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A Samoan Scrapbook

The reader is asked to glance through the photograph book of the late ill-starred Hawaiian mission to Samoa, and hear, as he goes, in a running, after-dinner commentary.

In all South Sea talk, the question of the missionary leads. Nowhere else have Christian missions enjoyed a greater measure of success, or suffered, and perhaps deserved, a sharper criticism. The London Mission is one of the most conspicuous by success, and has had the fortune to be excepted from blame by some of the most unfavourable critics. Though I was many months in these waters, I never had the pleasure of meeting any English missionary; but in Tahiti, I had an opportunity of observing that which they had built. The founders were gone, like the Romans; and their work survived them in the form of an autonomous and active native church. The method has been the same in Samoa: the success is not doubted; and the reader can see for himself (A) a protestant church with some part of the attentive congregation; (B) a group of Sunday School children fresh from school; (C) a view of a part of the seminary for native pastors, showing a few of the students - divinity students - in their summary tropical attire, and some of the houses where they live during their course of study; (D) a full-fledged native pastor, a very worthy fellow, I am told, standing before the door of - what shall we say? - the vicarage, with his daughter by his side; and (E) a partial view of the annual convocation of the church, where progress is reported, zeal refreshed, and the contributions of the various districts brought together. In these five pictures, we have a fair and very favourable account of the Samoan church: fair, because they are simply random photographs taken with a design entirely artistic, for the effect and not the subject; and to my view, favourable in every feature. The students are not students only; they till the ground, each in his own support; and when his term is finished and he goes abroad to undertake the duties of the pastorate, it is hoped that each may bring along with him, not alone spiritual guidance, but the example and the methods of productive industry. The busy scene at the convocation testifies to a genuine popular interest the speechers are listened to with close attention; the long line of subscribers to the church come laden with their gifts of every sort and of every degree of liberty and meanness, down as low as a piece of a rare wood or even a single banana; and there are yet other offerings, such as a stone or the branch of a tree, which can only be regarded as symbolic. These are carried with the rest in the procession, and received in good part as evidences of a willing mind and slow treasury. And the precise is at least graceful. For our European alternative of surreptitiously foisting a button on the churchwarden, not so much can be advanced. There is another pleasing feature in these illustrations. After so much that we have heard of the missionary, it is good to see these people unashamed in their own costume. The pastor's daughter has indeed modestly concealed her breasts; but this was in honour of that one-eyed and unfamiliar spectator, the camera; and as soon as the photograph was taken, the young lady of the vicarage would drop her veil, and reappear in her natural costume of a simple petticoat.

Where the missionaries have not wasted their time preaching self-consciousness, it is more than probable they will have succeeded in teaching the essential. From the nature of the case, native manners persist under Christian forms, and will be only slowly and only partially modified. Conversion can only be complete with fools or with the perfectly immoral. As it is, a great change has been wrought; old, cumbrous and abominable institutions have passed away; the name

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rising to a higher pillar in the midst; but all of durable stone;
standing there in its desolation undecayed. And there was another
irregularity: facing the approach, a great open archway displayed
the interior of the house. Whence, we may ask, the principle of the
arch? did the cuttlefish bring it with him (when he landed) from
the depths of the sea? It is a point that may be left in silence, but
as to the purpose of this aperture, howsoever constructed, clear
native testimony was received. The cuttlefish (it appears) was a
deity whom it was good to behold, but perhaps not very canny to approach; and it was through the arch that worshippers of old, drawing
near with their offerings, enjoyed one glimpse of the gigantic squid,
clinging, with hateful arms, about the centre pillar of this dwelling.
It runs in my mind I have seen something of the sort in a Japanese drawing; perhaps one of my readers can correct me. There isx
no accounting, at least, for taste in deities; but I think it would
be more homelike for a European in the protestant house of worship
already figured, as in the Roman Catholic chapel (F) with its gaudy
altar and intelligent looking priest at the corner of the altar
rails. This chapel is part of the seminary, where natives are educated
for catechists, on much the same principles of work and study, the
shovel and the book, as with the protestants. The catholics, I hear,
are not so successful, and I have heard reasons offered. But indeed,
out of all Polynesia, it is only in the Kingdom of Hawaii that catholic missions can be said to prosper wholly; elsewhere (in my observation) they scarec appear to hold their own: in Hawaii, they triumph.
For this, too, cause might be adduced; but it would carry us beyond
the limits of a paper like the present. It is more to the purpose
that the Samoan missionaries seem to be English when they are Kuki
protestant, and French when they are catholic. German activity in the
group is confined to a little coffee and a great deal of gunpowder.

