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- 2719
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- CHAPTER XXIV.
Dedicated To The College Of Physicians And Surgeons
By this time Samoa’s wounded arm was in such a state, that amputation
became necessary. Among savages, severe personal injuries are, for the
most part, accounted but trifles. When a European would be taking to
his couch in despair, the savage would disdain to recline.
More yet. In Polynesia, every man is his own barber and surgeon,
cutting off his beard or arm, as occasion demands. No unusual thing,
for the warriors of Varvoo to saw off their own limbs, desperately
wounded in battle. But owing to the clumsiness of the instrument
employed—a flinty, serrated shell—the operation has been known to last
several days. Nor will they suffer any friend to help them;
maintaining, that a matter so nearly concerning a warrior is far better
attended to by himself. Hence it may be said, that they amputate
themselves at their leisure, and hang up their tools when tired. But,
though thus beholden to no one for aught connected with the practice of
surgery, they never cut off their own heads, that ever I heard; a
species of amputation to which, metaphorically speaking, many would-be
independent sort of people in civilized lands are addicted.
Samoa’s operation was very summary. A fire was kindled in the little
caboose, or cook-house, and so made as to produce much smoke. He then
placed his arm upon one of the windlass bitts (a short upright timber,
breast-high), and seizing the blunt cook’s ax would have struck the
blow; but for some reason distrusting the precision of his aim, Annatoo
was assigned to the task. Three strokes, and the limb, from just above
the elbow, was no longer Samoa’s; and he saw his own bones; which many
a centenarian can not say. The very clumsiness of the operation was
safety to the subject. The weight and bluntness of the instrument both
deadened the pain and lessened the hemorrhage. The wound was then
scorched, and held over the smoke of the fire, till all signs of blood
vanished. From that day forward it healed, and troubled Samoa but
little.
But shall the sequel be told? How that, superstitiously averse to
burying in the sea the dead limb of a body yet living; since in that
case Samoa held, that he must very soon drown and follow it; and how,
that equally dreading to keep the thing near him, he at last hung it
aloft from the topmast-stay; where yet it was suspended, bandaged over
and over in cerements. The hand that must have locked many others in
friendly clasp, or smote a foe, was no food, thought Samoa, for fowls
of the air nor fishes of the sea.
Now, which was Samoa? The dead arm swinging high as Haman? Or the
living trunk below? Was the arm severed from the body, or the body from
the arm? The residual part of Samoa was alive, and therefore we say it
was he. But which of the writhing sections of a ten times severed worm,
is the worm proper?
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