The Papalagi

CHAPTER THREE The Papalagi Contributors: Malama Meleisea Penelope Schoeffel Meleisea Isalei Va 'ai Gatoloai Peseta S. Sio Sofara Aveau Salale Salale I'iga Suafole Tanuvasa Tavale Explorers from Europe in the Eighteenth Century There are hundreds of legends and genealogies which record contact and intermarriage between Samoans, Tongans and Fijians. These are supported by historical records from the eighteenth century, before Samoans had established regular contacts with Europeans. For example, Sanalala, an ancestor of Salamasina, was a son of the then Tui Tonga's daughter. There were many other important, chiefly descend-ants of Tui Tonga; the mother of Salamasina was Vaetoifaga, who married the Tui Tonga. This Tui Tonga also married Taupoimasina, the daughter of Muli'agatele Lefono of Amoa. Another legend tells of Leutogitupa'itea, the daughter of Lafailapaitagato from Pouliafata in the village of Vaisala, who married Tui Tonga Niutamatou. Their son, known as To'osega or Fa'asega, brought the ao title, Tonumaipe'a, to Samoa. To this day there is a place called Neiafu in Western Savai'i and a place of the same name on the island ofVava'u in Tonga. Another descendant of Tui Tonga in Samoa was Le'aumoana, whose mother Maupenei was the daughter of La'ulunofovaleane. She married Tui Tonga Puipuifatu, the son of Tui Tonga Vakafuhu, whose wives, Popoai and Taufaito'o, were from the family of Leali'ifanovalevale of Samoa. Malietoa 41 Taufapapa was another Samoan chief descended from Tui Tonga. His mother, Silepea, was descended from Mata'afa of Faleata and Malietoa Sagagaimuli. She married Tui Tonga Takalaua. There are also titles and place names in Samoa which originate from Fiji. The first Tuisamoa, an ancestor of Salamasina, came to Falealili from Fiji. The village of Poutasi is named after Tuisamoa's house which was said to have been built in a Fijian style, with one post. The village of Fagamalo is also said to have been found by Fijians, and the famous aitu of Fagamalo is 'Tui Fti'. Another story explains how Matautu, Sataua, Salega and Safotu in Savai'i were founded by the children of Laufafaitoga. She was the daughter of Tui Tonga, and her husbands were Tupa'imataua of Samoa and Lautala of Fiji. The ancestors of chiefs in the village of Vailele in the Vaimauga district were descended from Tinu'ula and Timu'ula, who went to Fiji and married Tui Fiti. Their children brought the kava plant to Samoa. Another well-known story is 'The Fala of Futa' This tells of a beautiful fine mat woven in Tutuila by a lady called Maofa. This mat was carried to Tonga as a gift for Tui Tonga in return for the lives of some Samoans there. According to legend, the mat was brought back to Samoa by the daughter of Tui Tonga Takalaua, who gave it to Lesapioamoa of Pu'apu'a village in the Amoa district. From that event Samoan fine mats were called "ie toga'. (There are other versions of the name "ie toga'.) These legends show that Samoa was not totally isolated in the past, and that Samoans traded, visited, and intermarried with some neighbouring societies. Nevertheless, Samoans had no knowledge of countries beyond the Pacific Ocean, or the more distant ones within it, and when the first European explorers arrived off the shores of Samoa in the eighteenth century, it must have been as strange an event as the arrival of men from outer space would be today. The term papalagi for European originates from that time. It means sky-breakers or to have burst through heaven. Samoans envisaged the universe as a dome, ending at the horizon. The dome had many layers above, where the gods lived. When the Europeans arrived, it was thought that they had broken through the domes of heaven and that Europeans were, like gods, of supernatural origin. This was a common reaction in many parts of the Pacific; for example, in Hawaii, Cook's visit coincided with a festival for the god Lono, and the Hawaiians thought Cook was Lono himself. In other parts of the Pacific, the first European visitors were mistaken for returning ancestors. Once Samoans realized that the Europeans were humans like themselves, their ideas about the world and the shape of the universe must have been profoundly disturbed. They had no way of understanding where these strange visitors came from, the origin of many things 42 that they brought with them, or why they had come. Before the fifteenth century, the Europeans, just like Samoans, knew very little about the world. It was generally thought that the world was flat and that if ships sailed too far west, they would fall over the edge. At this time there was great rivalry between European kingdoms, such as Spain and Portugal, to find trade routes across the seas to new lands from which gold and spices and other valuable products could be obtained. The navigator