Then, again, these villages, in numbers of eight or ten, united by common consent, and formed a district, or state, for mutual protection.  Some particular village was known as the capital of the district; and it was common to have a higher chief than any of the rest, as the head of that village, and who bore the title of King.  Just as in the individual villages the chief and heads of families united in suppressing strife when two parties quarrelled, so it was in the event of a disturbance between any two villages of the district, the combined chiefs and heads of families of all the other villages united in forbidding strife.  When war was threatened by another district, no single village acted alone; the whole district, or state, assembled at their capital, and had a special parliament to deliberate as to what should be done.

These meetings were held out of doors.  The heads of families were the orators and members of parliament.  The kings and chiefs rarely spoke.  The representatives of each village had their known places, where they sat, under the shade of bread-fruit trees, and formed groups all round the margin of an open space, called the malae (or forum), a thousand feet in circumference.  Strangers from all parts might attend; and on some occasions there were two thousand people and upwards at these parliamentary gatherings.  The speaker stood up when he addressed the assembly, laid over his shoulder his fly-flapper, or badge of office similar to what is seen on some ancient Egyptian standards.  He held before him a staff six feet long, and leaned forward on it as he went on with his speech.  A Samoan orator did not let his voice fall, but rather gradually raised it, so that the last word in a sentence was the loudest.  It is the province of the head village to have the opening or king’s speech, and to keep order in the meeting; and it was the particular province of another to reply to it, and so they went on.  To a stranger the etiquette and delay connected with such meetings was tiresome in the extreme.  When the first speaker rose, other heads of families belonging to his village, to the number of ten or twenty, rose up, too, as if they all wished to speak.  This was to show to the assembly that the heads of families were all at their post, and who they were.  They talked among themselves for a while, and it ended in one after another sitting down, after having passed on his right to speak to another.  It was quite well known, in most cases, who was to speak, but they must have this preliminary formality about it.  At last, after an hour or more all had sat down but the one who was to speak; and, laden by them with the responsibility of speaking, he commenced.  He was not contented with a mere word of salutation, such as, “Gentlemen,” but he must, with great minuteness, go over the names and titles, and a host of ancestral references, of which they were proud.  Another half-hour was spent with this.  Up to this time conversation went on freely all round