Samoa Under the Sailing Gods
VI
VI
Shortly before I had transferred to Savaii, in 1923, the Administrator mentioned to me that he was starting a "boy movement"—with the idea, so he said, of inculcating discipline into the youth of the country, of which he remarked (incorrectly) that they did not get enough in their home lives.
Accordingly, the Sea Scouts had been merged into a new organization, called the Star, or Fetu, which had already, in 1924, largely as a result of compulsion exercised by the Fai-pules, made considerable progress in Upolu.
In August of that year the Administrator set out on his annual inspection of Savaii. He was accompanied by various white officials, including the Chief Medical Officer, and also by two visiting doctors—Lambert and Buxton. I saw something of the party at their starting-point, Fagamalo. One incident there impressed itself vividly upon me. A sandy road overhung by palms, and dusk has already fallen. There comes the blaring of a bugle and the throb of a drum, and suddenly from the gloom emerges the Administrator, closely followed by a short column of native youths with red topless fezzes, white singlets, and scarlet lava-lavas. They are headed also by the physically enormous high-chief Faumuina—with red sash of office across his bosom. I had barely time to step aside—for I had not known of the presence of the Fetu in Savaii—and in a few seconds they had vanished again into the gloom, with somewhat of the strange and orderly exuberance of a band of urchins.
This particular squad was recruited from the youth of Apia, and accompanied the Administrator on his malanga round Savaii, being designed to initiate the movement in that island. Their example, although no doubt so intended, cannot have been entirely to the good, for they thieved from the very Residency at Fagamalo itself. In this respect, however, they were no worse than the Sea Scouts who had accompanied the Administrator on his first malanga, in 1923. Their penchant had been for breaking into trading-stations and stealing beer: a misdemeanour which at least one trader had found himself at a loss how to report.
At the Seventh Session of the Permanent Mandates Commission, 1925,
"M. Rappard said his attention had been called to an article in the Wellington Evening Post, in which the Superintendent of Schools of the mandated territory, Mr. Rutherford, had made a very interesting statement on the admirable scout movement. There was a badge worn by the Boy Scouts, the five rays of which represented God, King, Country, Mind, and Body. He ventured to suggest that possibly another ray might be added to represent the League of Nations."
This scintillating suggestion, I regret to have to record, gave no evidence of being favoured with adoption.