The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 17

by Robert Louis Stevenson

  EIGHT YEARS OF TROUBLE IN SAMOA

  CHAPTER I

  THE ELEMENTS OF DISCORD: NATIVE

  The story I have to tell is still going on as I write; the charactersare alive and active; it is a piece of contemporary history in the mostexact sense. And yet, for all its actuality and the part played in it bymails and telegraphs and iron war-ships, the ideas and the manners of thenative actors date back before the Roman Empire. They are Christians,church-goers, singers of hymns at family worship, hardy cricketers;their books are printed in London by Spottiswoode, Truebner, or the TractSociety; but in most other points they are the contemporaries of ourtattooed ancestors who drove their chariots on the wrong side of theRoman wall. We have passed the feudal system; they are not yet clear ofthe patriarchal. We are in the thick of the age of finance; they are ina period of communism. And this makes them hard to understand.

  To us, with our feudal ideas, Samoa has the first appearance of a landof despotism. An elaborate courtliness marks the race alone amongPolynesians; terms of ceremony fly thick as oaths on board a ship;commoners my-lord each other when they meet--and urchins as they playmarbles. And for the real noble a whole private dialect is set apart.The common names for an axe, for blood, for bamboo, a bamboo knife, apig, food, entrails, and an oven are taboo in his presence, as thecommon names for a bug and for many offices and members of the body aretaboo in the drawing-rooms of English ladies. Special words are setapart for his leg, his face, his hair, his belly, his eyelids, his son,his daughter, his wife, his wife's pregnancy, his wife's adultery,adultery with his wife, his dwelling, his spear, his comb, his sleep,his dreams, his anger, the mutual anger of several chiefs, his food, hispleasure in eating, the food and eating of his pigeons, his ulcers, hiscough, his sickness, his recovery, his death, his being carried on abier, the exhumation of his bones, and his skull after death. To addressthese demigods is quite a branch of knowledge, and he who goes to visita high chief does well to make sure of the competence of hisinterpreter. To complete the picture, the same word signifies thewatching of a virgin and the warding of a chief; and the same word meansto cherish a chief and to fondle a favourite child.

  Men like us, full of memories of feudalism, hear of a man so addressed,so flattered, and we leap at once to the conclusion that he ishereditary and absolute. Hereditary he is; born of a great family, hemust always be a man of mark; but yet his office is elective and (in aweak sense) is held on good behaviour. Compare the case of a Highlandchief: born one of the great ones of his clan, he was sometimesappointed its chief officer and conventional father; was loved, andrespected, and served, and fed, and died for implicitly, if he gaveloyalty a chance; and yet if he sufficiently outraged clan sentiment,was liable to deposition. As to authority, the parallel is not so close.Doubtless the Samoan chief, if he be popular, wields a great influence;but it is limited. Important matters are debated in a fono, or nativeparliament, with its feasting and parade, its endless speeches andpolite genealogical allusions. Debated, I say--not decided; for even asmall minority will often strike a clan or a province impotent. In themidst of these ineffective councils the chief sits usually silent: akind of a gagged audience for village orators. And the deliverance ofthe fono seems (for the moment) to be final. The absolute chiefs ofTahiti and Hawaii were addressed as plain John and Thomas; the chiefs ofSamoa are surfeited with lip-honour, but the seat and extent of theiractual authority is hard to find.

