Samoa Family Quotes

The splitting off of the Oceanic branch of this language family is thought to have taken place in the neighborhood of the Bismarcks around the time of the first Lapita settlement, and it is strongly linked with the rapid colonization of the islands between there and Samoa between 1500 and 1000 B.C. Thus, the reconstruction of Proto-Oceanic opens a window onto the otherwise fairly mysterious Lapita world. Little survives in archaeological contexts in the tropics—none of the baskets or cordage or wooden housewares, no foodstuffs or clothing, no buildings apart from stone foundations and the dark impressions left by long-decayed posts. But something of the texture of these people’s lives can be extracted from their reconstructed vocabulary, working back through the ages via whatever was essential enough to pass on.

For at least a century, anthropologists have largely played the role of gadflies: whenever some ambitious European or American theorist appears to make some grandiose generalizations about how human beings go about organizing political, economic, or family life, it’s always the anthropologist who shows up to point out that there are people in Samoa or Tierra del Fuego or Burundi who do things exactly the other way around.

We had the whole Pacific Ocean in front of us, with nothing to do but do nothing and be comfortable. The ship was not very well arranged for tropical service; but that is nothing, for this is the rule for ships which ply in the tropics. She had an over-supply of cockroaches. He petted the horse a moment to secure its compassion and its loyalty. The tabu was the most ingenious and effective of all the inventions that has ever been devised for keeping a people's privileges satisfactorily restricted. It is easy to make plans in this world; even a cat can do it; and when one is out in those remote oceans it is noticeable that a cat's plans and a man's are worth about the same. The rounded velvety back of some of the mountains made one want to stroke them as one would the sleek back of a cat. It made one drunk with delight to look upon it. The Honolulu of my time - in my time it was a beautiful little town, made up of snow-white wooden cottages deliciously smothered in tropical vines and flowers and trees and shrubs; and its coral roads and streets were hard and smooth and as white as the houses. there were no fine houses, no fine furniture. There were no decorations. There was nothing reminiscent of foreign parts, for nobody had been abroad. Trips were made to San Francisco, but that could not be called going abroad. Comprehensively speaking, nobody traveled. Somewhere or other among these myriads Samoa is concealed and not discoverable on the map. Still, if you wish to go there, you would have no trouble about finding it if you follow the directions given by Robert Louis Stevenson to Dr. Conan Doyle: You go to America, cross the continent to San Francisco and then it's the second turning to the left. To get the full flavor of the joke one must take a glance at the map. There are people who can do all fine and heroic things but one - keep from telling their happinesses to the unhappy. Summer seas and a good ship-life has nothing better. Monday. Three days of paradise. Warm and sunny and smooth, the sea a luminous Mediterranean blue. One lolls in a long chair all day under deck-awnings and reads and smokes, in measureless content. Three big cats - very friendly loafers; they wander all over the ship, the white one follows the chief steward around like a dog. There is also a basket of kittens. One of these cats goes ashore, in port, in England, Australia and India, to see how his various families are getting along and is seen no more until the ship is ready to sail. No one knows how he finds out the sailing date, but no doubt he comes down to the dock every day and takes a look and when he sees baggage and packages flocking in, recognizes that it is time to get aboard.