Prayers Written At Vailima by Robert Louis Stevenson
Scanned and proofed by David Price
ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
Second proofing by Stephen Booth





Prayers Written At Vailima




INTRODUCTION



In every Samoan household the day is closed with prayer and the
singing of hymns. The omission of this sacred duty would indicate,
not only a lack of religious training in the house chief, but a
shameless disregard of all that is reputable in Samoan social life.
No doubt, to many, the evening service is no more than a duty
fulfilled. The child who says his prayer at his mother's knee can
have no real conception of the meaning of the words he lisps so
readily, yet he goes to his little bed with a sense of heavenly
protection that he would miss were the prayer forgotten. The
average Samoan is but a larger child in most things, and would lay
an uneasy head on his wooden pillow if he had not joined, even
perfunctorily, in the evening service. With my husband, prayer,
the direct appeal, was a necessity. When he was happy he felt
impelled to offer thanks for that undeserved joy; when in sorrow,
or pain, to call for strength to bear what must be borne.

Vailima lay up some three miles of continual rise from Apia, and
more than half that distance from the nearest village. It was a
long way for a tired man to walk down every evening with the sole
purpose of joining in family worship; and the road through the bush
was dark, and, to the Samoan imagination, beset with supernatural
terrors. Wherefore, as soon as our household had fallen into a
regular routine, and the bonds of Samoan family life began to draw
us more closely together, Tusitala felt the necessity of including
our retainers in our evening devotions. I suppose ours was the
only white man's family in all Samoa, except those of the
missionaries, where the day naturally ended with this homely,
patriarchal custom. Not only were the religious scruples of the
natives satisfied, but, what we did not foresee, our own
respectability - and incidentally that of our retainers - became
assured, and the influence of Tusitala increased tenfold.

After all work and meals were finished, the 'pu,' or war conch, was
sounded from the back veranda and the front, so that it might be
heard by all. I don't think it ever occurred to us that there was
any incongruity in the use of the war conch for the peaceful
invitation to prayer. In response to its summons the white members
of the family took their usual places in one end of the large hall,
while the Samoans - men, women, and children - trooped in through
all the open doors, some carrying lanterns if the evening were
dark, all moving quietly and dropping with Samoan decorum in a wide
semicircle on the floor beneath a great lamp that hung from the
ceiling. The service began by my son reading a chapter from the
Samoan Bible, Tusitala following with a prayer in English,
sometimes impromptu, but more often from the notes in this little
book, interpolating or changing with the circumstance of the day.
Then came the singing of one or more hymns in the native tongue,
and the recitation in concert of the Lord's Prayer, also in Samoan.
Many of these hymns were set to ancient tunes, very wild and
warlike, and strangely at variance with the missionary words.

Sometimes a passing band of hostile warriors, with blackened faces,
would peer in at us through the open windows, and often we were
forced to pause until the strangely savage, monotonous noise of the
native drums had ceased; but no Samoan, nor, I trust, white person,
changed his reverent attitude. Once, I remember a look of
surprised dismay crossing the countenance of Tusitala when my son,
contrary to his usual custom of reading the next chapter following
that of yesterday, turned back the leaves of his Bible to find a
chapter fiercely denunciatory, and only too applicable to the
foreign dictators of distracted Samoa. On another occasion the
chief himself brought the service to a sudden check. He had just
learned of the treacherous conduct of one in whom he had every
reason to trust. That evening the prayer seemed unusually short
and formal. As the singing stopped he arose abruptly and left the
room. I hastened after him, fearing some sudden illness. 'What is
it?' I asked. 'It is this,' was the reply; 'I am not yet fit to
say, "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass
against us."'