty or his provocations. Traditions, too, are on record of chiefs who habitually killed and devoured their fellow-creatures. A form of submission which a conquered party used to adopt towards their conquerors has also been interpreted as a relic of an old custom of cannibalism. Representatives of the vanquished party used to bow down before the victors, each holding in his hands a piece of firewood and a bundle of leaves, such as are used in dressing a pig for the oven. This was as much as to say, "Kill us and cook us, if you please." Criminals, too, were sometimes bound hand and foot, slung on a pole, and laid down before the persons they had injured, like pigs about to be killed and cooked. Combining these and other indications we may surmise that cannibalism was formerly not infrequent among the ancestors of the Samoans, though among their descendants in the nineteenth century the practice had almost wholly died out.[29] It is further to the credit of the Samoans that their public administration of justice was on the whole mild and humane. Torture was never employed to wring the truth from witnesses or the accused, and there seems to be only a single case on record of capital punishment inflicted by judicial sentence. At the same time private individuals were free to avenge the adultery of a wife or the murder of a kinsman by killing the culprit, and no blame attached to them for so doing. The penalties imposed by the sentence of a court or judicial a.s.sembly (_fono_) included fines, banishment, and the destruction of houses, fruit-trees, and domestic animals. But a criminal might also be condemned by a court to suffer corporal punishment in one form or another. He might, for example, be obliged to wound himself by beating his head and chest with a stone till the blood flowed freely; if he seemed to spare himself, he would be ordered by the a.s.sembled chiefs to strike harder, and if he still faltered, the prompt and unsparing application of a war club to his person effectually a.s.sisted the execution of the sentence. Again, he might be condemned to bite a certain acrid and poisonous root (called in the native language _tevi_) which caused the mouth to swell and the culprit to suffer intense agony for a considerable time afterwards. Or he might have to throw up a spiny and poisonous fish into the air and to catch it in his naked hand as it fell; the sharp-pointed spines entered into the flesh and inflicted acute pain and suffering. Or he might be suspended by hands and feet from a pole and in this att.i.tude exposed to the broiling sun for many hours together; or he might be hung by the feet, head downward, from the top of a tall coco-nut tree and left there to expiate his crime for a long time. For certain offences the culprit was condemned to have his nose tattooed or his ears split. In sentences of banishment the term of exile was never specified, but when the sentence had been p.r.o.nounced in full a.s.sembly, and the offence was great, the culprit might live in exile for years. When the punishment consisted in the destruction of houses, plantations, and live stock, it was immediately inflicted by the whole force of the district, under the direction and superintendence of the leading men, who had taken part in the a.s.sembly and pa.s.sed the sentence. A whole family might suffer in this way for the offence of one of its members, and be driven into exile, after witnessing the burning of their house, the killing of their pigs, and the barking of their breadfruit trees.[30] If such penalties seem to us in some cases needlessly severe, they at least testify to a strong sense of public justice developed among the Samoans, who had thus advanced far enough to transfer, in some measure, the redress of wrongs to judicial a.s.semblies instead of leaving it to the caprice of the injured individuals.
Nevertheless the transference was but imperfect: the administration of justice was loose and irregular: for the most part every man was a law to himself, and did what was right in his own eyes. An aggrieved party would become his own judge, jury, and executioner. The thirst for vengeance was slaked only by the blood of a victim.[31]
[28] J. Williams, _Narrative of Missionary Enterprises in the South Sea Islands_, p. 456.
[29] G. Turner, _Samoa_, pp. 108-111; G. Brown, _Melanesians and Polynesians_, pp. 149 _sq._, 290; J. E.