Christopher Columbus wanted to prove that the world was round by sailing west from Europe to reach India and China, and returning to Europe from the east. In trying to demonstrate his theory, he discovered North America and New World in 1492. It was not until 1522 that the world was circumnavigated successfully by a fleet led by Magellan, a Spaniard, who sailed from South America and across the Pacific to the Philippines, where he died. His crew returned to Europe on the regular trading route between Europe and the East Indies, to tell of their captain's discovery. Other voyages were made across the Pacific by the Spanish navigators Mendana and Quiros in 1567 and 1595. Such voyages took many years to complete; European marine technology was not highly advanced and the voyages were very dangerous. The long months at sea without fresh food caused the crews to become ill with scurvy, a disease caused by vitamin C deficiency. There was no accurate means of measuring longitude in those days; thus, the European navigators could not make accurate maps and charts locating Pacific islands they had visited. Nevertheless, these long voyages provided European seamen with new knowledge which enabled them to improve ship building, navigation and mapping. In the seventeenth century the Dutch became the leading sea- faring nation in Europe and, in 1642, Abel Tasman sailed close to Samoa without realizing it, when he discovered the islands of Tonga while crossing the Pacific to the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia). The first European to describe the Samoan islands was Joseph Roggeveen, a Dutch navigator who sailed to the Pacific in 1721 to look for the 'Terra Australis Incognita' (the unknown southern continent) which many European navigators and geographers believed must lie in the south Pacific Ocean. Roggeveen called at Manu'a, where he exchanged beads and mirrors for food. In 1768, the islands of Samoa were sighted by the French navigator Louis de Bougainville, who gave them the name 'the Navigator Islands', because he encountered Samoans sailing small canoes far from the sight of land, and he assumed that they must have good knowledge of navigation to do this without getting lost at sea. The third recorded visit to Samoa by Europeans resulted in violence when the French explorer, La Perouse, landed on Tutuila. 43 After an initially peaceful encounter, his men were attacked by a party of Samoans and twelve were killed, probably because the French had punished some Samoans for stealing from the ship. Following this incident, La Perouse sailed along the coasts of Savai'i and Upolu before continuing his voyage. In 1791, the British ship, Pandora, was attacked off the coast of Tutuila. The crew opened fire on the Samoans and many were killed. This may have been the first experience Samoans had of the power of the guns of the papalagi. By this time, European knowledge of navigation had advanced. The famous English navigator, Captain James Cook, had made three voyages to the Pacific, and had discovered the 'Southern Continent', Australia. Towards the end of the eighteenth century, improved marine technology, and more accurate maps and charts, had opened up the way for European trade in the South Pacific. Whalers, Traders and Beachcombers (The late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries) During the latter part of the eighteenth century and the early nineteenth century, goods which were in demand in Europe included whale bone and whale oil, and furs from the north and south Pacific. Whale bone was used in making corsets for women. This required a flexible framework for which whale bone was ideal. Whale oil was used in lamps in the days before petroleum and gas became widely used and, in Europe's cold climate, the upper classes wanted furs for coats. The Pacific coast of North America a rich source of fur-bearing animals and whales, as were the southern areas of the Pacific ocean. This brought many ships to the Pacific from the 1780s onwards. Goods from China, especially tea, silk and porcelain, were also greatly in demand by the wealthier classes of Europe, and the North American colonies. Ships sailing to China from the east across the Pacific had to sell something to the Chinese to be able to buy these things from them. Thus, the Pacific trade developed. Whaling and sealing vessels came into the Pacific from North America and Europe and, after long months in the cold northern and southern latitudes, sailed to the central Pacific and its tropical islands to collect fruit, pork and other foods. The settlement of Port Jackson in the colony of New South Wales in Australia developed along with trade in the Pacific, and provided a market for pork from the Pacific Islands.

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