For here is the word spoken at last; and with all the will
in the world, I can keep no longer clear of Germany. This is the
photograph book of the Hawaiian embassy, and politics come naturally
in. The history of that embassy, inside and out, is both interesting and droll, if it could be told. I shall not misrepresent King Kalakaua and his late premier, Mr. Gibson, if I describe them as men
deeply interested in the Polynesian race, conceiving it capable of
self-government, and regarding as an evil almost unmixed, the continual snapping up of South Sea islands by European powers, more or less
civilized. Germany, if she had not originated, at least was meddling
in the troubles; and it seemed a fitting moment for a power of the
same race and tongue, to intervene between Samoans. An embassy was
accordingly despatched, and followed by the Kaimiloa, the first and
last ship of the Hawaiian navy. Here she is (G) at her moorings in
Apia bay. And would you not suspect the photographer of some political design? For the data is the 20th June, 1887; and behold the Kaimiloa trimmed for the Queen's Jubilee and veiling herself with the smoke of a salute; while the German war-ship Adler, in
the background, lies silent and undraped. "The camera cannot lie,
Joseph,"; but was one ever more insidiously employed?

The mission arrived (and indeed departed) in the days of the
late Malietoa (H), now a prisoner on the Marshall Islands on a serious charge of not appreciating German influence. An agreement was
reached between the King and Mr. Bush, Hawaiian minister; a deed of
confederation prepared and signed; and the signature celebrated in
the new house of the Hawaiian embassy, with some original ceremonies,
Malietoa arrived, attended by his ministry, two of his armed guards,
six native policemen, each with a rawhide, and several hundred of
his leading chiefs. Their coming, as it is described to me, resembled

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some well-ordered pageant on the stage. It went without noise, for every foot was bare; and without confusion or delay, for each man knew his hereditary place, and had any presumed, the six policemen were exactly versed in genealogy and stood prepared to vindicate the principles of due precedence. It was announced they were to be entitled with "the royal Kava of Hawaii." Some of the elements of a claret and white wine punch had been prepared in a bathtub against the wall; in front of this, two members of the embassy stood forth, sword in hand; went through some ornamental fencing, saluted, crossed the swords over the bathtub, set sugarloaves upon the swords, poured brandy on the sugars, and set the spirit burning. The Samoans are themselves a race of ceremonious drinkers; and this original performance pleased them hugely. The watched in rept silence till the sugar was all burned into the punch, and hailed the completion of the brew with clapping hands and hurrahs. One versed in precedence then stood up, and named the guests in order of their rank; each, as he was named, twice clapping hands, and standing forward for his glass. It is to be feared the punch was of a liberal conception; for the proceedings now became less regular. Malietoa, who was a gentle and pacific sovereign, took an early opportunity to escape; high chiefs fell to dancing, a thing incredibly beneath their station; shielders of the presumptuous; and day found the house carpeted with slumbering grandees, who must be roused, doctored with coffee and sent home. Yet the whole passed without a quarrel; the incredible mansuettude of the Polynesian triumphing over royal punch.

The present Malietoa, Mataafa, was not present, by the advice of his priest (for he is a catholic) he was holding at that time a position quite apart from politics; living in his own place, holding no relations with Temasese the rebel, and as little as he could with Malietoa the legitimate king. But Mataafa was a man of consequence; and the Hawaiian mission, pursuing its policy which was to heal the wounds of internecine strife, decided - at his request to carry down the Kaimiloa and visit the chief in state. Here (J) is a photograph of the meeting, the three figures in the midst being Mataafa himself, in the white clothes, Mr. Bush in the dark, and Mr. Poor with his hat in his hand. But the interview was not suffered to proceed without interruption. It is well to be fair to the Germans. They wanted Samoa; the civil war was their opportunity; the mission from Hawaii a most unlucky circumstance. The mere sight of the flag was a significant reminder to the natives, how some of their own race had managed to attain a footing among civilized powers, and the policy pursued by the mission was fatal to the German interests. Accordingly when the Kaimiloa left Apia bay, she was followed by the Adler; and Mataafa was no sooner set down in council with the Hawaiians, than he was summoned by two German officers. They came bearing an invitation to carry the chief on board the Adler. If you consider that Mataafa was then entertaining the ambassador of a sovereign power, who had come on purpose to visit him, and bear in mind the Kaimiloa lay close on shore in his own bay, and the Adler (owing to her greater draft) seven miles to seaward, the impudence of the proposition appears almost silly. It paints at least, in very lively colours, the annoyance of the Samoans. Doubtless, when you feel the German empire at your back, it is difficult to look on without impatience whenever while a power of the powerlessness of Hawaii profits by her independence, flaunts her flag under your eyes upon her single war ship, and sends a gentlemen undeniably entitled to the style of an ambassador to compose these differences which you have been laboriously fomenting. And remember it was no easy business to foment them. Temasese the rebel was even then weary of rebellion; his ministry as weary as himself. He, poor

Germans/
SCHLECHTS VIE

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I have already named Sikeoni; here (M) is a drawing of the man. In his face, the reader will perceive legible marks of courage and capacity; over his brow, the scar of one out of many wounds that told the story of his prowess; around his neck, a princely necklace. For this last, a word of explanation is required. It was an ornament in the possession of Mr. Strong; Sikeoni, in that land of strict precedency, was not of a fit rank to wear it; and if our artist, at the cost of a great expenditure of eloquence, over-persuaded him to put it on and sit, thus accoutred, for his portrait, the poor fellow (who was killed in the last battle with the Germans) had no anticipation of publicity. At an early stage of the contention, Sikeoni had cleverly withdrawn the boat's crew.