with all that is necessary to provide for the feasting, and other
things connected with the ceremonies. He, on the other hand, has to
give them ample compensation for all this, by distributing among them
the fine mats which he gets as the dowry by his bride. A chief is
careful to marry only in the family of a chief, and hence he has, by
his wife, a portion worthy of the rank of a chief's daughter. To some
extent, these heads of families are the _bankers_ of the chief. His
fine mats almost all go to them, and other property too. They, again,
are ready with a supply whenever he wishes to draw upon them, whether
for fine mats, food, or other property.

No lover of money was ever fonder of gold than a Samoan was of his
fine mats. Hence the more wives the chief wished to have, the better
the heads of families liked it, as every marriage was a fresh source
of fine mat gain. To such an extent was this carried on, that one
match was hardly over before another was in contemplation. If it did
not originate with the chief, the heads of families would be
concocting something, and marking out the daughter of some one as the
object of the next fine mat speculation. The chief would yield to
them, have the usual round of ceremonies, but without the remotest
idea of living with that person as his wife. In this way a chief, in
the course of his lifetime, might be married well on to fifty times;
he would not, however, probably have more than two living with him at
the same time. As the heads of families were on the look-out to have
the _sons_ and _daughters_ of the chief married as often as they could
also, it can be imagined that the main connecting links between the
heads of families and their chief, and that which marked him out most
prominently as a superior, was this marriage, or rather polygamy
business.