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Samoan Material Culture

Musical Instruments

Musical Instruments

Under the heading of musical instruments will be grouped together all instruments or objects from which sound is produced for the purpose of giving time to dances, for giving notices and warnings, and for making sounds for the pleasure conveyed by the sounds themselves.

Dance Time Implements

Ceremonial speech, food, and presents marked festive and important occasions. The natural accompaniment was singing and dancing. Dancing in the form of the siva and the poula contained a number of figures composed of different movements and postures. These were performed by groups representing various villages, or in the local gatherings, various divisions, or family groups in the village itself. Usually after combined figures, individual dancing was indulged in. In all group dancing, the movements were made in unison and faultless time was the criterion of excellence. A method of beating time was a natural accompaniment of dancing. This was done by singing, clapping hands, and beating time on some object. Hence, every dancing party had a small orchestra, to provide the time, not only for the dancing, but incidentally the clapping of hands and the singing. The orchestra remained seated cross-legged on the ground behind the dancers. When individual dancing took place, the rest of the dancers remained seated and added their voices and hand clappings to that of the orchestra. The time beating instruments are very simple.

Rolled floor mats (fala). The ordinary coarse pandanus floor mats are simply rolled to form a hollow cylinder and tied with a strip of bark or braid to prevent it coming unwound. This simple type of drum is then beaten with two light sticks and the rhythm of the sharp taps gives excellent time. To beat the mats is tafua and the phrase for beating the mats to commence the page 575dance is tafua le fala. The leader of the dance will call "Tafua le fala," and the dance commences. The time is perfect and various flourishes are introduced. One or more rolls may be used and the companions of those beating time also keep time with hands and voices.

Rolled mats with bamboo (tui' tu'i). A number of pieces of bamboo varying in length from 4 feet downwards, with one end open and the other closed by a node are wrapped up in a floor mat with the open ends enclosed in the mat. This improved instrument is beaten with two sticks in the same way as the simple mat roll, but the hollow bamboo rods give a different sound. Different sounds may also be produced by beating on different parts of the instrument. Turner (41, p. 125) states the open ends of the bamboo were enclosed in a mat bag but he probably meant the wrapped mat. A mat bag requires a special plaiting technique and no such article was mentioned during my inquiries about plaiting. The Samoan does not usually make a special object if something in common use will serve his purpose. Both the mat roll and the bamboo roll were expedients used for the occasion and neither was a permanent arrangement reserved for beating time only. When the dances were over, the cords were unfastened and the floor mats resumed their ordinary functions.

Bamboo lengths ('ofe). Sometimes the preceding instruments were further assisted by a few of the orchestra using various lengths of bamboo, with one end open and the other closed. The closed end was thumped on the ground in time with the beating on the mat and the various lengths naturally emitted different sounds. The example of the short length in Plate L, A, 3 has the upper open internode split in a number of places to add a rattling sound to the usual booming hollow sound of the whole column.

The smaller wooden gongs were also beaten to give time to the dances. Nowadays discarded biscuit or benzine tins are preferred. It rather detracts, from appearances to see the men and women arrayed in their best, garlanded with wreaths, and glistening with coconut oil going through the various, postures and movements in perfect unison to the time produced from an empty kerosene tin at the back of the serried lines. However, the tin requires no physical effort to hollow out, it costs nothing and gives a better sound than anything evolved by native culture. Incongruity gives way before utility.

The Wooden Gongs

The instruments made from the section of a branch or trunk of a tree, hollowed out through a fairly narrow longitudinal opening, which does not quite reach the ends, are wooden gongs. These hollowed dugouts with ends cut off at right angles to the long axis are beaten with one or two sticks and emit a louder sound consonant to the hollowing out. Three well-marked classes are distinguished by size; the pate, the lali, and the longo. All these page 576types are held to be introduced from other islands. A fourth type (nafa) is held to be true Samoan.

The small hand gong. The pate is the smallest of the gongs. Two varieties are shown in Plate L A, 1 and 2; one with the ends cut off square, and the other with one end produced to form a handle.

The inside hollowing follows the elliptical section of the wood, the narrow longitudinal opening being along one end of the ellipse. The hollowing stops a little way from the ends, which are also slightly hollowed from the outside. Different notes which the musician utilizes are thus produced by beating over the middle and over the ends.

Pratt (23, p. 235) states that the pate was introduced from Tahiti; this was done by the missionaries and the Tahitian and Cook Islands name of pate was brought with it. The pate is now extensively used throughout the islands to give notice as to school hours at both the Government and Missionary schools. In Tau and other parts, a couple of the older children walked through the village with the light pate resting on the fold of the left arm whilst the right hand beats on it with a single stick or 'auta. The pate has thus become associated with school notices in distinction from the sounds made with other instruments for different purposes. The sound of the small instrument conveys notice to the small people.