  It is so in the members of the state, and worse in the belly. The ideaof a sovereign pervades the air; the name we have; the thing we are notso sure of. And the process of election to the chief power is a mystery.Certain provinces have in their gift certain high titles, or _names_, asthey are called. These can only be attributed to the descendants ofparticular lines. Once granted, each _name_ conveys at once theprincipality (whatever that be worth) of the province which bestows it,and counts as one suffrage towards the general sovereignty of Samoa. Tobe indubitable king, they say, or some of them say,--I find few inperfect harmony,--a man should resume five of these names in his ownperson. But the case is purely hypothetical; local jealousy forbids itsoccurrence. There are rival provinces, far more concerned in theprosecution of their rivalry than in the choice of a right man for king.If one of these shall have bestowed its name on competitor A, it will bethe signal and the sufficient reason for the other to bestow its name oncompetitor B or C. The majority of Savaii and that of Aana are thus inperennial opposition. Nor is this all. In 1881, Laupepa, the presentking, held the three names of Malietoa, Natoaitele, and Tamasoalii;Tamasese held that of Tuiaana; and Mataafa that of Tuiatua. Laupepa hadthus a majority of suffrages; he held perhaps as high a proportion ascan be hoped in these distracted islands; and he counted among thenumber the preponderant name of Malietoa. Here, if ever, was anelection. Here, if a king were at all possible, was the king. And yetthe natives were not satisfied. Laupepa was crowned, March 19th; andnext month, the provinces of Aana and Atua met in joint parliament, andelected their own two princes, Tamasese and Mataafa, to an alternatemonarchy, Tamasese taking the first trick of two years. War wasimminent, when the consuls interfered, and any war were preferable tothe terms of the peace which they procured. By the Lackawanna treaty,Laupepa was confirmed king, and Tamasese set by his side in thenondescript office of vice-king. The compromise was not, I am told,without precedent; but it lacked all appearance of success. To theconstitution of Samoa, which was already all wheels and no horses, theconsuls had added a fifth wheel. In addition to the old conundrum, "Whois the king?" they had supplied a new one, "What is the vice-king?"

  Two royal lines; some cloudy idea of alternation between the two; anelectorate in which the vote of each province is immediately effectual,as regards itself, so that every candidate who attains one _name_becomes a perpetual and dangerous competitor for the other four: suchare a few of the more trenchant absurdities. Many argue that the wholeidea of sovereignty is modern and imported; but it seems impossible thatanything so foolish should have been suddenly devised, and theconstitution bears on its front the marks of dotage.

  But the king, once elected and nominated, what does he become? It may besaid he remains precisely as he was. Election to one of the five namesis significant; it brings not only dignity but power, and the holder issecure, from that moment, of a certain following in war. But I cannotfind that the further step of election to the kingship implies anythingworth mention. The successful candidate is now the _Tupu o Samoa_--muchgood may it do him! He can so sign himself on proclamations, which itdoes not follow that any one will heed. He can summon parliaments; itdoes not follow they will assemble. If he be too flagrantly disobeyed,he can go to war. But so he could before, when he was only the chief ofcertain provinces. His own provinces will support him, the provinces ofhis rivals will take the field upon the other part; just as before. Inso far as he is the holder of any of the five _names_, in short, he is aman to be reckoned with; in so far as he is king of Samoa, I cannot findbut what the president of a college debating society is a far moreformidable officer. And unfortunately, although the credit side of theaccount proves thus imaginary, the debit side is actual and heavy. Forhe is now set up to be the mark of consuls; he will be badgered to raisetaxes, to make roads, to punish crime, to quell rebellion: and how he isto do it is not asked.

  If I am in the least right in my presentation of this obscure matter, noone need be surprised to hear that the land is full of war and rumoursof war. Scarce a year goes by but what some province is in arms, or sitssulky and menacing, holding parliaments, disregarding the king'sproclamations and planting food in the bush, the first step of militarypreparation. The religious sentiment of the people is indeed for peaceat any price; no pastor can bear arms; and even the layman who does sois denied the sacraments. In the last war the college of Malua, wherethe picked youth are prepared for the ministry, lost but a singlestudent; the rest, in the bosom of a bleeding country, and deaf to thevoices of vanity and honour, peacefully pursued their studies. But ifthe church looks askance
on war, the warrior in no extremity of need orpassion forgets his consideration for the church. The houses and gardensof her ministers stand safe in the midst of armies; a way is reservedfor themselves along the beach, where they may be seen in their whitekilts and jackets openly passing the lines, while not a hundred yardsbehind the skirmishers will be exchanging the useless volleys ofbarbaric warfare. Women are also respected; they are not fired upon; andthey are suffered to pass between the hostile camps, exchanging gossip,spreading rumour, and divulging to either army the secret councils ofthe other. This is plainly no savage war; it has all the punctilio ofthe barbarian, and all his parade; feasts precede battles, fine dressesand songs decorate and enliven the field; and the young soldier comes tocamp burning (on the one hand) to distinguish himself by acts of valour,and (on the other) to display his acquaintance with field etiquette.Thus after Mataafa became involved in hostilities against the Germans,and had another code to observe beside his own, he was always asking hiswhite advisers if "things were done correctly." Let us try to be as wiseas Mataafa, and to conceive that etiquette and morals differ in onecountry and another. We shall be the less surprised to find Samoan wardefaced with some unpalatable customs. The childish destruction offruit-trees in an enemy's country cripples the resources of Samoa; andthe habit of head-hunting not only revolts foreigners, but has begun toexercise the minds of the natives themselves. Soon after the Germanheads were taken, Mr. Carne, Wesleyan missionary, had occasion to visitMataafa's camp, and spoke of the practice with abhorrence. "Misi Kane,"said one chief, "we have just been puzzling ourselves to guess wherethat custom came from. But, Misi, is it not so that when David killedGoliath, he cut off his head and carried it before the king?"

