(Producer of Nanook of the North, who is now in Samoa making a similar picture of the South Seas for Paramount)
During my first few weeks in Samoa I was disgusted. The drenching heat did not help my feeling for the charm and spirit of the country; the natives I could only see as mobs and rabbles. The fortunes of the film seemed low indeed. These reactions, however, were simply those of any superficial traveller hovering around Pago Pago or Apia, the two ports of call. Only when I left the white man's settlements and settled down here in this incredible spot, became acclimated and began to personally know the Samoans, to live amongst them, to have them in my house, to journey with them, did my interest and enthusiasm revive. We are living in one of the finest native villages in all Samoa. Our house is one that is leased from the sole white inhabitant, trader David, here twenty-seven years. It stands within the shelter of the tall rocking cocoanuts. Beyond the screen of trees and the outline of the chocolate-topped thatched fale (house of the village chiefs) is the strip of sea, blue as blue, save for the single thin line of white which is the booming, grumbling reef (without which no South Sea island is complete).
We have put verandas around the house to screen it from the flies. Here we have our long talks with the village chiefs- speculations and discussions on the material and incidents for the film, gossip about the village- and drink our bowls of kava. Adjoining the veranda looking into a clear space among the cocoanuts stands the diminutive cabin which shelters the electric plant and projector. Farthest from it is the skeleton frame upon which is hung the motion picture screen. Our film nights are epochs in the lives of the Samoans. From villages for miles around they come- venerable gray-haired chiefs striding with the dignity of kings; the oldest of old men and women, with scampering youngsters as thick as flies around them; and the singing throngs of young men and girls, wearing flowers in their hair- until the matted ground overflows with humans crouched eager, tense and expectant for the projector's magic eye to open. But we keep them waiting, for a pageantry of village chiefs are waiting on the veranda, where at centre Taioa, our Samoan girl, the Mary Pickford of our film to be, in the strictest, most punctilious ceremony, is making our bowl of kava. While this is going on, the high chief's talking man, solemnly and with tremendous dignity arises, and resting his hand on his cane begins to speak. Unintelligible words- a pause- then trader David translates:
"We come here tonight overjoyed to find that you are well; that your family are well; and that all that belong to you are well. We are overjoyed to know that you have been well; that your family and all that you have have been well." And as the chiefs gravely nod their heads the speaker goes on. Again David translates: "And we hope that the good God will keep you and all that you have and your family well," and the chiefs' heads nod again. Then come more and more unintelligible words. The heads around us seem to have become more thoughtful, more solemn. The speaker warms to his subject. We turn to David, but his face, rapt, is turned toward the speaker. We are impatient. We shuffle in our chairs. Our gaze wanders. We almost give up, when, with a low sweeping bow, the speaker at last sits down. Eagerly we turn to David- they are overjoyed that I am well; that my family are well; that all that I have are well; that the good God may keep me and my family well, and all that I have well.
"The finest speaker on this side of the island," says David in an aside, "More words than any of 'em."
Suddenly Samuelo, our house-boy, shouts out a rapid fire of words. In slow measured time we clap hands, and Taioa, stooping low, holds out the dripping bowl of kava. "Manuia!" each drinker calls, and gulps it down. With the same punctilious ceremony (wars have been fought over the etiquette of kava drinking) from chief to chief the cup goes round. With the last drop done we all file out to join the patient throng within the deep gloom of the cocoanuts.
Karl, son of David, my right-hand man, shoots the projector light out upon the screen. The babble of voices suddenly stops. There is no sound save that of the plumes of cocoanuts rocking in the night "trade." The film comes on. In Samoan Karl calls out as best he may each title as it flashes by- which, with their Samoan slant, vivify the picture a thousand fold. The inevitable triangle develops- the lover, the girl and the crafty villain. Comments begin to fly. This is from Karl: "Did we ever see such a handsome man? See how he hungers for the girl! What a dog the villain is! By lies he keeps the girl and man apart." For a long, long hour the audience hovers between ecstacy and deep despair, but finally a crash, a thunderclap of exultation rings out upon the night. The villain is "getting his." This from Karl as the film nears its inevitably happy end: "Watch the man get near the girl. Ah, she smiles at him! He smiles at her. Now watch- ah, yes! see, he takes her in his arms- and look, she likes him! Look at her face- how she loves him." And then, amid guffaws from the men, hoots and catcalls from the youngsters and giggling from the girls: "Oh, my! If our girls were only half so kind."
Half a minute's walk through forests of mangoes and cocoanuts brings me to the laboratory which we built deep-set among the trees. The branches of one breadfruit almost overspread it. Here is where we do most of our film work, the drying and the printing- invariably to the accompaniment of the staring eyes of children peeping through the doors and windows at every little thing I do, and on the alert to pick up any scrap of paper or waste bit of film I throw away. Facing the laboratory are the great mouths of two caves which wind underground to blind unknown ends. Into the gloomy depths of one mouth the villagers come now and then to bathe. The mouth of the other we have boarded up and fitted with a door and laid steps within which lead in a half-curve down to where we have placed a large platform over the cave's deep, cold, clear water. Here the film developing tanks are set, their tops just poking through the platform, so that the cave's cold water forms a jacket around them, I spend hours developing in the blackness of this cavern, and whilst in the feeble light of the red lamp I watch the clock tick the minutes away, the choruses of my two Samoan helpers re-echo through the gloom. Natives squat waiting outside the cavern's door for us to file out with, our dripping racks of film. They peer over our shoulders as we hold the frame up for inspection against the light.
