IX

With regard to the government of Samoa, John Williams said that every settlement was a little independent state, governed by its own chief, or chiefs, who did not appear to him to possess very extensive authority. Indeed, he was informed that if a chief was oppressive, it was not an infrequent occurrence for the tribe to assemble and condemn him to death. In this case his son, or some other relative, was generally nominated as his successor. During war an aged chieftain was appointed both to preside in their councils and act as generalissimo.

There appeared, he continued, to be no principal chief exercising kingly authority over the whole group, as at the Society¹ and other islands; unless Tamafainga, whose office was in many respects peculiar, might be so considered. Yet a power of this kind, he said, must have been vested somewhere; for a month or two prior to his arrival an influential chief who had endeavoured to excite a war was put to death, after a regular trial. This trial lasted three days; and the execution took place on the day after it was terminated.

"I suppose the authority in such cases to have been vested in Malietoa and others; for immediately after this event the whole tribe came to Sapapalii, each carrying a stick of firewood, a stone, and some leaves: and on arriving in front of Malietoa's dwelling they prostrated themselves, and held out the token of their submission. The chief then ordered them to arise, and cast away these emblems of their degradation; and having done this, they entered his house, kissed his feet, and, after page 50receiving assurances of pardon, presented cloth and mats as an atonement, and returned home. As wood, stones, and leaves are used in preparing the native ovens, they may have been designed to signify that the culprits were at the mercy of the chief, and that they had brought the materials with which they might be baked, if he commanded it; or the act may have been intended simply to intimate that they were his slaves, to cook his food and perform his servile work."

Cannibalism, as admitted by John Williams, seems never to have been practised in Samoa.