COMING OF AGE IN SAMOA
return gift demanded at the earliest opportunity. Nevertheless, in native theory the two acts are separate, each one in turn becoming a "beggar," a pensioner upon another's bounty. In olden times, the beggar sometimes wore a special girdle which delicately hinted at the cause of his visit. One old chief gave / me a graphic descriptioivpf the ^behaviour of some one who had come to ask a favour of a relative. "He will come early in the morning and enter quietly, sitting down in the very back of the house, in the place of least honour. You will say to him, ^So you have come, be welcome!' and he will answer, *I have come indeed, saving your noble presence.' Then you will say, ^Are you thirsty? Alas for your coming, there is little that is good within the house.' And he will answer, *Let ■ it rest, thank you, for indeed I am not hungry nor would I drink.' And he will sit and you will sit all day long and no mention is made of the purpose of his coming. All day he will sit and brush the ashes out of the hearth, performing this menial and dirty task with very great care and attention. If some one must go inland to the plantation to fetch food, he is the first to offer to go. If some one must go fishing to fill out the crew of a canoe, surely he is delighted to go, even though the sun is hot and his journey hither has been long. And all day you sit and wonder, *What can it be that he has come for? Is it that largest pig that he wants, of has he heard perhaps that my daughter has just finished a large and beautiful
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THE SAMOAN HOUSEHOLD
piece of tapa? Would it perhaps be well to send that tapa, as I had perhaps planned, as a present to my talking chief, to send it now, so that I may refuse him with all good faith?' And he sits and studies your countenance and wonders if you will be favourable to his request. He plays with the children but refuses the necklace of flowers which they have woven for him and gives it instead to your daughter. Finally night comes. It is time to sleep and still he has not spoken. So finally you say to him, *Lo, I would sleep. Will you sleep also or will you be returning whence you have come?' And only then will he speak and tell you the desire in his heart."
So the intrigue, the needs, the obligations of the^ larger relationship group which threads its carefully remembered way in and out of many houses and many "^ villages, cuts across the life of the household. One day it is the wife's relatives who come to spend a month or borrow a fine mat j the next day it is the husband's j the third, a niece who is a valued worker in the household may be called home by the illness of her father. Very seldom do all of even the small chil-^n dren of a biological family live in one household and jT while the claims of the household are paramount, in the routine of everyday life, illness or need on the part of the closer relative in another household will call the wanderers home again.
Obligations either to give general assistance or to give specific traditionally required service, as in a mar-
COMING OF AGE IN SAMOA
riage or at a birth, follow relationship lines, not household lines. But a marriage of many years' duration binds the relationship groups of husband and wife so closely together that to all appearances it is the household unit which gives aid and accede^ to a request brought by the relative of either one. Only in families of high rank where the distaff side has priority in decisions and in furnishing the tau-pOy the princess of the house, and the male line priority in holding the title, does the actual blood relationship continue to be a matter of great practical importance j and this importance is lost in the looser household group constituted as it is by the three principles of blood, marriage and adoption, and bound together by common ties of every-^ day living and mutual economic dependence, j
The matai of a household is theoretically exempt from the performance of small domestic tasks, but he is seldom actually so except in the case of a chief of high rank. However, the leading role is always accorded to him in any industrial pursuit j he dresses the / pig for the feasts and cuts up the cocoanuts which the ^, boys and women have gathered. The family cooking is done by the men and women both, but the bulk of the work falls upon the boys and young men. The old men spin the cocoanut fibre, and braid it into the native cord which is used for fish lines, fish nets, to sew canoe parts together and to bind all the different parts of a house in place. With the old women who do the bulk of the weaving and making of bark cloth, they super-
THE SAMOAN HOUSEHOLD
vise the younger children who remain at home. The heavy routine agricultural work falls upon the women who are responsible for the weeding, transplanting, gathering and transportation of the food, and the gathering of the paper mulberry wands from which bark will be peeled for making tapa, of the hibiscus bark and pandanus leaves for weaving mats. The older girls and women also do the routine reef fishing for octopuses, sea eggs, jelly fish, crabs, and other small fry. The younger girls carry the water, care for the lamps (to-day except in times of great scarcity when the candle nut and cocoanut oil are resorted to, the natives use kerosene lamps and lanterns), and sweep and arrange the houses. Tasks are all graduated with a fair recognition of abilities which differ with age, and except in the case of individuals of very high rank, a task is rejected because a younger person has skill enough to perform it, rather than because it is beneath an adult's dignity.