It has been no easy task to get the right characters for the film. Like the Eskimo the photographable types are few. Taioa, the taupo (village virgin) of Sasina, was my first find. Here should follow the inevitable picture- raven hair, lips of coral, orbs (meaning eyes), etc. etc. But to you, not knowing the fine type of Polynesian, such a passage at words would mean nothing. I can only say that when, after a feast of pigs, taro, breadfruit, wild pigeons, mangoes and yams, to the accompaniment of siva sivas and ta'alolos hours and hours long, I bargained for and bought her from the proud and haughty, albeit canny, chiefs of Sasina, and she and her handmaid came up the palm-lined trail to Safune, the old women here told her between their teeth that they would see that she was killed by dawn.
Competition as to who shall be in the white man's film is never-ending. Countless little imps of children in shapes and sizes and faces as various as a bag of mixed candy come hovering around our veranda and with utter artlessness assume poses or dance siva sivas or bring us a lizard or a bird or some strange flower, all for the purpose of attracting our attention- we might use them in the film.
One night Malai ("Flying Fox"), highest of all the chiefs, brought along, with his talking man, his counsellors and his two old women (always the most deadly of the tribe), his taupo, and before the glinting eyes of Taioa assured me how much more beautiful his taupo was. Whereupon, imperiously he waved his hand, his men struck up a song and his taupo bounded up and danced- not before, but at me- and the old cats of women who danced accompanying her at either side did not hesitate to put their bids on their taupo's behalf into words: "Is she not most wonderful? When does one over see such dancing?" and all the most alluring phrases they could muster. Taioa, quiescent up to now, bounded up as soon as their siva was done and danced as she had never danced before. But Malai, his talking man, his counsellors and the old women, angry, turned their gaze away. Only a supper and good cigars which my wise house-boy thrust forward and my promise to make a separate film in which appeared no women save the taupo of the great Malai prevented a breach there and then.
All of this was not for gain, but for nothing more than to advance the glory of Malai's beloved town. How much that prestige means to the Samoans you might gather from the following. There were, as is the custom, ceremonies without end when first we came- sivas by the young men, the women, the old women and the children, ta'alolos by the chiefs themselves and a great feast of wild fowl, huge wild pigs, roasted on bananas, taros, yams, mangoes and from the reef baked fishes in all the vivid colors of the rainbow- all of this to the accompaniment of speeches without end- the freedom of their town was ours; we were under their protection. They adopted us as their children, and all that they had, could say or do, was ours.
Now Annie, nurse, all the way with us from New York, has red hair- glorious red hair. The Samoans spend years bleaching their head with coral lime in order to turn it the dull color of rust- the nearest they can approach to such a crown as Annie wears. So Annie "Mumu" they call her- has become famous the island round. One day as she and Haioa and the children strolled off to swim she was brought up with a start by someone tugging her hair, and before she could turn a Samoan stepped before her. By signs and gestures he indicated his regard, tapped her shoulder, then tapped his- he was the right man for her. But Annie (Irish) gave him such a lashing with her tongue that, abashed, he slunk away. When we heard the story naturally we were indignant. To Malai a complaint was made. We had almost forgotten the incident, however, when at dusk a messenger flew up with a note from Mr. David: "Do not come out on the veranda. Stay indoors until I come." He relieved the tension, however, by coming himself in a moment more, saying the chiefs were coming, all of them to beg our pardon. We glimpsed a procession walking funereally through the gloom toward us, heads bowed low, half shielded with branches of palm. "Let them come, let them come," said David, "Do not show yourselves. Keep them waiting- it is fa'a Samoa (the custom)."
The procession crouched in the open space before the veranda, their heads bowed toward the ground, the palm branches still held over them. Before them all a solitary figure, shielded by the folds of a priceless mat, knelt on the ground. Without sound or movement they awaited the interval of our displeasure. Then Tugaga, David's spokesman, spoke up. Three times he asked them why they came, expressing his great surprise at the manner of their coming, urging them to speak, because it grieved us to see them so. Thereupon said Maumea Levu, Flying Fox's talking man: "Oh, Tugaga, let us live! Let us live!" Such was the beginning of the ceremony, whereupon the chiefs took it upon themselves to atone for the fault of one of their number who had brought disgrace upon them all and upon the good name of their beloved town. Their spokesman told of how we had to come from America, the far far country- we had come to Safune because Safune had been well spoken of to us- how they, the chiefs, had given us the highest chief names and had taken us under their protection- and now what a wretched mess it all was, the good name of Saftme wrecked forever! Could we forget? Could we forgive them? There were tears in the eyes of David's spokesman when he replied in our behalf, and as he concluded, the kneeling form before us suddenly came to life, and bowing low presented us with the priceless mat, an heirloom of the offender's family, generations old.
It was quiet in Safune the following day. Not a chief or talking man could we see. Said I to David: "Good heavens, are they in mourning still?" "Hell, no," replied he, "They are all in the offender's fale, feasting, cramming, stuffing themselves on all the precious fowls and pigs and bananas and taros and yams the poor devil owns."
Malai, the "Flying Fox," it is who has been chosen for my principal film character. He, the great chief of Safune, is the head of one of the oldest chief families of all Savaii. He is one of the big figures in Samoa and one of the few great hunters of the sea. We live side by side. My house is his house; his house is mine. There are no journeys save the ones he leads; and through him the services of every one of his townsmen are always at my call.
Robert J. Flaherty, "Picture Making in the South Seas," Film Yearbook 1924, pages 9-13.
© 1997, David Pierce, on editing and revisions (if any)
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