or the keels and other parts of vessels; indeed, the large
sea-going canoes were generally, if not always, built on Savaii, and
maritime expeditions appear sometimes to have started from its
shores.[14] In proof that the Samoans have long been settled in the
islands which they now occupy, it may be alleged that they appear to
have no tradition of any other home from which their ancestors migrated
to their present abode. With the single exception of a large village
called Matautu in Savaii, the inhabitants of which claim that they came
originally from Fiji, all the Samoans consider themselves
indigenous.[15] The Samoans and Tongans, says Mr. S. Percy Smith,
"formed part of the first migration into the Pacific, and they have
been there so long that they have forgotten their early history. All the
numerous legends as to their origin seem to express their own belief in
their being autochthones, created in the Samoan Islands."[16]

[14] Horatio Hale, _Ethnography and Philology of the
United States Exploring Expedition_ (Philadelphia, 1846), pp.
119 _sqq._; J. E. Erskine, _Journal of a Cruise among the
Islands of the Western Pacific_, pp. 102 _sq._; J. B. Stair,
_Old Samoa_, pp. 271 _sqq._ (compare _id._ p. 34 as to the
timber and canoe-building of Savaii); G. Brown, _Melanesians and
Polynesians_, pp. 358, 371 _sq._; A. C. Haddon, _The Wanderings
of Peoples_ (Cambridge, 1919), p. 36; A. H. Keane, _Man Past and
Present_ (Cambridge, 1920), p. 552. That the Samoan language,
alone of the Polynesian dialects, retains the S sound, is
affirmed by Ch. Wilkes (_Narrative of the United States
Exploring Expedition_, ii. 123). In some of the islands the name
of the ancient fatherland of the race (Hawaiki, etc.) has been
applied or transferred to the spirit-land to which the souls of
the dead are supposed to pass as their final abode. See S. Percy
Smith, _Hawaiki_, pp. 46 _sqq._; E. Tregear, _Maori-Polynesian
Comparative Dictionary_, pp. 56 _sqq._, _s.v._ "Hawaiki."

[15] G. Brown, _Melanesians and Polynesians_, pp. 360
_sq._ As to the Fijian colony in Savaii, compare T. H. Hood,
_Notes of a Cruise in H.M.S. "Fawn" in the Western Pacific_
(Edinburgh, 1863), pp. 117 _sq._

[16] S. Percy Smith, _Hawaiki_, pp. 114 _sq._

Sec. 2. _The Samoan Islanders, their character_

In spite of the many diseases prevalent among them, the Samoans are
commonly re