| Show ORIGIN OF THE SAMOANS samoa june 22 1897 among the conflicting opinions asto as to the origin of the inhabitants of samoa as well as their congeners conveners cong eners on several groups of the pacific islands I 1 will offer the following as evidence that they belong to the house of israel and came from america first according to the trad tradition tion of samoans Sa moans they first landed on and inhabited manua the most eastern island of the group this is an evidence that they did not come from the west following in this line of evidence we read in the book of mormon alma 63 58 5 8 that at least two large ships were launched into the west sea near the narrow neck which leads to the land northward and were never heard of more the question is were these two ships destroyed or were they drifted away to some of the pacific islands the probability is in favor or of the latter when we consider that the trade wind and ocean current of that part of the sphere tend wester ly it must be left to conjecture however how the scattered from island to island but that the natives had boats large enough to navigate from one group of islands to another is evident from the well known fact that not many years since the tongan people came to samoa a distance of nearly five hundred miles in sufficient numbers to conquer them second the samoans rigidly adhere to the old mosaic law of circumcision which was in force among the Nep hites and Lama till the coming of christ it will be noted that the two above mentioned boats left 54 B C the laws of moses being in full force at that time third the samoans have EL a custom of embalming their dead an old israelite custom gen 50 60 26 fourth both among the american indians and the samoans is the custom represented in the law of moses by an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth e g if john doe should k kill I 1 11 richard roe the roe family would seek revenge until they had got a man from the doe family anus a manfor man for a man or an eye for an eye etc fifth there is a custom among the samoans of cutting off a womans comans nose for the crime of stealing another wo mans husband by marrying him the same custom is prevalent among some of the tribes of american indians the writer to is familiar with this custom among the apache indians of arizona sixth the girls of samoa often gather themselves together to sing and to dance and to make themselves merry exclusive of the men a custom that existed among the ancient inhabitants of america book of mormon mosiah 20 1 seventh the syntax of the samoan language in many points resemble the bedrew the above are a few indirect eviden ft ces I 1 have leaned gleaned principally through my own observations and not having access to any writings of the ethnology of the race it is possible that I 1 have omitted much very valuable evidence while it is almost impossible to glean sufficient data to establish definitely the origin of the samo ans the fact that they observe some of the laws of moses and that a number of the customs of both the samoans and the american indians are identical taken in connection with the other evidences seems when looked upon in the light of reason to render the argument strongly in favor of them belonging to the house of israel and most likely drifted from Ameri american ean shores WILLIAM A MOODY |
