A BOOK ON SAMOA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12266, 9 May 1903, Page 1 (Supplement)

A BOOK ON SAMOA.

A book has just been published entitled "Samoa Uma: Where Life is Different," ! by L. P. Churchill. Mrs. Churchill, as \ the wife of the American Consul at Apia, i had, year in and year out, the amplest op- i portunities of observing the islanders and the white colony, and she has given a scoreand more of bright sketches of the real , Samoa. Mrs. Churchill describes the Samoans as greedy, grasping, puffed tip with a sense of self-importance, untruthful, and untrustworthy, with an ingrained objection to work. A MEAN TARIFF. • How weary one grows of the tin. It is all alike; if "the tin does not hold soup, it holds meat, and if not meat then fish. The palate grows educated to a fine discernment of the shades of the tinny flavour. . . . Attempts arc made to alleviate the distress. A philanthropist of the beach had given up the sea to become the local butcher, but when what was steer or sheep at sunrise must be cooked and eaten before sunset no power on earth can help its toughness, no art of cookery can make it palatable. . . . Some Samoan capitalist may have a milch cow, then milk i? peddled in gin bottles from house to house ; sometimes it has the flavour of the original gin, sometimes it tastes of bottles never known to be washed ; it is always diluted with an eye to covering a longer list of customers, and the dilution is effected with the water of the cocoa-nut, which adds a strong flavour of its own. . . . Samoaus are irregular providers of the fruits of the earth ; for high prices they peddle spasmodically when pressed by need of coin. Sometimes it is possiblo to get tomatoes the size of a moderately large marble, sometimes string beans a yard long, sometimes cucumbers for stewing. Breadfruit and taro are accepted under protest as a substitute for the potato; the yam is rarely to be had. Mrs. Churchill describes the white community as rent with jealousies, without public spirit of any sort, and of such a startling mixture as tt make social amusement an impossibility. THE SAMOAN FAMILY. The Samoan has no domestic life ; no other man is so strongly tied to his family. This is but one of the more apparent contradictions of the life of these islanders. Ho may put his wife aside: at pleasure, he never objects to allow the adoption of his child by another, the permanent relations of the household as they are known to other cultures are fleeting associations with the Samoan. Yet with all \h& looseness there is a certain rigidity which rules every man and woman. That is the Samoan family or ainga, the collective households of common ancestry. Nor is that an accurate description of what constitutes a Samoan family. The common ancestry may be the result of birth ; it may be as firmly established by adoption. . . . During the nursing period, which may extend two or three years, the child is called by various terms of affection or endearment, but has as yet no individual name. When the. child leaves hit. mother the first or childhood name is given. At this period he begins to be eligible for adoption into another family. The ceremony is simple in the extreme. The blood parents readily consent, the adoptive parents take the child to their home, and give him a name which makes him in all respects as much a member of his new familv as though he had acquired membership by birth. Just as completely he ceases to be a member of his blood family, except that it is closed to him in marriage. This adoption is very common ; probably a third of all Samoans, men and women, are thus members of families other than those to which they were born. . . . When the child has reached the age of eight or ten years he chooses for himself a name . . . . This name he may change at pleasure, it is often given up in exchange for that of some friend. At fourteen 01 fifteen years ! of age he is tattooed and thereby signalises i his entry into manhood. He now assumes I his full share oi his duties to his family ; he may marry, he has a voice in the con- j duct of family affairs. Up to that period his family has supported him as one of its unproductive members, now he enters upon i his right to labour for his family. Here lies the social condition of his life. He may | not toil for himself, he must toil for a family which supports all alike. He has j , become a full member of a system in which each works for all and each draws benefit ' from the other. The central point of this system ir the-name of the tula jale, or head . of the family. The name is In ownership i of the whole family; it carries with it all i iWe to property and all authority.