  With the civil life of the inhabitants we have far less to do; and yeteven here a word of preparation is inevitable. They are easy, merry, andpleasure-loving; the gayest, though by far from either the most capableor the most beautiful of Polynesians. Fine dress is a passion, and makesa Samoan festival a thing of beauty. Song is almost ceaseless. Theboatman sings at the oar, the family at evening worship, the girls atnight in the guest-house, sometimes the workman at his toil. No occasionis too small for the poets and musicians; a death, a visit, the day'snews, the day's pleasantry, will be set to rhyme and harmony. Evenhalf-grown girls, the occasion arising, fashion words and train chorusesof children for its celebration. Song, as with all Pacific islanders,goes hand in hand with the dance, and both shade into the drama. Some ofthe performances are indecent and ugly, some only dull; others arepretty, funny, and attractive. Games are popular. Cricket-matches, wherea hundred played upon a side, endured at times for weeks, and ate up thecountry like the presence of an army. Fishing, the daily bath,flirtation; courtship, which is gone upon by proxy; conversation, whichis largely political; and the delights of public oratory, fill in thelong hours.

  But the special delight of the Samoan is the _malanga_. When people forma party and go from village to village, junketing and gossiping, theyare said to go on a _malanga_. Their songs have announced their approachere they arrive; the guest-house is prepared for their reception; thevirgins of the village attend to prepare the kava bowl and entertainthem with the dance; time flies in the enjoyment of every pleasure whichan islander conceives; and when the _malanga_ sets forth, the samewelcome and the same joys expect them beyond the next cape, where thenearest village nestles in its grove of palms. To the visitors it is allgolden; for the hosts, it has another side. In one or two words of thelanguage the fact peeps slyly out. The same word (_afemoeina_) expresses"a long call" and "to come as a calamity"; the same word (_lesolosolou_)signifies "to have no intermission of pain" and "to have no cessation,as in the arrival of visitors"; and _soua_, used of epidemics, bears thesense of being overcome as with "fire, flood, or visitors." But the gemof the dictionary is the verb _alovao_, which illustrates its pages likea humorous woodcut. It is used in the sense of "to avoid visitors," butit means literally "hide in the wood." So, by the sure hand of popularspeech, we have the picture of the house deserted, the _malanga_disappointed, and the host that should have been quaking in the bush.

