THE SAMOAN REPORTER.

Samoan Reporter, Issue 11, 1 July 1850, Page 1

THE SAMOAN REPORTER.

IX. ETHNOLOGY OF POLYNESIA. SAMOA, OR NAVIGATORS’ ISLANDS. INDIVIDUAL AND FAMILY LIFE (continued). Following the order of the British Association’s queries respecting the human race, our attention is next called to the prevailing food of the Samoans, their mode of cooking, the liquors which they use, together with the time and number of their meals. Animal and Vegetable Food.— Breadfruit, taro, bananas, and cocoa nuts form the staff of life in Samoa. Yams are cultivated, but chiefly as an article of barter. Sweet-potatoes, Indian corn, melons, and pumpkins have been introduced, but are not much cared for amid the profusion of better food which generally obtains. Pineapples, custard apples, oranges, limes, citrons, figs, vines, and mulberries have also been introduced. Some apricot, loquot, and pomegranate plants have recently been added, and thrive. The lagoons and reefs furnish a large supply of fish and shell-fish, of which the natives are very fond; and occasionally all, but especially persons of rank, regale themselves on pigs, fowls, and turtle. Oxen have been introduced, and are being prized by the natives. For about half the year, the Samoans have an abundant supply of food from the breadfruit trees. During the other half, they depend principally on their taro plantations. Bananas and cocoa-nuts are plentiful throughout the year. While the breadfruit is in season, every family lays up a quantity in a pit lined with banana and cocoa-nut leaves, and covered in with stones. It soon ferments ; but they keep it in that state for years, and the older it is they relish it all the more. They bike this in the form of little cakes, when the breadfruit is out of season, and especially when there is a scarcity of taro. The odour of these cakes is offensive in the extreme to a European ; but a Samoan turns from a bit of English cheese with far more disgust than we do from his fermented breadfruit.

A crop of breadfruit is sometimes shaken off the trees by a gale before it is ripp, and occasionally taro plantations are destroyed by drought and caterpillars; but the pe3ple have wild yams in the bush, preserved breadfruit, cocoa nuts, and fish to fall back upon ; so that there is rarely, if ever, anything like a serious famine. A scarcity of food, occasioned by any of the causes justnamed, they were in the habit of tracing to the wrath of one of their gods, called 0 le Sa, (or, the Sacred One). The sun, storms, caterpillars, and all destructive insects were said to be his au ao f or, “ ministers of his, that do his pleasure,” who were commissioned to go forth' and eat up the plantations of those with whom he was displeased. A Samoan, in describing the ravages of caterpillars, would have said of Le Sa: “ He spake, and caterpillars came, and that without number, and did eat up all the herbs in our land and devoured the fruit of our ground.” In times of plenty as well as of scarcity, they were in the habit of assembling with oftermgs of food, and poured out drink offerings of ava to Le Sa, to propitiate his favour.

Cannibalism.— lt has been questioned whether this savage custom ever prevailed in Samoa. During some ot their wars, a body was cccasiona ly cooked ; but Jiey affirm, that, in such a case, it was always some one of the enemy who had been notorious for provocation or cruelty, and that eating a part of his body was considered the cli max oi hatred and revenge, ana was not occa sionea by the mere relish for human flesh, such as obtains throughout the Fiji, New Hebrides, and New Caledonian groupes. In more rem Ae heathen times, however, they rnav h a .e indulged this savage appetite. To speak o. roasting him, is the very worst language that can be to a Samoan. If applied to a chief of importance, he

may raise war to avenge the insult. Sometimes a proud chief will get up and go out of the chapel in a rage, should a native-teacher in his sermon speak of “ hell fire." It is the custom, on the submission of one party to another, to bow down before their conquerors each with a piece of firewood and a bundle of leaves, such as are used in dressing a pig for the oven ; as much as to say: £ ‘ Kill us and cook us, if you please.” Criminals, too, are sometimes bound hand to hand and foot to foot, slung on a pole put through between the hands and feet, carried and laid down before the parties they have injured, like a pig about to be killed and cooked. So deeply humiliating is this act considered, that the culprit who consents to degrade himself so far is almost sure to be forgiven. It is not improbable, therefore, that in some remote period of their history, the Samoans were more familiar with the savage custom to which we refer than in more recent times.

