o quarter was given to men in battle, and captives were
ruthlessly slaughtered. Women were sometimes spared for the use of their
captors. Nor did death save the conquered from the insults and outrages
of the insolent victors. The slain on the battlefield were treated with
great indignity. Their heads were cut off and carried in triumph to the
village, where they were piled up in a heap in the place of public
assembly, the head of the most important chief being given the place of
honour on the top of the pile. However, they were not kept as trophies,
but after remaining for some hours exposed to public gaze were either
claimed by the relatives or buried on the spot. The headless trunks were
given to children to drag about the village and to spear, stone, or
mutilate at pleasure.[35] The first missionary to Samoa was told in
Manua that the victors used to scalp their victims and present the
scalps, with kava, either to the king or to the relatives of the slain
in battle, by whom these gory trophies were highly prized. He mentions
as an example the case of a young woman, whose father had been killed. A
scalp of a foe having been brought to her, she burnt it, strewed the
ashes on the fire with which she cooked her food, and then devoured the
meat with savage satisfaction.[36] But the climax of cruelty and horror
was reached in a great war which the people of A'ana, in Upolu, waged
against a powerful combination of enemies. After a brave resistance they
were at last defeated, and the surviving warriors, together with the
aged and infirm, the women and children, fled to the mountains, where
they endeavoured to hide themselves from their pursuers in the caves and
the depths of the forest. But they were hunted out and brought down to
the seashore; and an immense pit having been dug and filled with
firewood, they were all, men, women, and children, thrown into it and
burnt alive. The dreadful butchery went on for days. Four hundred
victims are said to have perished. The massacre was perpetrated at the
moment when the first missionaries were landing in Samoa. From the
opposite shore they beheld the mountains enveloped in the flames and
smoke of the funeral pile. The decisive battle had been fought that
very morning. For many years a great black circle of charcoal marked the
scene and preserved the memory of the fatal transaction.[37]

[35] J. Williams, _op. cit._ p. 456; Ch. Wilkes, _op.
cit._ ii. 150 _sq._; W. T. Pritchar