MATAAFA.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 215, 9 March 1912, Page 8

MATAAFA.

SAMOA IX THE WAR DAYS. The rabies announcing the death of Mataafa. the venerable chief who made much stir in Samoa for twenty years or more (writes James Cowan in the Lyt-tr-lton Times), bring up in one's min.l many curious recollections of the lively little cocoanut kingdom and its people in the days when fighting was to be got galore round Apia town. Bp,ck in the war of 18i)i) the writer was in Samoa as u newspaper correspondent, and MaLa a fa's name was then on everyone's lips. The old warrior lurked elusive in the bush, and his black-painted braves '"made hay" and feasted on tinned meats in Robert Louis Stevenson's old home at Vailima. and every now and again took the war-path and ambuscaded a few of the Papalangi troops, the fighting-men from the British. American and German warships which lay at an uneasy anchor in Apia's funnel-shaped bay. Mataafa was a brainy old fellow, and*his strategy was something to be regarded with respect by the paleface captains. It was ,his men who fought the two battles of Vailele. mere skirmishes, perhaps, in point of numbers engaged, but skirmishes which loom large in the modern history of Samoa. The first Vailele fight, a decade before my visit, was an ambuscade in which Mataafa gave a terrible cutting up to a German bluejacket force which was marching through a plantation. Rifle and headknife played fearfully that day on the out-manoeuvred, if not out-numbered, Germans. The sailors lo'si some forty men. It was after this affair, which gave the Germans a wholesome respect for the fighting powers of the gentle Namoans. that the famous—or notorious —three-Power protectorate was established over Samoa, the foolish protectorate which Stevenson lashed so furiously frith tongue and pen in the early nineties.

The second Yailele battle, fougiit just before my arrival in 'Samoa, in 1809. was another victoiy for \Jataafa. This time he ambuscaded a column of British and American bluejackets and marines from the warships Tauranga, Royalist, Porpoise and Philadelphia, curiously close to the spot in thes thickly-wooded plantation where he had bowled over the subjects of the Kaiser. A unique war record, surely! It is not many men who could claim to have successfully fought the world's three nations. But many strange things happened in Samoa.

Apia town, straggling along the cool beach side under its tall leaning palms, vvas a place where you had to mind your "ps" and "q's" those days of Ninetyone. The English and Americans hated, and were hated by, the Germans like "pizen," and it is a fact, ,though luckily not stressed at the time bv the newspaper man, that Britain and' Germany very nearly came to war in Apia Bay over the eternal disputes as to who should be king of Samoa. The British and American officials and warships sunported the youthful Malietoa Tanu—a relative of old King Malietoa, who Lad died the previous year; the Germans" favored Mataafa. and supplied him with arms and ammunition. Perhaps the munitions of war did not come from tho German warship, but the ship, at any rate, was blamed for it, which was quite sufficient.

The whole place was a big military camp. Field-guns, manned by sailors and marines, stood at the street corners, and the roadside \va<s trenched and parapetted here and there. A heavy gun mis taken ashore from one of the British ships and mounted at the entrance to the big native camp at Mulinuu Point the headquarters of the lovalists. If you went out at night you had to be mighty slick in answering the challenges of the bluejacket sentries posted in the streets. The American sailors had a nasty way of shooting first and challenging afterwards, and they winged one of their own men one dark'night. "Halt! Who goes there?" came through the soft tropic night every few hundred yards. "Friend!" you veiled.

'"Advance, friend, and be recognised." was the reply.

, Vou advanced circumspectly, produced 0111 face and your passport—a scrap of paper furnished by the naval authorities—for the inspection of the gruff man with the lantern, backed up bv a rojv of shining bayonets, and passed" on vour wav.

Sometimes again tiie Mataafa men livened up the night by attacking the town, and bullets were flying here and there amongst the eocoanuts and the stores, and there were swift rushes of fighting men to and fro, and no end of excitement. Gun play was frequent and free, but casualties were few. The Vailele affair was the worst in the war, as far as the white were concerned. Mataafa in those days had a German adviser in his camp, a well-known Samoan lesident for whose head many a Malietoa warrior thirsted. BuWMataafa never really liked the Germans, and the Germans never forgot that he had wiped out their men at Vailele in the war that immediately preceded the great hurricane of 1880. His first love was "Beritania. He would have been happier, i 11. under the British flag. He was a picturesque, even proud, figure, that old white-moustached brave, bare of chest, fly-whisk in hand, sitting there on his' mat in the middle of his council of chiefs, his "fono" of the best blood in Upolu. A Fenimorc Cooper Red Indian sachem in so' 'inn council .taking his whiff from the sr.-red pipe of war or peace, was not nine romantic or more dignified than a hi'/h Samoa 11 chief at times when loud, ye'ling speeches were made and the kava' bowl went round.

1 lii'i'p was a lot that was picturesque I in (hut litth; war, the war that was the preclude to us Britishers getting the "kick-out" from Samoa. You should have seen a Jfalietoa war party on the march! ft was a brave sight, with not a little humor in it. First came the Taupo. a high-born "May Queen" or village maid, stepping out like an Amazonian queen at (lie head of her troopsher print "lavalava" girt high, her open blouse Hying loose in the breeze—wore nothing underneath it but her own well-oiled beautiful brown skin—a wreath of flowers on her head, a couple orf cocoanut water-bottles slum- on h-r back; a fly-whisk in her hand. ° Then a couple of youngsters with kettle-drums, then the column of armed men, four deep, rifle in hand, cartridge belts fore and aft, the deadly head-knife—a mur-' derous-looking slash-hook and sword combined—swinging at the waist; the ' lavalava" or kilt looped up high on ono side so as to show the close black tatoomg on the thigh, a decoration which every Samoan male must have, or else incur the acorn and contumely of the women. Kipling's description of Gun"a Din's costume—

The uniform 'e wore was nothing much before, And rather less than 'arf o' that behind.

wculd apply pretty well to a Samoan column on a fighting trail. merry-looking crowd of big fellows, as lively as schoolboys, proud as Punch of their brightly polished rifles and other fighting gear. Off they go soft-footed into the bush, hunting for Mataafa, then back to tea after a pleasant little "scrap" in which much powder is burnt and a head or two taken. War like

this was the principal recreation of old Samoa; far more exciting than cricket, even when that game was played with a hundred men a-side, as was the local fashion. Things are different in Samoa nowadays, (inn-play is strongly discouraged, and the intensely practical tiermans are making life very commercial and safe and uninteresting. It was about time old Mataafa went, and the old heroic days have gone.