Erskine, _op. cit._ pp. 39, 101 _sq._; W. T. Pritchard, _Polynesian Reminiscences_ (London, 1866), pp. 125 _sq._; Violette, "Notes d"un Missionnaire sur l"archipel de Samoa,"
_Les Missions Catholiques_, iii. (1870) p. 168; J. B. Stair, _Old Samoa_, pp. 240 _sq._
[30] J. B. Stair, _Old Samoa_, pp. 91 _sqq._; G. Brown, _Melanesians and Polynesians_, pp. 288-291. Compare Violette, "Notes d"un Missionnaire sur l"archipel de Samoa," _Les Missions Catholiques_, iii. (1870) pp. 119, 120.
[31] S. Ella, "Samoa," _Report of the Fourth Meeting of the Australasian a.s.sociation for the Advancement of Science, held at Hobart, Tasmania, in January 1892_, p. 633.
It is another sign of the intellectual enlightenment of the Samoans that they rose apparently superior to that system of malignant magic, which kept their neighbours the Melanesians in lifelong bondage. The experienced missionary, Dr. George Brown, could not find in Samoa any trace of the practice of that particular form of the black art with which he was familiar in New Britain and other Melanesian islands, the practice of procuring some object which has belonged to an enemy or been touched by him, and taking it to a sorcerer, that he may perform over it a ceremony for the purpose of injuring the person from whom the object has been obtained. The proceeding is one of the commonest forms of sympathetic magic, but the Samoans appear to have ignored or despised it.[32] Again, the silence of our authorities on the subject of amulets and talismans leaves us to infer that the Samoans were equally indifferent to that branch of magic which seeks to ensure the safety and prosperity of the individual by attaching a miscellaneous collection of rubbish to his person, a system of ensurance against evil and misfortune which has attained a prodigious development among some savages, notably in Africa,[33] and is very far from being unknown in Europe at the present day. Again, unlike most savages, the Samoans were close observers of the stars, not only reckoning the time of night by the rising of particular stars, but steering by them when they were out of sight of land.[34]
[32] G. Brown, _Melanesians and Polynesians_, p. 245.
Compare S. Ella, _op. cit._ p. 638.
[33] See, for example, E. W. Smith and A. M. Dale, _The Ila-speaking Peoples of Northern Rhodesia_ (London, 1920), i.
252 _sqq._
[34] G. Brown, _Melanesians and Polynesians_, p. 348.
Against these amiable and enlightened traits in the Samoan character must be set their cruelty in war. If they opened hostilities with a great deal of formal politeness, they conducted them with great ferocity. No quarter was given to men in battle, and captives were ruthlessly slaughtered. Women were sometimes spared for the use of their captors. Nor did death save the conquered from the insults and outrages of the insolent victors. The slain on the battlefield were treated with great indignity. Their heads were cut off and carried in triumph to the village, where they were piled up in a heap in the place of public a.s.sembly, the head of the most important chief being given the place of honour on the top of the pile. However, they were not kept as trophies, but after remaining for some hours exposed to public gaze were either claimed by the relatives or buried on the spot. The headless trunks were given to children to drag about the village and to spear, stone, or mutilate at pleasure.[35] The first missionary to Samoa was told in Manua that the victors used to scalp their victims and present the scalps, with kava, either to the king or to the relatives of the slain in battle, by whom these gory trophies were highly prized. He mentions as an example the case of a young woman, whose father had been killed. A scalp of a foe having been brought to her, she burnt it, strewed the ashes on the fire with which she cooked her food, and then devoured the meat with savage satisfaction.[36] But the climax of cruelty and horror was reached in a great war which the people of A"ana, in Upolu, waged against a powerful combination of enemies. After a brave resistance they were at last defeated, and the surviving warriors, together with the aged and infirm, the women and children, fled to the mountains, where they endeavoured to hide themselves from their pursuers in the caves and the depths of the forest. But they were hunted out and brought down to the seash.o.r.e; and an immense pit having been dug and filled with firewood, they were all, men, women, and children, thrown into it and burnt alive. The dreadful butchery went on for days. Four hundred victims are said to have perished. The ma.s.sacre was perpetrated at the moment when the first missionaries were landing in Samoa. From the opposite sh.o.r.e they beheld the mountains enveloped in the flames and smoke of the funeral pile. The decisive battle had been fought that very morning. For many years a great black circle of charcoal marked the scene and preserved the memory of the fatal transaction.[37]
[35] J. Williams, _op. cit._ p. 456; Ch. Wilkes, _op.
