One of my
biscuit tins and a live calf were among the spoils he
claimed, but the large majority of the cooked food (having
once proved his dignity) he re-presented to the King.
Then came the turn of LE ALII TUSITALA. He would not dance,
but he was given - five live hens, four gourds of oil, four
fine tapas, a hundred heads of taro, two cooked pigs, a
cooked shark, two or three cocoanut branches strung with
kava, and the turtle, who soon after breathed his last, I
believe, from sunstroke. It was a royal present for 'the
chief of the great powers.' I should say the gifts were, on
the proper signal, dragged out of the field of food by a
troop of young men, all with their lava-lavas kilted almost
into a loin-cloth. The art is to swoop on the food-field,
pick up with unerring swiftness the right things and
quantities, swoop forth again on the open, and separate,
leaving the gifts in a new pile: so you may see a covey of
birds in a corn-field. This reminds me of a very inhumane
but beautiful passage I had forgotten in its place. The
gift-giving was still in full swing, when there came a troop
of some ninety men all in tafa lava-lavas of a purplish
colour; they paused, and of a sudden there went up from them
high into the air a flight of live chickens, which, as they
came down again, were sent again into the air, for perhaps a
minute, from the midst of a singular turmoil of flying arms
and shouting voices; I assure you, it was very beautiful to
see, but how many chickens were killed?
No sooner was my food set out than I was to be going.
Pages:
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213