In La Pérouse’s entire narrative of his stay in the Samoan archipelago, the only actual description he gives of a sexual act is this “sacrifice” in the “prominent hut.” We have seen that this incident concerned only, as he says, “the very small number of young and pretty island girls I referred to.” As to these “young girls” and the “sacrifice,” the description is self-explanatory. The “victims” were only “girls.” Each girl was “weeping.” She was presented by the “old women,” and then “placed within the arms of an old man” (a “chief-orator” or tulafale most probably) who spoke with her. She was apparently held by the orator during the “operation,” since this “old man” is said by La Pérouse to have himself been the “altar” on which the “sacrifice” was performed. She was presented in “the most prominent hut,” which seems to indicate a high stone base, which identifies the hut as the house of the main chief. All the blinds were lowered, and the women “sang and howled.”
What La Pérouse describes corresponds to the enactment of a nineteenth-century Samoan marriage ceremony, where the young bride was a virgin and was ceremonially deflowered. Two types of ceremony have been recorded: one (see below) where the bride was presented on the sacred ground of the village, in front of the whole community, and deflowered by an orator (of the groom’s family), and one where she was deflowered in the house, with the blinds lowered (personal notes, 1984), without any clear indication of whether the act was performed by an orator (tulafale) or the bridegroom (see discussion in Tcherkézoff 2003a, 350–70). Let me quote some passages from the first detailed descriptions available, dating from the early 1830s (the time of the first missionary visit) and the 1850s.
John Williams’ account of 1830–32 tells us how girls could be “dragged by force” and held by older people while the operation was performed, particularly “if the female objects to submit …” The bridegroom was seated in front of his group, on the village’s central, sacred ground (malae):
The female now prepares herself to meet him which in general is attended with considerable delay. The preparation is mostly attended with furious crying & bitter wailing on the part of the young woman while her friends are engaged in persuading her that what is about to take place will not hurt her. She at length consents & is taken by the hand by her elder brother. … If she does not consent to go she is dragged by force to him. She is dressed [with] scented oil … finely wrought mats edged with red feathers … on arriving immediately in front of her husband she throws off her mat and stands before him perfectly naked. He then ruptures the Hymen of the female with two fingers of his right hand [when everyone sees the blood, the women of the girl’s family] throw off their mats & commence dancing naked. … If the female objects to submit to the above ceremony which is sometimes the case persons are employed to hold her—some to hold her down others to hold her arms others her legs. She is thus held in the lap of another person while the husband ruptures the Hymen. On some occasions the parties bed immediately after the ceremonies are concluded (Williams 1984, 255–6).
Thus, these final sentences of Williams’ account likely describe the procedure that was used for the “marriages” with the French in 1787.[11] We can see that this marriage ceremony took the form of that described later by Williams, one in which “the female objects to submit.” If Samoan girls routinely expressed fear and hesitation in a marriage with a Samoan husband, we can easily imagine the terror of those girls who were brought to be married to such unknown and awesome creatures.
La Pérouse’s reference to the “matrons singing and howling” almost certainly corresponds to what William T. Pritchard (son of a pastor and briefly “consul”) observed in the 1850s: at the crucial moment the girl stood naked, greeted by the cheers of the crowd, “which were acknowledged only by her tears”:
All her mats were taken off by the old duennas;[12] who then slowly paraded her, naked and trembling, before the silent gaze of the multitude, then she was seated, with her legs crossed, on a snow-white mat spread on the ground, in the centre of the square, or malae. There the chief approached her and silently seated himself also cross-legged, close to and directly facing her. Then was the critical moment. Though perhaps more than a thousand spectators looked on, of all ages and both sexes, not a word[,] not a sound was heard. Then, placing his left hand on the girl’s right shoulder, the chief inserted the two forefingers of his right hand into the vulva, while the two old duennas held her round the waist from behind. In a moment, the chief’s arm was held up, the two fingers only extended, when her anxious tribe watched eagerly for the drops of blood to trickle down the sight of which was the signal for vehement cheers …
Once more, the old duennas loud in songs that told of rivers flowing fast water no banks could restrain, seas no reefs could check – figurative allusions to the virgin blood of the chaste bride – once more those stern old duennas led their trembling and bashful girl, still naked as before, to the gaze of the cheering and excited multitude, to exhibit the blood that trickled down her thighs. Cheers of applause greeted her, which were acknowledged only by the tears which silently stole down her cheeks.[13]
La Pérouse’s remark that “all the blinds were lowered” is also very important. As far as I know from my discussions with Samoans in the 1980s, there were only two cases where an activity would be conducted inside a house with all the blinds lowered. One was a defloration ceremony (some of the old people remembered such ceremonies from the 1930s). The other was a “meeting with the spirits” (fono ma aitu), when chiefs of the village faced with making an important and difficult decision, and needing some superhuman inspiration, met at night and silently. In all other cases, even when there is a storm, Samoans have told me that some of the blinds – or at least one – should remain up because, if all are lowered, “it becomes very dangerous.” It seemed to me, from their tone and the way they suddenly changed to speaking in a hushed voice, that having all of the blinds lowered enabled the “spirits” (aitu) to enter the house. This, therefore, posed a great danger to the people staying there. (Even as late as 1982, in several places I was told that spirits can steal the soul of a sleeping person, particularly the soul of a baby).