cit._ ii. 150 _sq._; W. T. Pritchard, _Polynesian Reminiscences_, p. 61; J. B. Stair, _Old Samoa_, pp. 247 _sqq._; G. Brown, _Melanesians and Polynesians_, pp. 170, 172 _sq._ Dr.
Brown here speaks as if captive women were regularly spared and married by the victors. As to the elaborate civilities which pa.s.sed between the vanguards of two hostile armies at their first meeting, see Dr. Brown, _op. cit._ pp. 166 _sq._
[36] J. Williams, _op. cit._ p. 458.
[37] J. Williams, _op. cit._ pp. 286 _sq._, 456; J. B.
Stair, _Old Samoa_, pp. 254-258.
-- 3. _Houses, Agriculture, and Industries_
Like all the Polynesians, the Samoans are not nomadic, but live in settled villages. The typical Samoan house is commonly described as oval or elliptical, though in fact it would seem to be of oblong shape with semicircular ends. But many houses were circular in shape, and with their conical thatched roofs resembled gigantic beehives. From the Tongans the Samoans also borrowed the custom of building oblong quadrangular houses, which were called _afolau_. The best houses, in particular those of important chiefs, were built on raised platforms of stones about three feet high. One of the circular houses would measure about thirty-five feet in diameter by a hundred in circ.u.mference. Two or three posts in the centre of the house, some twenty feet high, supported the roof, the lower end of which rested on a series of short posts, four or five feet high, placed at intervals of about four feet all round the house. The intervals between these posts were sometimes closed by thatch neatly tied to sticks, which were planted upright in the ground and fastened to the eaves; but more commonly, it would seem, the intervals between the posts were left open and only closed at night by blinds made of coco-nut leaves, which could be let down or pulled up like Venetian blinds. During the day these blinds were drawn up, so that there was a free current of air all through the house. The roofs of the best houses were made of bread-fruit wood carefully thatched with leaves of the wild sugar-cane; when well made, the thatch might last seven years. The circular roofs were so constructed that they could be lifted clean off the posts and removed anywhere, either by land or on a raft of canoes.
The whole house could also be transported; and as Samoan houses were often bartered, or given as presents, or paid as fines, it frequently happened that they were removed from place to place. In the whole house there was not a single nail or spike: all joints were made by exactly corresponding notches and secured by cinnet, that is cordage made from the dried fibre of the coco-nut husk. The timber of the best houses was the wood of the bread-fruit tree; and, if protected against damp, it would last fifty years. The floor of the house was composed of stones, overlaid with fine gravel and sand. In the centre of the floor was the fire-place, a circular hollow two or three feet in diameter and a few inches deep, lined with hardened clay. It was not used for cooking, but for the purpose of lighting up the house by night. The cooking was never done in the house, but always in the open air outside on an oven of hot stones. An ordinary Samoan house consisted of a single apartment, which served as the common parlour, dining-room, and bedroom of the family.
But at night small tents made of bark-cloth were hung from the ridge-pole, and under them the various members of the family slept separately, the tents serving them at the same time as curtains to protect them against the mosquitoes. Formerly, the houses of the princ.i.p.al chiefs were surrounded with two fences; the outer of the two was formed of strong posts and had a narrow zigzag entrance, several yards long, leading to an opening in the inner fence, which was made of reeds. But with the advent of a more peaceful epoch these fortified enclosures for the most part disappeared. Houses constructed on the Tongan model were often very substantially built: a double row of posts and cross-beams supported the roof. These houses were found better able to resist the high winds which prevail at one season of the year.[38]