A Footnote to History | Page 2

mutual anger of several chiefs, his food, his
pleasure in eating, the food and eating of his pigeons, his ulcers, his
cough, his sickness, his recovery, his death, his being carried on a bier,
the exhumation of his bones, and his skull after death. To address these
demigods is quite a branch of knowledge, and he who goes to visit a

high chief does well to make sure of the competence of his interpreter.
To complete the picture, the same word signifies the watching of a
virgin and the warding of a chief; and the same word means to cherish
a chief and to fondle a favourite child.
Men like us, full of memories of feudalism, hear of a man so addressed,
so flattered, and we leap at once to the conclusion that he is hereditary
and absolute. Hereditary he is; born of a great family, he must always
be a man of mark; but yet his office is elective and (in a weak sense) is
held on good behaviour. Compare the case of a Highland chief: born
one of the great ones of his clan, he was sometimes appointed its chief
officer and conventional father; was loved, and respected, and served,
and fed, and died for implicitly, if he gave loyalty a chance; and yet if
he sufficiently outraged clan sentiment, was liable to deposition. As to
authority, the parallel is not so close. Doubtless the Samoan chief, if he
be popular, wields a great influence; but it is limited. Important matters
are debated in a fono, or native parliament, with its feasting and parade,
its endless speeches and polite genealogical allusions. Debated, I
say--not decided; for even a small minority will often strike a clan or a
province impotent. In the midst of these ineffective councils the chief
sits usually silent: a kind of a gagged audience for village orators. And
the deliverance of the fono seems (for the moment) to be final. The
absolute chiefs of Tahiti and Hawaii were addressed as plain John and
Thomas; the chiefs of Samoa are surfeited with lip-honour, but the seat
and extent of their actual authority is hard to find.
It is so in the members of the state, and worse in the belly. The idea of
a sovereign pervades the air; the name we have; the thing we are not so
sure of. And the process of election to the chief power is a mystery.
Certain provinces have in their gift certain high titles, or NAMES, as
they are called. These can only be attributed to the descendants of
particular lines. Once granted, each name conveys at once the
principality (whatever that be worth) of the province which bestows it,
and counts as one suffrage towards the general sovereignty of Samoa.
To be indubitable king, they say, or some of them say,--I find few in
perfect harmony,--a man should resume five of these names in his own
person. But the case is purely hypothetical; local jealousy forbids its
occurrence. There are rival provinces, far more concerned in the
prosecution of their rivalry than in the choice of a right man for king. If

one of these shall have bestowed its name on competitor A, it will be
the signal and the sufficient reason for the other to bestow its name on
competitor B or C. The majority of Savaii and that of Aana are thus in
perennial opposition. Nor is this all. In 1881, Laupepa, the present king,
held the three names of Malietoa, Natoaitele, and Tamasoalii;
Tamasese held that of Tuiaana; and Mataafa that of Tuiatua. Laupepa
had thus a majority of suffrages; he held perhaps as high a proportion
as can be hoped in these distracted islands; and he counted among the
number the preponderant name of Malietoa. Here, if ever, was an
election. Here, if a king were at all possible, was the king. And yet the
natives were not satisfied. Laupepa was crowned, March 19th; and next
month, the provinces of Aana and Atua met in joint parliament, and
elected their own two princes, Tamasese and Mataafa, to an alternate
monarchy, Tamasese taking the first trick of two years. War was
imminent, when the consuls interfered, and any war were preferable to
the terms of the peace which they procured. By the Lackawanna treaty,
Laupepa was confirmed king, and Tamasese set by his side in the
nondescript office of vice-king. The compromise was not, I am told,
without precedent; but it lacked all appearance of success. To the
constitution of Samoa, which was already all wheels and no horses, the
consuls had added a fifth wheel. In addition to the old conundrum,
"Who is the king?" they had supplied a new one, "What is the
vice-king?"
Two royal lines; some cloudy idea of alternation between the two;