Rank in the village and rank In the household reflect each other, but village rank hardly affects the young children. If a girl's father is a mataiy the matai of the household in which she lives, she has no appeal from his authority. But if some other member of the family is the mataiy he and his wife may protect her from her father's exactions. In the first case, disagreement with her father means leaving the household and going to live with other relatives j in the second case it may mean only a little internal friction. Also in the family
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^ COMING OF AGE IN SAMOA
of a nigh chief or a high talking chief there is more emphasis upon ceremonial, more emphasis upon hospitality. The children are better bred and also much harder worked. But aside from the general quality of a household which is dependent upon the rank of its head, households of very different rank may seem very similar to young children. They are usually more concerned with the temperament of those in authority than with their rank. An uncle in another village who is a very high chief is of much less significance in a child's life than some old woman in her own household who has a frightful temper. -^ Nevertheless, rank not of birth but of title is very important in Samoa. The status of a village depends upon the rank of its high chief, the prestige of a household depends upon the title of its matai. Titles are of two grades, chiefs and talking chiefs| each title carries many other duties and prerogatives besides the headship of a household. And the Samoans find rank a never-failing source of interest. (Xhey have invented an elaborate courtesy language which must be used to people of rank J complicated etiquette surrounds each rank in society. Something which concerns their elders so nearly cannot help being indirectlv reflected in the lives of some of the children. This is particularly true of the relationship of children to each other in households which hold titles to which some of them will one day attain. How these far-away issues of adult life effect the lives of children and young people can best
THE SAMOAN HOUSEHOLD
be understood by following their influence in the lives of particular children.
In the household of a high chief named Malae lived two little girls, Meta, twelve, and Timu, eleven. Meta was a self-possessed, efficient little girl. Malae had taken her from her mother's house—her mother was his cousin—because she showed unusual intelligence and precocity. Timu, on the other hand, was an abnormally shy, backward child, below her age group in intelligence. But Meta's mother was only a distant cousin of Malae. Had she not married into a strange village where Malae was living temporarily, Meta might never have come actively to the notice of her noble relative. And Timu was the only daughter of Malae's dead sister. Her father had been a quarter caste which served to mark her off and increase her self-consciousness.
Dancing was an agony to her. She fled precipitately from an elder's admonitory voice. But Timu would be Malae's next taupo, princess. She was pretty, the principal recognised qualification, and she came from the distafF side of the house, the preferred descent for a tatc-po. So Meta, the more able in every way, was pushed to the wall, and Timu, miserable over the amount of attention she received, was dragged forward. The mere presence of another more able and enterprising child would probably have emphasised Timu's feeling of inferiority, but this publicity stressed it painfully. Commanded to dance on every occasion, she would pause whenever she caught
COMING OF AGE IN SAMOA
an onlooker's eye and stand a moment wringing her hands before going on with the dance.
In another household, this same title of Malae's taupo played a different role. This was in the household of Malae's paternal aunt who lived with her husband in Malae's guest house in his native village. Her eldest daughter, Pana, held the title of tawpo of the house of Malae. But Pana was twenty-six, though still unmarried. She must be wedded soon and then another girl must be found to hold the title. Timu would still be too young. Pana had three younger sisters who by birth were supremely eligible to the title. But Mele, the eldest of twenty, was lame, and Pepe of fourteen was blind in one eye and an incorrigible tomboy. The youngest was even younger than Timu. So all three were effectually barred from succession. This fact reacted favourably upon the position of Filita. She was a seventeen-year-old niece of the father of the other children with no possible claims on a title in the house of Malae, but she had lived with her cousins since childhood. Filita was pretty, efficient, adequate, neither lame like Mele nor blind and hoydenish like Pepe. True she could never hope to be taufo, but neither could they, despite their superior birth, so peace and amity reigned because of her cousins' deficiencies. Still another little girl came within the circle of influence of the title. This was Pula, another little cousin in a third village. But her more distant relationship and possible claims were completely obscured
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A chiefs daughter and the bfiby of the household zvhose elloz hair will some day make a chiefs headdress
THE SAMOAN HOUSEHOLD
by the fact that she was the only granddaughter of the highest chief in her own village and her becoming the tawpo of that title was inevitable so that her life was untouched by any other possibility. Thus six girls in addition to the present taufOy were influenced for good or evil by the possibility of succession to the title. But as there are seldom more than one or two taupos in a village, these influences are still fairly circumscribed when compared with the part which rank plays in the lives of boys, for there are usually one or more matai names in every relationship group.
Rivalry plays a much stronger part here. In the choice of the taufo and the mana'ia (the titular heir-apparent) there is a strong prejudice in favour of blood relationship and also for the choice of the tawpo from the female and the manaia from the male line. But in the interests of efficiency this scheme had been modified, so that most titles were filled by the most able youth from the whole relationship and affinity group. So it was in Alofi. Tui, a chief of importance in the village, had one son, an able intelligent boy. Tui's brothers were dull and inept, no fit successors to the title. One of them had an ill-favoured young son, a stupid, unattractive youngster. There were no other males in the near relationship group. It was assumed that the exceedingly eligible son would succeed his father. And then at twenty he died. The little nephew hardly gave promise of a satisfactory development, and so Tui had his choice of looking outside his
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COMING OF AGE IN SAMOA
village or outside of his near relationship group. Village feeling runs high in Tui's village. Tui's blood relatives lived many villages away. They were strangers. If he did not go to them and search for a promising youth whom he could train as his successor, he must either find an eligible young husband for his daughter or look among his wife's people. Provisionally he took this last course, and his wife's brother's son came to live in his household. In a year, his new father promised the boy, he might assume his dead cousin's name if he showed himself worthy.