The pate is sometimes used to call pigs (vala'au 'ai pud'a) when an owner takes food to the pig enclosure. The enclosures are fairly large and covered with natural growth, but the sound of the pate soon brings the pigs at full speed to the food that it announces.

The pate may be beaten with two sticks at dances. In the true home of the pate, it is essentially the instrument for marking time in the dances.

The medium-sized gong (lali). The lali are made in the same way as the pate with both ends squared. They are made out of larger sections of tree trunks and are thus stationary instruments on land or in canoes. The true lali are used in pairs which have a slightly different note purposely tested during the hollowing out.

The pair figured in Plate L, C, belong to a Savaiian village. Each lali is beaten with two sticks ('auta). They are placed under a shed in a central place in the village and are beaten by two men who blend the different notes of their instruments as they play. They are used to call the village people togther for some meeting connected with village affairs.

The Samoans state that the lali was introduced from Tonga during the Tongan occupation. The Tongans used them on their war canoes and beat them in a preliminary barrage of sound as they paraded before the villages ere commencing an attack. They were also beaten on peaceful occasions to announce the arrival of some visitor of distinction. Another name given to the lali is fafangu. The beating of the lali to call meetings together is a page 577modern usage. The Tongans used it only to announce chiefs and this usage is summed up in the word fa'aali'i.

The large gongs. The longo is a great hypertrophied gong made from the trunk of a large tree. A very large one in Bishop Museum was obtained at Fangasa, Tutuila. Some idea of the labor involved in making it may be formed from its history. The longo was made from a talie tree that grew in the district of Vaatia. Thirty men tried in vain to drag it to the sea, but the party, reinforced to 70 men, were successful with great difficulty. Ten trunks of mosooi, each as large as the supporting pillar of a round house, were made into a raft and the talie log placed on it. The raft sank. Two fautasi boats with 12 and 14 thwarts respectively, were sent to float the raft. Divers attached a strong rope to the raft. A piece of stout timber was stretched over the two boats and the rope hauled over this cross piece. After the raft was hauled about half way up to the surface, it was towed, thus submerged, to Fangasa, an operation which took two days. It was left outside the reef, buoyed up. On the third day, it was dragged on to the reef. After landing the log, the longo took 14 days to make.

The longo is beaten with a heavy beater ('auta), which is thrust against the inside of one edge of the opening. The original beater was of olasina wood; the present one is of ala'a.

This huge and unique longo was obtained by negotiation through Mr. Judd; the Fangasa people realizing that the longo would soon decay through exposure, wished to have its life prolonged in an institution where it could be taken care of. The longo is named 'O le sui fofonga o le Atua (The Voice of God), so called from its being used to summon the people to church.

The Fangasan people maintained that the longo was termed lali originally and after the course of time the name became longo. Some maintain that the idea of the very large wooden gong comes from Fiji. Whether the idea came from Fiji, or not, it is evident that the longo is a development from the smaller lali. The very large form became associated with churches to serve the function of church bells and the name of the type became longo. Whilst very large lali may have been made in the past, it is certain that in Samoa the manufacture was increased by the adherents of the new faith, each village desiring one for their church. The accomplishment of their desire was rendered possible by the use of steel tools. Throughout Samoa, the longo is "the Voice of God" that summons the people to worship. It is an old time voice, strengthened by modern methods, whose sound is used in the interests of a new faith.

The Samoan gong. As to whether there is a modification in structure between the Samoan gong nafa and the lali, it is difficult to say as no examples of the nafa were seen. An old man at Taputimu, Tutuila, reputed to be an expert player on the nafa, was commissioned to make one, but owing to his ill page 578health the nafa did not materialize. It was a dugout of wood belonging to the wooden gong class, but was played differently. Two sticks were used and various tunes and rhythms were produced by the expert who showed off his skill by beating the sticks together and tossing them in the air in time to the tune he was playing. Evidently a greater range of play was associated with the nafa than with the lali.

Many of the Tutuilan people claimed the instrument as a true Samoan one in distinction to the introduced lali. They spoke of it as tangafa, in which ta is a prefix meaning to beat and ngafa, an illustration of the modern tendency to mix up the ng and n sounds. Pratt (23, p. 221) gives nafa as a native drum but ngafa bears no similar meaning.

Stair (33, p. 135) refers to the nafa as a Samoan drum made of a hollowed log and now copied by the longo which he states was derived from Tonga; but the Tongan instrument is longer. He gives fa'a-alii as another name for the nafa, but the word should be fa'aali'i, which simply means to honor as a chief and thus designated the purpose of the instrument and not the instrument itself. In this usage, it bore a similar likeness to the Tongan lali which apparently it much resembled in form except that it was shorter.

