The Days of a Man 1902 



Lack of haps three reasons their innate love of freedom, the 

 incentives ease w ith which food can be obtained, and the com- 

 munistic habit by which individual earnings are at 

 once swallowed up, any indication of getting ahead 

 being a signal for the arrival of family relations. 

 Such visitations occurred whenever I paid off Vaiula, 

 one of our fishermen, and once he had to borrow a 

 shilling of me to go to the village circus, where his 

 own boy was the chief acrobat of the evening. Taua, 

 another of our helpers, coming from a distant island 

 and so being (for the time, at least) relieved of those 

 inflictions, was notably thrifty. 



Samoans as a whole have long been adherents of 

 one or another form of the Christian religion, the 

 majority being followers of the Congregationalist 

 London Missionary Society which many years ago 

 "Mizhon- began to convert the people to "mizhonery." Since 

 er y" that time, in their simple and practical language 

 everything connected with religion takes on the name 

 of mizhonery. The church of coral blocks thatched 

 with coco leaves and with floor of coral sand over- 

 large through competitive zeal is mizhonery. Miz- 

 honery also is the sermon, as are the shirt waists and 

 white duck suits worn on Sunday, and the ringing 

 Moody and Sankey hymns turned into their own 

 language. These last are a source of great delight. 

 Thus many a Sunday afternoon is spent in singing 

 mizhonery, and during the evening from the boats, 

 and sometimes throughout Monday, the joyous 

 ia-uwa-ia-uwa calls to one to "hold the fort, for I 

 am coming." 



Not all the people, however, are truly mizhonery, 

 for the Catholics are well represented in the island, 

 Mata'afa having been himself of that faith; the Mor- 



C no 3 



