Graham guardian., 1896-02-07
FROM SAMOA.
A Letter Descriptive of the Islands, Peo-
pie and their Tradions.

EDITOR GUARDIAN:-Thlnklng q
few lines from the south sea islands
and from one of Safford's citizens
might be Of interest to your read
ers, l send you description Of
the Toga and the Tongans.
The Tongan kingdom consists Of
four groups of islands, together,
Haapai, Vavai and Ninafoou, with
about $4,000 inhabitants. Toga-
tabu is the capital, but the king
makes his home at Haapai and
goes to Toga only when business
calls him there. The way business
is carried on in this kingdom is
not very profitable to the people.
About the only export from these
islands is the cabra (dried cocoanut,)
there are thousands Of tons of this
shipped every year. The natives
get about S25.00 per ton for it
when dried. This means thous-
ands Of dollars for the natives, but
they do not seem to realize the
value Of money, for they soon get
rid Of it in some way.
These people are what some
would call Socialists, for if one has
anything, his neighbor is entitled
to part of it. The natives have
great traditions about the sacred
ness of their high men. One Of
them is that no one Of the common
people can eat in the presence Of
the king or his father, as he ranks
next to the king, and they dare not
eat piece Of meat or any kind of
food the king eats as they say if
they should their throats would
swell up and they would die in a
short time, and they say that if one
of their dogs gets any of that food
they will die the same way. In
this way the people are kept down.
A native from any other kingdom
can come and eat with the king
and they are alright.
The people Of this kingdom are
so simple that they cannot see that
such traditions are just to keep
them fearing their rulers.
The people row are not so num-
erous as they were 100 years ago,
so the old in habitaints Of the
island say, and / find in my travels
ruins Of numerous villages. I will
mention one island in particular,
that was thickly populated at one
time but now there is but
one man livingsthere, and he is just
taking care Of the government
swine. That island is south of this
one and they are joined together
by reef and when the tide is out
the water is very shallow and the
natives travel over this reef when
necessary. There were some mon
uments built on that island about
200 years ago, by order of one
Matau Wave, high chief of the
island.
Myself and companion, being de-
sirous Of seeing the monuments,
concluded to take a trip for that
purpose, so we we started for that
place, taking lunch in our KNAPP
sack so that we would be prepared
for the days journey. When we ar
rived at the reef the tide was out
and we stripped our feet and start
ed across, finding some places very
rough for bare feet. There are
two trails leading across the reef
made by the natives years ago,
when they were building the mon.
uments. 1t is said that the materi.
al was carried from this island
and in the night time at that. 1t
is also said that should one OF
them start with q back load OF
material for the monuments and
find that day light would come be-
fore he could get there, he would
put ii on q monument that they
were building on the south end OF
this island. This monument was
built in this way.
After crossing the reef we com.
menced to explore the island; after
making our way through the thick
brush for a time we found one of
the monuments. 1t is go feet wide
so feet long and 20 feet high. The
outside is built of coral rock,
while the inside is of clay and sand
1t is covered with brush and large
trees. Years ago a large village
stood near it, but now one can
hardly get through for brush
There are five monuments on the
island but on account Of the densi.
ty of the brush we were unable to
find more than one.
The cocoanut trees on this island
are very old and tall, which makes
it difficult to get the fruit
When we are away from the vii
liages the cocoanut milk is the
only drink we have.
l have learned on good authors
ty that il has not been many years
since this people practiced can
niableism to quite an extent, some
of the ovens that people were
baked in are In eXistance to day
Al L Al IL