Prayers Written at Vailima | Page 3

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Prayers Written At Vailima by Robert Louis Stevenson
Scanned and
proofed by David Price
[email protected]
Second proofing
by Stephen Booth
Prayers Written At Vailima
INTRODUCTION
In every Samoan household the day is closed with prayer and the
singing of hymns. The omission of this sacred duty would indicate, not
only a lack of religious training in the house chief, but a shameless
disregard of all that is reputable in Samoan social life. No doubt, to
many, the evening service is no more than a duty fulfilled. The child
who says his prayer at his mother's knee can have no real conception of
the meaning of the words he lisps so readily, yet he goes to his little
bed with a sense of heavenly protection that he would miss were the
prayer forgotten. The average Samoan is but a larger child in most
things, and would lay an uneasy head on his wooden pillow if he had
not joined, even perfunctorily, in the evening service. With my husband,
prayer, the direct appeal, was a necessity. When he was happy he felt
impelled to offer thanks for that undeserved joy; when in sorrow, or
pain, to call for strength to bear what must be borne.
Vailima lay up some three miles of continual rise from Apia, and more
than half that distance from the nearest village. It was a long way for a
tired man to walk down every evening with the sole purpose of joining
in family worship; and the road through the bush was dark, and, to the
Samoan imagination, beset with supernatural terrors. Wherefore, as

soon as our household had fallen into a regular routine, and the bonds
of Samoan family life began to draw us more closely together, Tusitala
felt the necessity of including our retainers in our evening devotions. I
suppose ours was the only white man's family in all Samoa, except
those of the
missionaries, where the day naturally ended with this
homely, patriarchal custom. Not only were the religious scruples of the
natives satisfied, but, what we did not foresee, our own
respectability
- and incidentally that of our retainers - became assured, and the
influence of Tusitala increased tenfold.
After all work and meals were finished, the 'pu,' or war conch, was
sounded from the back veranda and the front, so that it might be heard
by all. I don't think it ever occurred to us that there was any incongruity
in the use of the war conch for the peaceful invitation to prayer. In
response to its summons the white members of the family took their
usual places in one end of the large hall, while the Samoans - men,
women, and children - trooped in through all the open doors, some
carrying lanterns if the evening were dark, all moving quietly and
dropping with Samoan decorum in a wide semicircle on the floor
beneath a great lamp that hung from the ceiling. The service began by
my son reading a chapter from the Samoan Bible, Tusitala following
with a prayer in English,
sometimes impromptu, but more often from
the notes in this little book, interpolating or changing with the
circumstance of the day. Then came the singing of one or more hymns
in the native tongue, and the recitation in concert of the Lord's Prayer,
also in Samoan. Many of these hymns were set to ancient tunes, very
wild and warlike, and strangely at variance with the missionary words.
Sometimes a passing band of hostile warriors, with blackened faces,
would peer in at us through the open windows, and often we were
forced to pause until the strangely savage, monotonous noise of the
native drums had ceased; but no Samoan, nor, I trust, white person,
changed his reverent attitude. Once, I remember a look of
surprised
dismay crossing the countenance of Tusitala when my son, contrary to
his usual custom of reading the next chapter following that of yesterday,
turned back the leaves of his Bible to find a chapter fiercely
denunciatory, and only too applicable to the foreign dictators of

distracted Samoa. On another occasion the chief himself brought the
service to a sudden check. He had just learned of the treacherous
conduct of one in whom he had every reason to trust. That evening the
prayer seemed unusually short and formal. As the singing stopped he
arose abruptly and left the room.