sAMoA. 633 



Thebe friendly liospitalities often produce a happy effect : many 

 family quarrels and old feuds and long-standing animosities 

 have been wiped out on such occasions. Sometimes, however, 

 an opposite result has been produced. Perhaps by accident, 

 more frequently from ill-feeling and jealousy, the proper 

 portion, in accordance with Samoan etiquette, has been with- 

 held from a chief expecting to receive it, and sent to another 

 not so entitled to the mark of dignity. This neglect would 

 provoke an angry and resentful feeling in the minds of the 

 offended chief and his followers. Feuds and wars have arisen 

 from such a slight cause — slight in our estimation, but a very 

 serious matter in their ideas. 



Parliamentary councils are held in the princi]>al village or 

 town of the district, and they are attended by all the chiefs 

 and head men of the district. At these assemblies the more 

 important affairs of the commonwealth are considered, laws 

 are made for the regulation of the community, and war and 

 peace settled in these deliberations. On a declaration of war 

 messengers are despatched to all the villages, who simply run 

 through the villages, adorned with long yellow streamers and 

 bearing such streamers flying from a spear-point. This was 

 a sufficient intimation, and in a very short time the clans 

 assembled in the chief village. 



At the fonos (council) public offenders are arraigned and 

 their punishment adjudged. Law was administered in a very 

 loose and ii'regular manner ; for the most part every man 

 was a law unto himself, and did what was right in his own 

 eyes. An injured party would become his own judge, jury, 

 and executioner. Blood-revenge was insatiable until a 

 victim had been obtained to appease the thirst of vengeance — 

 the taai-7na-sui (i"eward and substitution). 



The tribes of New Caledonia and the Loyalty Islands, as 

 far as can be judged from lack of historical or legendary 

 information, were formed by family divisions among the 

 original proprietors of these islands. A wide diversity in 

 their languages, yet bearing some slight marks of affinity, 

 gives ground for supposing that they did not come fi'om a 

 common stock, though their ancestors may at some distant 

 period have been related. The races are not so broken and 

 distinct as among the inhabitants of the New Hebrides. 



There are not so many chiefs comparatively as in Samoa, 

 and those which exist possess moi-e power over the tribes, 

 and are more despotic and tyrannical. The office is here- 

 ditary, and the people have no voice in the matter. If a 



