Great Great Grandpa Paramount Chief Moi Moi, signer of the Samoa/American Treaty 1901
"Grandpa Moimoi was a stern, stout, no-nonsense, warrior-like (no one dared upset him), and visionary man. His wish was to unite the two Islands of Western and American Samoa. As the story was told to me he requested that his son Palepoi Afamasaga Taaga Mauga marry the Paramount Chief of Western Samoa's daughter, Sipusi Malepeai. My father baptized my grandfather Palepoi Mauga a member of the Church, and my Father was baptized a member in 1957. He was ordained a High Priest by James E. Talmage. Being a visionary man, he moved us to Laie, then to the mainland in hopes to increase our opportunity for education and betterment. I have a great respect for my ancestors. Men and Women of vision!", quoted by Benjamin Molifua(son of HR Princess Sulimoni Mauga Molifua)
After doing a paper for my global citizens class at the University of Utah. I felt the need to report some of my feelings here on my blog.
We were asked about international "boo boo's", if we had studied any and how we felt about them.
I recently completed a course titled, "Pacific Islanders", where I studied many the misconceptions and perceptions of Pacific Islanders. We studied a one, Margaret Mead and her influence on the Island of Samoa. Her study was done largely in the western island of Samoa but I chose this because Western Samoa is where my Great Grandmother Chiefess Sipusi Malepeai Mauga's family is from. She was alive when Margaret Mead's book was being recognized and sold in the US. She was becoming a huge part of Samoa's rich honorable history only to be dehumanized with the rest of Samoans to the western world as a sexual savages.
*Later in 1941, my great grandfather Paramount Chief Palepoi Afamasaga Mauga and Chiefess Sipusi Malepeai Mauga would be exonerated by National Geographic's magazine article of Samoa (American Samoa). Even though they were being documented nationally there were still confusions within the United States and New Zealand which created a boost in researchers making the trip out to the islands. Then the fight for Independence for Western Samoa began, which is a whole other story...
Here are some of my thoughts just on Margaret Mead's influence in Samoa taken from my Global Citizen's paper:
Margaret Mead and Samoa
HUGE International “boo boo”
Margaret Mead was America’s poster girl for Anthropology after she did her thesis on the life of young girls in the Islands of Samoa. The book she wrote was called, “ Coming of Age in Samoa”. The actual research contained in this book is highly controversial and It was uncontested for many years as western technology was not yet accessible to the people of the Islands. In fact, Samoa has only really been connected to current technology in the past 20 years and it still lacks accessibility that we have ready and available here in the United States..
The reason I choose this topic is because I am a direct descendant of The High Chiefs and Chiefesses of both Islands of Samoa. A large part of the way we are viewed today is a product of the way Margaret, an american anthropologist, had taken it upon herself to misinterpret our identity to that of a sexually naive and savage race, All in the name of anthropology and after only a few short months on the Islands.
HUGE international “boo boo”.
It has taken decades for our people to reclaim their identities, and social statuses to say the least.
Very effective ways to prevent these types of mishaps by well educated anthropologists is to let indigenous people write about their native lands. Don’t write a generalization of the Island culture after spending less than 5 months isolated in the forest with only young girls and women you can barely understand with the limited amount of the language you learned previously to your arrival. Those are just some suggestions, but find it insanely frustrating that someone so educated, surrounded by the finely educated elite of anthropological researchers could pull off such an “undiscovered find”. Actually there lies another international boo boo…
The fact that Margaret knew that Samoa was a 3rd world country and that the indigenous people, at the time were mostly uneducated and vulnerable to the outside world makes her research and book a bundle of weesley lies, disgracing our culture and traditions and misinterpreting them to all the world. Did she really think the world would not evolve to a point where Samoans would be educated enough to retaliate? Basic knowledge is that any anthropologist would know better:
I wonder if she was worthy of the titles and awards at the time she received them for this particular study.
There was a “debunking” of sorts documented here:
Directed by Frank Heimans, 1987. Presents evidence in the controversy generated among anthropologists by Derek Freeman's refutation of Margaret Mead's Coming of age in Samoa.
There was also remarks acknowledging these mistakes,
"The greatest fault lies with those of us like myself who understood the requirements of science, but both failed to point out the deficiencies of Mead's work and tacitly supported such enterprise by repeatedly assigning it to students." [1(b)],quoted by Dr. Martin Orans, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Riverside.
So sad that it was just “too little too late”.
I think the hardest part for me today as an educated Samoan American, after studying my heritage, culture and traditions is to watch the westernization of our Samoa right before my eyes, helpless to the ancestors of my past, loaded with the burden to change the overlooked intricacies because of, what were thought of as at the time, small “faux pauxs”. It is because of histories like these that Margaret Mead created with the help of the anthropological societies of America that I believe that tourism is important when achieving it without leaving too much of a print. Otherwise it is another form of destruction of life.
It is saddening to me to read of these histories and know what my ancestors went through but feel honored and proud to be one of their posterity. All that they suffered to better their lives and that of there posterity inspires me today and for that I am truly thankful.
Here is a brief historical documentation of some of the hardships of the fight for Indepence of Western Samoa.
During the 49th celebration of the Independence of the western island of Samoa, this report was aired:
