The San Francisco call., 1897-12-19
CHRISTMASAT VAILIMA.l896

Rat-tattle and bang! Rat-tattle and
bang! The noise hath a familiar.
prosalc sound, hailing from the yll-
garlUes Of land of tin-kettIes and
Warmlng-panS. It clashes along the
lime glade, reverberates against the
buttresseS Of the if trees. ouiyers
abort among the leaves of the mama
lava, drops adown the aerial roots of
the banyans and finally expires. as a
Earring note, on the Yeranda Of Vail
ina, where we are gathered. a small
throng OF papalangi, in cool white. and
OF Samoan damsels in black, gazing up
at the Apia heights and down at the
Apia lagoon. I shiver with the pain Of
dlscord and look appealingly at Damon
beside me. He laughs:
What would the South Seas be
without the kerosene tin?" he exclaims
50 the kerosene tin is responsible for
this abominable trespass on the sur
pounding poetry AS 1 gaze expect
antly toward the lime glade beyond the
gate moodily anathemise the deeds of
the unpicturesque trader-moodily and
ungratefully, for it is the unpictur-
esque trader who makes picturesque
Samoa endurable to white folks; but
at present 1 can only consider him as
my ears assure me that the blot is
spreading nearer, the tin discord in
creases in intensity, the tension on
strained tympanum becomes painful,
and suddenly there unwinds from the
farthest gate the final cause of the
disturbance, a South Sea jack-in-the-
green multiplied tenfold Why Jack
in-the-green has discarded his own ap-
propriate wooden drum is not men
toned in the programme; possibly con-
sideration for papalangi musical tastes
has something to do with the case.
Anyway, the verdant procession is
headed and heralded by the battered
and long-suffering kerosene receptacle,
and the massed color slowly defles to-
ward US. At first we are only con-
scious Of a tangle of branch and fern
and flower, Of fiuttering ribbon and
Jangling castanet, waving kite and
brilliant cottons, with brown siapo
draplng browner skins. But at length
the eye finds itself" Amid this rain
bow medley we disentangle form from
decoration and we become aware of a
bevy Of South Sea mummers separat-
ing themselves from their surrounding
attendants, intoning d melancholy
sing-song by way of complimentary
address to our gracious hostess in
black, who stands on the steps with
welcoming gesture. It is a genuine
Christmas medley we are gazing at in
this tropical heat; but it is something
more. The crowd in motley is Tongan,
not Samoan, and at its own special re-
quest is keeping Christmas by offering
q Tongan welcome to the fair Ameri-
can bride who set foot in Vailina
fov
are matter of daily occurrence in this
debonnair land of idleness, but a Ton
gan silva is not precisely the same
thing, and it is a Tongan silva that we
have come forth to see.
But not yet a while. Ceremonious
preliminaries, dear to the native heart,
must be gone through. Samoan and
Tongan susceptibilities have alike to
be consulted, and we gaze curiously
while chiefs and retainers, talking men
and dancers, old men and maidens
play their parts. Artistic color conbi-
nations have to be offered to the
ladies Of the household-wondrous and
radiant arrangements in pink and yell
low, red, violet and green, suggestive
patent fiytraps with streamers in
Vulnerable. They would scarce pass
muster in a misguided white mans
art school, but they represent the acme
of island taste in design. The native
fau tree has been stripped Of it's bark,
the papalangi store plundered of its
dyes in their production, and if you
have not the eye to admire them you
must be incapable of admiring the
very small tits, the pride alike of Ton
gan and Samoan, worn gaudily around
the waist or across the shoulder.
Nay, you are perchance insensible to
the charms of yonder gorgeous bou-
quet, with its stiff loops and astound-
ing stamens. 1t is far more ingenious
and not one whit more unreal than the
artificial blossoms decorating many a
village festivity in other lands. The
gifts are pretext for long and cour-