Although paradoxical, it should be understood that a Samoan house that is closed and has all its blinds down is in fact open to the spirits’ movement, because the social “sacred ring” of posts is then not operative. The “sacred ring,” which gives the house its significance in terms of genealogical and territorial history, is the circle of posts supporting the roof. When there is a formal meeting, each chief leans against one of the posts of the circle, sitting cross-legged. Chiefs of lesser rank sit in between posts and are called precisely that: “in-between-posts chiefs.” When the blinds are up, the “space between the posts” (va – the word is also used in the general sense of “social relation”) is significant. Each man must then choose his point of entry into the house and his sitting position according to his rank in relation to the ranks of those already seated. From these elements we can hypothesise that, when all of the blinds are down, the social circle – which is the “sacred circle” defining every Samoan social context of belonging to a group (Tcherkézoff 2003a: ch. 2, 2005a) – is no longer active, no longer socially efficacious. The house reverts back to the “Night” (Po) side of the world, where the sources of life are located, but are hidden, and must be seized from the gods and the spirits. This communication with the “Night” side was necessary when a difficult decision needed to be made (by the council, the “meeting with the spirits”) – and it was also necessary for a marriage, at least if we take into consideration the hypothesis that, at the moment of defloration, a superhuman principle had to come into contact with the bride (see below, “Conclusion (II)”).[14]
At dawn on 11 December 1787, de Langle, one of La Pérouse’s officers, and about sixty men landed with their longboats at a village in a cove on the north coast. This is where the so-called “massacre” took place. La Pérouse stayed on board his ship, and later obtained the account of the survivors who managed to get back to the ships. His journal cites only the narrative of one of the officers who was with de Langle, a certain Vaujuas. Vaujuas reported that in the cove the same arrangements had been made as during the previous day’s watering expedition at which La Pérouse had been present:
We peacefully rolled out, filled and reloaded the water casks, the natives allowing themselves to be fairly well contained by the armed soldiers, there were among them a certain number of women and very young girls [femmes et filles très jeunes] who made advances to us in the most indecent fashion, of which several people took advantage (La Pérouse 1995, 407).
The journal does not tell us how, exactly, the men “took advantage.” But, soon after, stones began to fly and the attack was launched.
These are Vaujuas’ only lines on the topic of sexual encounters. If we relate these lines to La Pérouse’s description of the “sacrifice,” we must conclude that the French only “took advantage” of the “advances” made by the young “girls.” We must therefore put forward the hypothesis that the “advances” made by the “women” were in fact only sexual gestures inviting the French to “take advantage” of the girls – we shall see that such was the case in Tahiti. If the Samoan women were really “offering” their own favours, there is no reason why the French would not have accepted them as well. And there is no reason why La Pérouse would not have mentioned it in his concluding pages and would have decided to mention only – with some hesitation – the sexual act with the young “girls.” Let us now move to Tahiti and the events of almost twenty years before.
[11] La Pérouse’s journal gives no details about digital/penile penetration. In the nineteenth-century sources there seems to be general agreement that in Samoan marriages the first sexual act was preceded by an act of digital defloration, performed by an officiant or by the bridegroom, because it was important to collect the hymeneal blood on a sacred cloth (Tcherkézoff 2003a, ch. 8). Was it the case in the 1787 meeting that the Samoans did not perform this initial procedure? Or did the French account fail to mention it because it was seen as unimportant or perhaps embarrassing?
[12] The word is of Spanish origin. Pritchard is referring to the old women who were the guardians of the unmarried daughters of Spanish royalty or nobility.
[13] The description was published by Pritchard in his “Notes on Certain Anthropological Matters” (1864, 325–6) and is cited by Danielsson (1956, 116–7). In his well-known book Polynesian Reminiscences, published two years later, Pritchard did not include this description as “amenities of decorum” forbade it, he said, and he only alluded to it: “The ordeal by which the virtue of the chief girl of Samoa was tested was as obscene as severe, and the amenities of decorum forbid the description here” (1866, 139).
[14] The “spirits” (aitu) of today may appear to be ranged only on the negative side and opposed to any idea of life. This was not so in pre-Christian times, as the first missionaries specifically note a constant mixing in the Samoan language of references to various atua (later translated as “God”) and to various aitu (later translated as “spirits”). Jolly (1996) describes a comparable case for Vanuatu.