In the family of high chief Fua a very different problem presented itself. His was the highest title in the village. He was over sixty and the question of succession was a moot one. The boys in his household consisted of Tata, his eldest son who was illegitimate, Molo and Nua, the sons of his widowed sister, Sisi, his son by his first legal wife (since divorced and remarried on another island), and Tuai, the husband of his niece, the sister of Molo and Nua. And in the house of Fua's eldest brother lived his brother's daughter's son, Alo, a youth of great promise. Here then were enough claimants to produce a lively rivalry. Tuai was the oldest, calm, able, but not sufiiciently hopeful to be influenced in his conduct except as it made him more ready to assert the claims of superior age over his wife's younger brothers whose claims were better than his. Next in age came Tata, the sour, beetle-browed bastard, whose chances were negligible
THE SAMOAN HOUSEHOLD
as long as there were those of legitimate birth to dispute his left-handed claims. But Tata did not lose hope. Cautious, tortuous-minded, he watched and waited. He was in love with Lotu, the daughter of a talking chief of only medium rank. For one of Fua's sons, Lotu would have been a good match. But as Fua's bastard who wished to be chief, he must marry high or not at all. The two nephews, Molo and Nua, played different hands. Nua, the younger, went away f'^^'T".' to seek his fortune as a native marine at the Naval Sta- ^.(c ^_ tion. This meant a regular income, some knowledge of English, prestige of a sort. Molo, the elder brother, stayed at home and made himself indispensable. He was the tamafafine, the child of the distaff side, and it u^ was his role to take his position for granted, the ta?na-jafine of the house of Fua, what more could any one ask in the way of immediate prestige. As for the future—his manner was perfect. All of these young men, and likewise Alo, the great nephew, were members of the Aumaga, grown up and ready to assume adult responsibilities. Sisi, the sixteen-year-old legitimate son, was still a boy, slender, diffident, presuming far less upon his position as son and heir-apparent than did his cousin. He was an attractive, intelligent boy. If his father lived until Sisi was twenty-five or thirty, his succession seemed inevitable. Even should his father die sooner, the title might have been held for him. But in this latter possibility there was one danger. Samala, his father's older brother, would
COMING OF AGE IN SAMOA
have a strong voice in the choice of a successor to the title. And Alo was Samala's adored grandson, the son of his favourite daughter. Alo was the model of all that a young man should be. He eschewed the company of women, stayed much at home and rigorously trained his younger brother and sister. While the other young men played cricket, he sat at Samala's feet and memorised genealogies. He never forgot that he was the son of Safua, the house of Fua. More able than Molo, his claim to the title was practically as good, although within the family group Molo as the child of the distaff side would always outvote him. So Alo was Sisi's most dangerous rival, provided his father died soon. And should Fua live twenty years longer, another complication threatened his succession. Fua had but recently re-married, a woman of very high rank and great wealth who had a five-year-old illegitimate son, Nifo. Thinking always of this child, for she and Fua had no children, she did all that she could to undermine Sisi's position as heir-apparent and there was every chance that as her ascendency over Fua increased with his advancing age, she might have Nifo named as his successor. His illegitimacy and lack of blood tie would be offset by the fact that he was child of the distaff side in the noblest family in the island and would inherit great wealth from his mother.
Of a different character was the problem which confronted Sila, the stepdaughter of Ono, a matal of low rank. She was the eldest in a family of seven children.
THE SAMOAN HOUSEHOLD
Ono was an old man, decrepit and ineffective. Lefu, S
ila's mother and his second wife, was worn out, weary from bearing eleven children. The only adult males in the household were Laisa, Ono's brother, an old man like himself, and Laisa's idle shiftless son, a man of thirty, whose only interest in life was love affairs. He was unmarried and shied away from this responsibility as from all others. The sister next younger than Sila was sixteen. She had left home and lived, now here, now there, among her relatives. Sila was twenty-two. She had been married at sixteen and against her will to a man much older than herself who had beaten her for her childish ways. After two years of married life, she had run away from her husband and gone home to live with her parents, bringing her little two-year-old boy, who was now five years old, with her. At twenty she had had a love affair with a boy of her own village, and borne a daughter who had lived only a few months. After her baby died her lover had deserted her. Sila disliked matrimony. She was conscientious, sharp-tongued, industrious. She worked tirelessly for her child and her small brothers and sisters. She did not want to marry again. But there were three old people and six children in her household with only herself and her idle cousin to provide for them. And so she said, despondently: "I think I will get married to that boy." "Which boy, Sila?" I asked. "The father of my baby who is dead." "But I thought you said you did not want him for a husband?" "No more do I. But I
Coming of age in Samoa; a psychological study of primitive youth for western civilisation Page 5