From Stair's account it is obvious that some confusion exists regarding the words lali and longo and origins from Tonga and Fiji. It seems most likely that the distinction between lali and longo is of modern date, but that before the development of the large church longo, they were probably synonymous. Stair also bears out the contention that the nafa is the true Samoan gong and the others were introduced.

The Drum

The use of the word drum, so commonly applied by Pratt, Stair, Turner, and other authorities to the wooden gongs, is here reserved for instruments hollowed out of wood, but with some kind of skin stretched taut over a part of the hollow. The sound is produced by striking or stroking the skin.

The true drum is a marked feature of marginal Polynesia with the exception of New Zealand. It was evidently absent in Samoa for though some Samoans state that an instrument termed itulasi with shark skin stretched over it was formerly used, at the same time it was said to have been introduced from elsewhere. The lack of definite information concerning it bears out its foreign origin and the fact that it made no headway.

Trumpets

Trumpets (pu) may be made of shell or of wood. In Samoa two types of shell trumpets were used and a doubtful type of wooden instrument. The shell trumpets have the name of their particular shells, but when a hole is bored into them, they become pu from the Samoan word pu, meaning a hole page 579This derivation of pu, while satisfactory in the Samoan dialect, may not be acceptable to the many other Polynesian dialects in which pu is used to denote trumpets.

Triton shell trumpet (pu faofao). The faofao is the widely used Cynatium tritonis with a hole a little over 0.5 inches in diameter chipped through the third whorl from the end. (See Plate L, A, 4.) No mouthpieces of wood were used, the trumpeter applying his mouth directly to the shell. The sound carries a considerable distance. The trumpets were used on the canoes returning from deep sea fishing to announce not so much their return, as the fact that they had made a good catch. They were also used by travelling parties voyaging by canoe to warn the villages of their coming, and to make a display. War parties also used the shell trumpet.

Cassis shell trumpet (pu foafoa). The foafoa is Cassis comuta and to make the trumpet the apical whorls are cut off. (See Plate L, A, 5.) The foafoa is found more commonly in Samoa than the faofao. According to a head fisherman at Papa, Savaii, the foafoa were fished for on the sandy sea bottom outside the reef. A bait consisting of the cooked underground stem of the ti was weighted with stones and let down to the bottom. This attracted the shell fish which came to feed on the cooked ti. The fisherman returned and if the shell fish had been attracted they could be seen from the surface. He then dived for them. The faofao was also caught in this manner but not so often.

The pu foafoa is used for the same purposes as the Triton shell trumpet. In modern times, the shell trumpet forms the official announcing instrument of the village magistrate (pulenu'u). Any regulation or by-law is promulgated amongst a meeting of chiefs who are called together by a crier sounding the trumpet as he passes through the village and calling the place and time of the meeting. It has become a habit on hearing the sound of the trumpet to listen for the announcement which follows. One morning a week the trumpet may be heard followed by an exhortation to the various families to go forth and bring in their quota of rhinoceros beetle to the village magistrate, which the law demands as a measure for suppressing the pest. Thus the shell trumpet has merged with the elements of the new culture, and seems assured of a prolonged period of activity.

Wooden trumpet (fa'aili niuvao). Stair (33, p. 135) describes a fa'a-ili-niu-vao as a pipe producing louder sounds than the various smaller pipes or whistles. "It was formerly much used by parties of warriors on their march, or at their general musterings and reviews—aungaau." The niu vao from which it is made is one of the Samoan wild palms.

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Sound Instruments

Instruments which are used for other purposes beside the actual production of the sound itself have been described, but leave a number of instruments in which the sound itself gives pleasure or interest to the producer. Anything that makes a noise gives pleasure to children and the use of a primitive form of Jew's harp and whistles satisfied their needs. Adults attempted to play tunes by means of flutes, pipes, and a sounding board.

Jew's harp (utete au lama). This primitive instrument consisted of the midrib from a dry coconut leaflet (aulama) which, broken off into a convenient length, was held by the left hand against the teeth and vibrated by the right hand so as to make a chattering sound against them.

Whistles (fa'aili) or small trumpets were made by children out of various leaves by winding narrow strips in a spiral form. The leaves of the banana, ti, and pandanus were used, which gave the plant name to the whistle as fa'aili laufa'i, fa'aili lauti, and fa'aili laupaongo.

