VII

The Administrator, as I have mentioned, was accompanied on this malanga by the Chief Medical Officer and two visiting doctors. One of these was from England, and the other was Dr. Lambert of the Rockefeller Foundation.

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At Faiaai, a village on the west coast of Savaii, where the party spent a night in native houses, Faumuina—the Leader of the Fetu—was approached by Samoans from the adjacent village of Foa, not five minutes' walk away, with a request for medical attention for a woman who was believed to be dying in childbirth. The following was among the evidence given by Faumuina before the Royal Commission (1927):

"There was a little trouble took place at the village of Foa. A woman gave birth to a child, and the arm of the child protruded first. It was thought there was a Samoan nurse in the village of Gagaemalae, and the woman was ordered to be sent there.

"Were you there at the time or are you telling us something someone else saw?—This was the explanation given to me.

"We cannot have that. You can only tell us things you saw yourself, with your own eyes?—The village pastor——

"Were you there or were you not?—I was not there, but this matter has been brought to my notice by these different people, begging me to attend to it.

"We cannot listen to what other people told you. Is there anything else you want to say concerning the Medical Department?

—I wish to state my grievance against the Chief Medical Officer of a certain thing that I saw, and about which there was nothing done. The Faipule, and the village pastor, and also the orator of the village, came and begged me——

"You cannot tell us that. You cannot tell us what conversation you had with anyone else?—I personally appeared before the doctor. I went to the doctor and explained to him about this very serious case concerning this woman. We wakened the doctor up, and he said to send the woman to the Samoan nurse. We explained to the doctor that the Samoan nurse could not deal with it, and that it was a case for him personally and should be attended to by him. The doctor then said it was better to take the woman to Tuasivi. We—the Faipule, the village pastor, and the orator—told the Medical Officer that such a thing was impossible, as the woman would die before reaching Tuasivi. Then the doctor said to take her to Apia, and they also told him that such a thing was impossible, as the woman would not live as long as that. Then, after several communications passed between them, he finally said, 'Faumuina, I cannot do anything in the matter.'

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"Is that the same woman as you mentioned when you first referred to the matter?—Yes, the same one.

"How far would it be away from Tuasivi Hospital?—A very long way. (Distance pointed out on map: some sixty miles, with a lava-field in between.)

"Was the doctor on malanga at the time?—He was, together with the Governor's party.

"What happened to the woman?—I cannot say, because the party then passed on."

As the Chief Medical Officer chanced to be taken ill just as the Royal Commission commenced its sittings, we are denied his version of the occurrence. I can say, however, that Faumuina's account was corroborated to me personally by natives, the Faiaai trader, and also the Wesleyan missionary of Gagaemalae—who was at that time a pretty decent specimen.

Failing to get a doctor, the natives then sent to the mission station at Gagaemalae, to obtain the aid of the Government-trained Samoan nurse attached to its dispensary. She refused to come along in view of the presence of the qualified Europeans. The natives then in desperation borrowed a buggy from the Faiaai trader, Mr. Ross, and drove in the opposite direction along the coast to Samata—where there was a sort of devil doctor in some repute among them. He declared that if the woman died under his hands he would be persecuted by the European medicine-men. The result was that the woman died, without medical attention, and undelivered of child. When she was dead, the natives said, they cut the child out and, I think, buried them together.