The Arizona sentinel., 1888-07-28
SAMOAN ORATORS.

Important Personages Who Stand Very
 Close to the High Muck-a-Mucks. The Samoan orator is a parsonage
 for whom no exact parallel is to be
 found, so far as know, anywhere else
 in the world. True, we who consider
 ourselves to be in the front rank of
 civilization retain in a fragmentary
 condition the custom of appointing these people to do our talking for us. There is among us a privileged class
 whose members are alone permitted to
 speak for others in court of law. But
 SO long as we can steer clear of litiga-
 tions we have no use for the barrister,
 and are not called upon to contribute
 to the cost of his maintenance. There
 is another class, too, not much priv
 ileged in these free American com
 munities, it is true, although largely
 so in other lands, who, in sense, are
 bur orators, since it is our custom to
 let them, for the most part, do our
 praying for us. In a certain sense we can, if so disposed, dispense with the services of this class also, though if we entirely escape contributions toward their mainte- nance we are either very lucky or very clever, and in either case very hard-hearted, and necessarily abstinent in regard to the witcheries of church fairs. In Samoa, however, life can not in any way be got along with with out the interference of the orator. At every turn he not only does the think ing and the talking for his people, but if any other man takes the trouble to have thoughts of his own it is still the orator who gives voice to them.
 The great chief wishes to make known his intention or desire to his people, he instructs one or more of his orators to speak for him. The popu- lace have a complaint to make, or a wish to express, or a compliment to pay, it is the hereditary orators of the village or of the district who speak for them and put plaint, prayer or praise, criticism or courtesy, into its proper set phase. When chiefs and heads of families assemble together to discuss the common veal on any project that may be in hand from marriage to war, it is still the orators, and the orators alone, who do the talking. It is beneath the dignity of a chief to use his tongue either to advise or pursuade or command. For B common man to speak would be an impertinence, whatever weight his age or experience or his personal character might attach to his opinion. His wis dom, if he have any, is not on that ac- count lost to his neighbors. What the orator has to say is not his mere indi- vidual opinion. He is vertically a 'mouth-piece." His speech is all ar ranged beforehand in private and less formal contradictions, where every man who has any thing to say uses his tongue as he lists.
 The custom probably leads to the saving of much time and is merciful towards the ears and senses of those assembled to listen. A fono, or council, is got through in much less than half the time that would otherwise be con- sumed. This is one of the institutions peculiar to himself which makes the Samoan claim that all other Polynes- ians are but degenerate children of the 1eifed forefathers of the race. In New Zealand, at tangi, it is the chiefs who do the talking, and of these generally only the older ones. Marked is the | difference between the rant and stormy | vehemence of Maori orator when something that touches nearly the in- terests of his tribe is under discussion, and the staid, orderly deliberate utter ance of the professional talking-man of Samoa.
 In Hawaii, in old days, before spurious civilization had replaced the native manners, it was much the same as in Maoridom. When the great chiefs or local kings condescended so far as to take counsel with those who might not with impunity walk upon their shadows, the method of conduct ing this counsel was almost identical ] with that of the tangi The Samoan | stands alone amid his far-scattered race in retaining this custom of hereditary talking men, which is sure- ly very ancient, and which might with advantage be taken as pattern or at least as a germinal hint in the re- modelling of the talking customs of some more modern scions of the Aryan race.-Sdn Francisco Chronicle.