Cooking.— The Samoans have the mode of cooking with hot stones which has been often described as prevailing in the South Sea Islands. Fifty or sixty stones about the size of an orange, heated by kinaling a fire under them, form, with the hot ashes, an ordinary oven. The taro, breadfruit, or yams, are laid among the stones, a thick covering of bread iuit and banana leaves is laid over all, and, in about an hour, all is well-cooked. In the same oven, they bake other things; such as fish, done up in leaves and laid side by side with the taro or other vegetables. Little bundles of taro leaves, too, mixed with the expressed juice of the cocoa-nut kernel, and some other dishes, of which cocoa-nut is generally the chief ingredient, are baked at the same time, and used as a relish in the absence of animal food. Salt-water is frequently mixed up with these dishes, which is the only form in which they use salt. They have no salt, and are net in the habit of preserving fish or pork otherwise than by repeated cooking. In this way, they keep pork for a week, and fish for three weeks or a month. However large, they cook the entire pig at once; then, using a piece of split bamboo as a carving knife, cut it up and divide it among the di erent branches of the family. The duties of cooking devolve on the men; and all, even chiefs of the highest rank, consider it no disgrace to assist in the cooking-house occasionally! Forbidden Food.— Some birds and fishes were sacred to particular deities, and certain parties abstained from eating them. Aman, for example, would not eat a fish which was supposed to be under the protection and care of his household god ; but he would eat, without scruple, fish sacred to the gods of other families. The dog, and some kinds offish and birds, were sacred to the greater deities—the dii majorum gentium of the Samoans; and, of course, all the people rigidlv abstained from these things. For a man to kill and eat anything he considered to be under the special protection of his god, was supposed to be followed by his displeasure in the sickness or death of himself or some member of the family. The same idea seems to have been a check on cannibalism, as there was a fear lest the god of the deceased would be aveqged on those who might cook and eat the body. Liquors.— The young cocoa-nut contains about a tumblerful of water, something resembling water sweetened with lump sugar, and very slightly acid. This is the ordinary beverage of the Samoans. A young cocoa nut baked in the oven yields a plea sant hot draught, which is very grateful to an in valid. They have no fermented liquo.s; but they make an intoxicating draught from an infusion of the chewn root of the ava plant, (piper methysticum). A bowl of this disgustingly prepared stu is made and served out when a party of chiefs sit down to a meal. At their ordinary meals, few paitake of it but the lather or other senior mem bers of the family. It is always taken before, and not after the meal. Among a formal party of ck : e s, it is handed round in cocoa-nut shell cups, wi:h a good deal of ceremony. When a cup is filled, the name, or title lather, of the person for whom it is intended is called out; the cup bearer takes it to him ; he receives it, drinks it off, and returns the cup to be filled again, as the “ por- ' ticn ” of another chief. The most important chiefs

have the first cups, and, following the order of rank, all have a draught. The liquor is much diluted; few drink Ao excess; and, upon the whole, the Samoans are, perhaps, among the most temperate ava drinkers in the South Seas. The old men consider that a little of it strengthens them and prolongs life; and often they have a cup the first thing in the morning. Foreign liquors have been introduced, but there is no demand for them yet among the natives; and long may they be preserved from the curse of drunkenness! Meals.— Like the ancient Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans, the Samoans have a meal about 11 a.m., and their principal meal in the evening. At the evening meal, every family is assembled; and men, women, and children, all eat together. They have no tables, but seat themselves cross-legged round the circular house on mats. Each has his portion laid down before him on a breadfruit leaf; and thus they partake, in primitive style, without knife, fork, or spoon. Should any strangers be present, due respect is shown to them, as of old, by laying before them “ a worthy portion.” After the meal, water to wash is handed round. Formerly, the head of the family, in taking his cup of ava at the commencement of the evening meal, would pour out a little of it on the ground, as a drink-offering to the gods, and, all being silent, he would utter aloud the following prayer:—

Here is ava for you, O gods ! Look kindly towards this family : let it prosper and increase ; and let us all be kept in health. Let our plantations be productive : let fruit grow ; and may there be abundance of food for us, your creatures. “ Here is ava for you, our war gods I Let there be a strong and numerous people for you in this land. u Here is ava for you, O sailing gods! * Do not come on shore at this place; but be pleased to depart along the ocean to some other land.” It was also very commp,»<o pray with an offering of “ flaming fire,” juK before the evening meal. Calling upon some one to blow up the fire and make it blaze, and begging all to be silent, a senior member of the family would pray aloud as follows :— “This light is for you, O king t and gods superior and inferior ! this light is for you all. Be propitious to this family : give life to all; and may your presence be prosperity. Let our children be blessed and multiplied. Remove far from us fines and sicknesses. Regard our poverty; and send us food to eat, and cloth to keep us warm. Keep away from us sailing gods; lest they come and cause disease and death. Protect this family by your presence; and may health and long life be given to us all.” Among the rubbish of Samoan superstition, there was much to prepare the heathen mind for the pure and holy doctrines which the Christian Missionary came to make known—much calculated to facilitate his labours. To give thanks before meals, to unite in prayer, and to be quiet and orderly during religious services did not seem at all strange or unnatural. Now, the evening meal is commenced by thanking the one living and true God for his goodness, and is generally followed by family worship, in conducting which, they praise God, read the Scriptures, and unite in prayer. G T * Gods supposed to come in Tongan canoes and foreign vessels. t The principal god of the family.