missionary style

“There was a woman in the jungle, and a monkey on a tree;
The missionary man, he was following me...
He said “Stop what you're doin'- get down upon your knees,
I've a message for you that you better believe.”
Eurythmics- Missionary Man

What there is of recorded Samoan history, owes a lot to the missionaries of the London Missionary Service (LMS). Prior to their 1830'sh arrival...(the year, not the time, although 18:30 is a sensible time to appear if you're expecting dinner)...anyway, prior to their arrival, Samoans had kept their history orally for over 2000 years.

If you've ever tried to convey a message accurately through two or more people, you'll know that there's a good chance that the outcome won't be precisely what you intended. However, Samoans pledge their oral system was flawless, passed word for word through generations, translated absolutely accurately...like when princess Sina tragically fell in love with a giant eel whose severed head became a gift coconut...(it's also possible that legend and history become merged over this tri-millenial game of Chinese Whispers).

A few exceptional missionaries saw the opportunity to record some of what existed, in stories that had been created and evolved over some 80 generations...before it was lost.

Welcomed at first by some important regional chiefs, LMS branded protestant christianity found a captive audience.

Samoa already had gods. Gods who governed the seas and the seasons, the crops and the people- gods like the great Tagaloa. But when papalagi ("the skybreakers”) appeared, the Samoan gods were forced into concession by their believers.

There might be an intricate set of reasons for giving up your beliefs, in the face of new and incredible things...but for the sake of a short blog, I'll endorse the common simple theory...wealth.

To a culture for whom iron tools were a nifty concept; whose fabrics were not just seasonal but vegetable, and who thought beef was something for rival hip-hop crews; a boatload of white men in tailored trousers and brogues; bearing everything from axes to corned meat and cotton; who arrived on ships larger than the biggest known fale... appeared wealthy beyond imagination.

Such riches had literally never been imagined. And these pale new arrivals came to say (roughly) that if you followed their God, you too might find yourself on a home sized canoe, crossing oceans seeking new types of potato, and have your trousers made to measure...(or at least die and share in paradise).

Regardless of what they said- the palagi God appeared to have endowed whites with some very cool stuff.

The old Samoan gods bought coconuts, and babies and rain at the right time- which was nice- but they didn't create individual wealth on the same scale of the God who made pointy, smoke sticks that killed things from a long way away (which is a very useful tool to have, if you're tired of solving your political differences from the same distance as Rory McIlroy deals with a ball near a tree - a club length.)

So, new Gods were gratefully embraced and the old were forgotten...to an extent.  In truth, they simply evolved, the old became the new. Samoans adapt- so Tagaloa adapted. Samoa accepted Christianity, without completely relinquishing fa'asamoa...

Within 20 years of the LMS arrival-  Catholic Marists, Methodists and others followed, and were received in a similar fashion, much to the chagrin of the LMS. While the missionaries might have argued fundamental differences- to Samoa, they clearly all believed in the same God. So with typical hospitality, they were welcomed.

By the 1900's, Samoa had been divided into territories by the major Churches, and the majority of the population were converted Christians.

And Sunday became a very quiet day indeed...