  We are thus brought to the beginning of a series of traits of manners,highly curious in themselves, and essential to an understanding of thewar. In Samoa authority sits on the one hand entranced; on the other,property stands bound in the midst of chartered marauders. Whatproperty exists is vested in the family, not in the individual; and ofthe loose communism in which a family dwells, the dictionary may yetagain help us to some idea. I find a string of verbs with the followingsenses: to deal leniently with, as in helping oneself from a familyplantation; to give away without consulting other members of the family;to go to strangers for help instead of to relatives; to take fromrelatives without permission; to steal from relatives; to haveplantations robbed by relatives. The ideal of conduct in the family, andsome of its depravations, appear here very plainly. The man who (in anative word of praise) is _mata-ainga_, a race-regarder, has his handalways open to his kindred; the man who is not (in a native term ofcontempt) _noa_, knows always where to turn in any pinch of want orextremity of laziness. Beggary within the family--and by the lessself-respecting, without it--has thus grown into a custom and a scourge,and the dictionary teems with evidence of its abuse. Special wordssignify the begging of food, of uncooked food, of fish, of pigs, of pigsfor travellers, of pigs for stock, of taro, of taro-tops, of taro-topsfor planting, of tools, of flyhooks, of implements for netting pigeons,and of mats. It is true the beggar was supposed in time to make areturn, somewhat as by the Roman contract of _mutuum_. But theobligation was only moral; it could not be, or was not, enforced; as amatter of fact, it was disregarded. The language had recently to borrowfrom the Tahitians a word for debt; while by a significant excidence, itpossessed a native expression for the failure to pay--"to omit to make areturn for property begged." Conceive now the position of thehouseholder besieged by harpies, and all defence denied him by the lawsof honour. The sacramental gesture of refusal, his last and singleresource, was supposed to signify "my house is destitute." Until thatpoint was reached, in other words, the conduct prescribed for a Samoanwas to give and to continue giving. But it does not appear he was atall expected to give with a good grace. The dictionary is well stockedwith expressions standing ready, like missiles, to be discharged uponthe locusts--"troop of shamefaced ones," "you draw in your head like atern," "you make your voice small like a whistle-pipe," "you beg likeone delirious"; and the verb _pongitai_, "to look cross," is equippedwith the pregnant rider, "as at the sight of beggars."

  This insolence of beggars and the weakness of proprietors can only beillustrated by examples. We have a girl in our service to whom we hadgiven some finery, that she might wait at table, and (at her ownrequest) some warm clothing against the cold mornings of the bush. Shewent on a visit to her family, and returned in an old tablecloth, herwhole wardrobe having been divided out among relatives in the course oftwenty-four hours. A pastor in the province of Atua, being a handy, busyman, bought a boat for a hundred dollars, fifty of which he paid down.Presently after, relatives came to him upon a visit and took a fancy tohis new possession. "We have long been wanting a boat," said they. "Giveus this one." So, when the visit was done, they departed in the boat.The pastor, meanwhile, travelled into Savaii the best way he could, solda parcel of land, and begged mats among his other relatives, to pay theremainder of the price of the boat which was no longer his. You mightthink this was enough; but some months later, the harpies, having brokena thwart, brought back the boat to be repaired and repainted by theoriginal owner.

  Such customs, it might be argued, being double-edged, will ultimatelyright themselves. But it is otherwise in practice. Such folk as thepastor's harpy relatives will generally have a boat, and will never havepaid for it; such men as the pastor may have sometimes paid for a boat,but they will never have one. It is there as it is with us at home: themeasure of the abuse of either system is the blackness of the individualheart. The same man, who would drive
his poor relatives from his owndoor in England, would besiege in Samoa the doors of the rich; and theessence of the dishonesty in either case is to pursue one's ownadvantage and to be indifferent to the losses of one's neighbour. Butthe particular drawback of the Polynesian system is to depress andstagger industry. To work more is there only to be more pillaged; tosave is impossible. The family has then made a good day of it when allare filled and nothing remains over for the crew of free-booters; andthe injustice of the system begins to be recognised even in Samoa. Onenative is said to have amassed a certain fortune; two clever lads haveindividually expressed to us their discontent with a system which taxesindustry to pamper idleness; and I hear that in one village of Savaii alaw has been passed forbidding gifts under the penalty of a sharp fine.

  Under this economic regimen, the unpopularity of taxes, which strike allat the same time, which expose the industrious to a perfect siege ofmendicancy, and the lazy to be actually condemned to a day's labour, maybe imagined without words. It is more important to note the concurrentrelaxation of all sense of property. From applying for help to kinsmenwho are scarce permitted to refuse, it is but a step to taking from them(in the dictionary phrase) "without permission"; from that to theft atlarge is but a hair's-breadth.