Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before by George Turner
page 122 of 222 (54%)
page 122 of 222 (54%)
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They have stories of a _giant race_, and tell particularly of one called _Tafai_. He was very tall and strong, but not cruel to any one. He could throw a long cocoa-nut tree at the rocks as if he were but hurling a thin spear. He plucked up by the roots a great Malili tree, eighty feet high, carried it off on his shoulder, branches and all, and could throw it up and catch it again as if he were playing with a small crab. It is said, too, that so great was his weight, if he put his foot on a rock it left a footprint as if the rock had been soft sand. _Diseases._--Pulmonary affections, paralysis, diseases of the spine producing humpback, ophthalmia, skin diseases, scrofulous, and other ulcers, elephantiasis, and a species of leprosy, are among the principal diseases with which they were afflicted. Ophthalmia and various diseases of the eye were very prevalent. There were few cases of total blindness; but many had one of the organs of vision destroyed. Connected with diseases of the eye, pterygium is common; not only single, but double, triple, and even quadruple are occasionally met with. The leprosy of which we speak has greatly abated. The natives say that formerly many had it, and suffered from its ulcerous sores until all the fingers of a hand or the toes of a foot had fallen off. Elephantiasis, producing great enlargement of the legs and arms, has, they think, somewhat abated too; only, they say, it prevails among the _young_ men more now than it did formerly. Insanity is occasionally met with. It was invariably traced in former times to the immediate presence of an evil spirit. If furious, the party was tied hand to hand and foot to foot until a change for the better appeared. Idiots are not common. Consumption they call "Moomoo;" and there were certain native doctors who were supposed to |
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