Bamboo flute (fa'a'i). A flute was made of a piece of bamboo into which four to six holes were bored: In Savaii, the name given to the instrument was fa'a'i and it was played a good deal by girls. Actual tunes were attempted and as it was evidently used to play love songs between younger people of both sexes, they got more out of the instrument probably than a skilled musician of another culture. Stair (33, p. 135) refers to the instrument as a fangufangu:

The flute, o le fangufangu, made of bamboo, was a favourite instrument with the young, and from it they produced a variety of plaintive notes.

Pan's Pipes (fa'aili 'ofe). Pan's pipes were made of five pieces of thin bamboo of varying lengths. These were bound together with a lashing termed fausanga selu (comb lashing), probably the wrapped twine used with combs. It is mentioned by Stair (33, p. 135) and Wilkes (42, vol. 2, p. 142), and there is no doubt as to its presence in Samoa. The late Mr. Gosche of Savaii, himself a skilled musician, told me that he had heard and seen the Pan's pipes played at Falealupo. An old man played a plaintive tune upon them, while an old woman sang in a nasal tone a song in time to the tune. Mr. Gosche said the tune was distinctly musical and pleasing, though unlike anything he had ever heard.

Sounding board (pulotu). Stair (33, p. 135) says that the pulotu or fa'a-alii-la-iti "a small instrument used to accompany a solo, was formed by fitting loosely a thin slip of board into a bed of close-grained wood. It was beaten with two small sticks, and although the sounds produced could not have been very pleasing, it was used exclusively by the higher chiefs, some of whom were considered to excel both in this instrument and in that of the Nafa."

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Dance Accessories

Some forms of kilts were specially made for the siva dances, and other activities that took place during festivals and food presentations. At these dances, model clubs were usually carried by the village maid and manaia chief of the parties. Hence the opportunity for display in the dances gave a certain amount of stimulus to the kilt making and model club industries. At the night dances of the poula type, the stiff ceremonial relaxed somewhat and extra clothing was not so much in evidence. Different forms of dancing were indulged in, and in many the various methods of making a noise, thus adding to the efforts of the orchestra, were in vogue.

A piece of coconut leaf midrib was trimmed and the ends split and termed a sasa lapalapa. These were used by the dancers and struck against the thigh and against the sasa of a neighbor in the various evolutions of the dance.

In some dances, each performer carried a stick in either hand with which time was beaten in company with the orchestra. The sake is the dance in which the sticks are used and is said to have been introduced from Uvea Island.

Two half coconut shells (ipu) are used as cymbals, really for marking time, in a form of dance termed fiti and perhaps introduced.

Stair (33, p. 134) says that the young people of inland villages used a pipe or flute ('ofe) of bamboo which they blew while dancing the siva-a-'ofe.

Summary

Samoan methods of producing sound were materialized in instruments which display no great effort at craftsmanship yet they met the needs of the various age groups within the community. Children derived pleasure from the sounds produced by the jew's harp, whistles, and toy bull roarers, all of which were easily made from the leaves of plants. Adolescents expressed the yearnings of their age in the love songs played on simple bamboo flutes, while adults obtained a range of notes from the more carefully made Pan's pipes. Chiefs, as was their wont, maintained the distinction of class by monopolizing the sounding board.

Community needs in the dance were met by the mat bundle and bamboo rods, with which rhythmic sound produced by beating time was the essential factor. The material instruments had no special status and are thus being readily replaced by the empty benzine tin. Special craftsmanship expended its skill on the nafa gong. The gong stimulated emulation in the way of skill and introduced extra movements for the sake of display. The gong attracted the attention of the chiefs and was evidently on the way to join the sounding board as a class monopoly.

Before the advent of the pate, lali, and longo types of gongs, their functions of calling the community together must have been exercised by the nafa. It was a stationary instrument for the carrying of gongs in canoes is attributed page 582to the Tongans. The movable instrument for making announcements was the trumpet. The trumpet had high social status for it was associated with position, rank, and power. The tautai head fisherman coming in from the sea with a successful catch of shark, the travelling party grouped around a chief of rank, and the army of attack were all heralded by blasts of the trumpet. The trumpet called into activity the full resources of social organization and the village was galvanized into action that resulted in laughter or in tears.

The absence of the nose flute and the skin drum mark a gap in Samoan culture. Though the bamboo flute and Pan's pipes have now disappeared with their simple scale of Samoan instrumental music, it is interesting to note the survival of various sounding instruments which have been assigned new functions in the changing culture. The pate gong calls the children to school, the pu trumpet announces the edicts of the Government, and the loud boom of the longo calls the faithful to prayer. The instruments of a neolithic age are being exercised on behalf of the education, law, and religion of the new culture and the appeal is expressed in the forms of sound associated with the past which the Samoan people are called upon to forget.