en
appear to be honourably distinguished by their modest behaviour and
fidelity in marriage, qualities which contrast with the profligacy of
their sex in other branches of the Polynesian race.[21] Equally
honourable to the men are the respect and kindness which, according to
the testimony of observers, they pay to their women, whom they are said
to regard as their equals.[22] The aged were treated with respect and
never abandoned; and strangers were always received in the best house
and provided with food specially prepared for them.[23] Infanticide,
which was carried to an appalling and almost incredible extent among
some of the Polynesians,[24] was unknown in Samoa; abortion, indeed, was
not uncommon, but once born children were affectionately cared for and
never killed or exposed.[25] Wives and slaves were never put to death at
a chief's burial, that their souls might attend their dead lord to the
spirit land[26], as was the practice in some of the other islands, even
in Tonga. Again, human sacrifices were not offered by the Samoans to the
gods within the time during which the islands have been under the
observation of Europeans; but in some of the more remote traditions
mention is made of such sacrifices offered to the sun. Thus it is said
that in the mythical island of Papatea, somewhere away in the east, the
sun used to call for two victims every day, one at his rising and
another at his setting. This lasted for eighty days. At such a rate of
consumption the population of the island was rapidly wasting away. To
escape the threatened doom, a brother and sister, named Luama and Ui,
fled from Papatea to Manua, the most easterly of the Samoan islands, but
they found to their consternation that there too, the sun was demanding
his daily victims. Every house had to supply a victim in succession,
and, when all had yielded the tribute, it came to the first house in
turn to renew the sacrifice. The victim was laid out on a pandanus tree,
and there the sun devoured him or her. When the lot fell on Luama, his
heroic sister Ui insisted on taking his place, and lying down, she
cried, "O cruel sun! come and eat your victim, we are all being devoured
by you." But the amorous sun fell in love with her and took her to wife,
at the same time putting an end to the human sacrifices. Another story
affirms that the heroine was a daughter of the King of Manua, and that
he yielded her up as an offering to the sun in order to end the
sacri