WITH my superstitious friend,the islander,I fear I am not wholly frank,often leading the way with stories of my own,and being always a grave and sometimes an excited hearer.But the deceit is scarce mortal,since I am as pleased to hear as he to tell,as pleased with the story as he with the belief;and,besides,it is entirely needful.For it is scarce possible to exaggerate the extent and empire of his superstitions;they mould his life,they colour his thinking;and when he does not speak to me of ghosts,and gods,and devils,he is playing the dissembler and talking only with his lips.With thoughts so different,one must indulge the other;and I would rather that I should indulge his superstition than he my incredulity.Of one thing,besides,I may be sure:Let me indulge it as I please,I shall not hear the whole;for he is already on his guard with me,and the amount of the lore is boundless.
I will give but a few instances at random,chiefly from my own doorstep in Upolu,during the past month (October 1890).One of my workmen was sent the other day to the banana patch,there to dig;this is a hollow of the mountain,buried in woods,out of all sight and cry of mankind;and long before dusk Lafaele was back again beside the cook-house with embarrassed looks;he dared not longer stay alone,he was afraid of 'spirits in the bush.'It seems these are the souls of the unburied dead,haunting where they fell,and wearing woodland shapes of pig,or bird,or insect;the bush is full of them,they seem to eat nothing,slay solitary wanderers apparently in spite,and at times,in human form,go down to villages and consort with the inhabitants undetected.So much Ilearned a day or so after,walking in the bush with a very intelligent youth,a native.It was a little before noon;a grey day and squally;and perhaps I had spoken lightly.A dark squall burst on the side of the mountain;the woods shook and cried;the dead leaves rose from the ground in clouds,like butterflies;and my companion came suddenly to a full stop.He was afraid,he said,of the trees falling;but as soon as I had changed the subject of our talk he proceeded with alacrity.A day or two before a messenger came up the mountain from Apia with a letter;I was in the bush,he must await my return,then wait till I had answered:and before I was done his voice sounded shrill with terror of the coming night and the long forest road.These are the commons.
Take the chiefs.There has been a great coming and going of signs and omens in our group.One river ran down blood;red eels were captured in another;an unknown fish was thrown upon the coast,an ominous word found written on its scales.So far we might be reading in a monkish chronicle;now we come on a fresh note,at once modern and Polynesian.The gods of Upolu and Savaii,our two chief islands,contended recently at cricket.Since then they are at war.Sounds of battle are heard to roll along the coast.Awoman saw a man swim from the high seas and plunge direct into the bush;he was no man of that neighbourhood;and it was known he was one of the gods,speeding to a council.Most perspicuous of all,a missionary on Savaii,who is also a medical man,was disturbed late in the night by knocking;it was no hour for the dispensary,but at length he woke his servant and sent him to inquire;the servant,looking from a window,beheld crowds of persons,all with grievous wounds,lopped limbs,broken heads,and bleeding bullet-holes;but when the door was opened all had disappeared.They were gods from the field of battle.Now these reports have certainly significance;it is not hard to trace them to political grumblers or to read in them a threat of coming trouble;from that merely human side I found them ominous myself.But it was the spiritual side of their significance that was discussed in secret council by my rulers.I shall best depict this mingled habit of the Polynesian mind by two connected instances.I once lived in a village,the name of which I do not mean to tell.The chief and his sister were persons perfectly intelligent:gentlefolk,apt of speech.The sister was very religious,a great church-goer,one that used to reprove me if I stayed away;I found afterwards that she privately worshipped a shark.The chief himself was somewhat of a freethinker;at the least,a latitudinarian:he was a man,besides,filled with European knowledge and accomplishments;of an impassive,ironical habit;and I should as soon have expected superstition in Mr.Herbert Spencer.Hear the sequel.I had discovered by unmistakable signs that they buried too shallow in the village graveyard,and I took my friend,as the responsible authority,to task.'There is something wrong about your graveyard,'said I,'which you must attend to,or it may have very bad results.''Something wrong?What is it?'he asked,with an emotion that surprised me.'If you care to go along there any evening about nine o'clock you can see for yourself,'said I.He stepped backward.'A ghost!'he cried.
In short,in the whole field of the South Seas,there is not one to blame another.Half blood and whole,pious and debauched,intelligent and dull,all men believe in ghosts,all men combine with their recent Christianity fear of and a lingering faith in the old island deities.So,in Europe,the gods of Olympus slowly dwindled into village bogies;so to-day,the theological Highlander sneaks from under the eye of the Free Church divine to lay an offering by a sacred well.
I try to deal with the whole matter here because of a particular quality in Paumotuan superstitions.It is true I heard them told by a man with a genius for such narrations.Close about our evening lamp,within sound of the island surf,we hung on his words,thrilling.The reader,in far other scenes,must listen close for the faint echo.