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Samoan Material Culture

Analysis of Data

Analysis of Data

Both Stair and Pritchard inferred that the framework of a typical Samoan round or elliptical house had been built of stone. As the outer circumference is marked by upright stones, they held that these were the wall posts of the house. The house thus occupied the full area of 45 feet by 50 feet. This is larger than the usual fate tele house. We have seen that the fair sized round house in Fitiuta was 31 feet 7 inches long by 27 feet 6 inches. The exceptionally large house in Iva was 54 feet by 45 feet. In the house at Fitiuta the center pillar was 20 feet high and in the house at Iva, 32 feet. Both Stair and Pritchard calculated the height of their center stone pillars as being 13 feet. Such short central pillars could not serve a house of the large dimensions indicated by the wall pillars. Pritchard (24, p. 119) stated that the wall pillars each had a notch or shoulder on the inner side to support the roof. Samoan wall posts are notched on the outer side for supporting the walk plate. Pritchard calculated the length of stone rafters as being 30 feet, in three pieces, two 12 feet lengths and one 6 foot length. Such lengths were not seen by me but admitting that they were present in Pritchard's time, how page 327were they joined? If not joined, how were they supported in the span between ridge pole and wall plate? Pritchard speaks of allowing for the curve made by Samoan carpenters in their rafters. How could such a curve be made with three pieces of rigid material? From a purely technical point of view, the Samoan carpenters, even if directed by the god Le Fee, could not possibly construct the roof framework with the stone material available. Details of lashings and supports have to be disposed of before an actual construction in stone can be considered seriously. The idea of a stone house evidently existed in thought and imagination. A certain amount of material was mobilized but the actual stone structure complete in all its parts never materialized. It could not on the ground plan indicated. The thirty-foot stone rafters stood in the way of practical accomplishment.

When Stair visited the site in 1845, twelve or thirteen of the side posts were still standing. When Pritchard visited it years later, eighteen were standing. Five or six posts had been erected by visitors. When I saw them they all gave one the impression of being temporary erections. I had to stop my two companions from erecting a few more. In Stair's time, the center pillars were down but one had been raised on Pritchard's visit and again fallen by 1928. Stair (34, p. 242) stated that some of his companions had seen them standing. It has thus been the habit of even early Samoan visitors to play with the stones and erect or knock them down as the fancy seized them. The present situation of individual stones has therefore not been a fixed one.

In assessing the value of Le Fale o le Fee as a relic of a bygone megalithic culture, certain facts stand out:

(1).The stone was never cut by human agency as Pritchard (24, p. 120) inferred. They were not even split off the cliff face by fire and water as Stair (34, p. 242) believed. Such basaltic prisms occur naturally in other parts of the Pacific in basaltic formations. It is unnecessary to imagine an early people building fires at the base of the cliff and carrying water up from the stream to split off prisms to experiment in building a house that they had no technique for completing.
(2).A stone house was never completed on the site marked by the stones. As I visualize the circumstances, the site between the fork of the streams with the basaltic cliff at, the back intrigued the imagination in early times. The Polynesian is more readily influenced by freaks of nature or by the uncommon than most people imagine. The basaltic columns were talked about by fowlers and others who had seen them. The site became a camping ground and a place of interest that was visited. People played with the fallen blocks and let the imagination evolve around the idea of using the pillars as house material. A paepae (circular house platform) was built from smaller blocks and waterworn stone from the streams. Pillars were carried and set up page 328loosely round the circumference where wall posts should go. Larger pillars were set up in the center in the position of the pou tu of a wooden house. The priests and the people may have got the idea of building a god house to Le Fee. Something of this nature occurred as indicated by tradition and by the quantity of stone transported from the base of the cliff. An actual house of wood may have been built on the platform. With the building of the house platform and the erection of side and central pillars, stone construction ceased. The use of stone to provide leaning posts was quite sufficient to give the structure the name of fale ma'a (stone house). Tradition and myth have been built round it to explain formations near at hand said to be coral brought from the reef by Le Fee but Stair (34, p. 243) showed them to be calcareous spar.