Old Samoa

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29384, 10 December 1960, Page 3

Old Samoa

This little collection of tales. “Stories of Old Samoa” (Whitcombe and Tombs, 48 pp.), will interest older people as well as the children (for whom it is intended) for the author, Fanaafi Maciaci, is a distinguished member of her race and at present a university teacher in New Zealand. She writes in clear flowing English that is particularly appropriate to the stories she has gathered. Readers of “Stories from Old Samoa” will agree that there is an atmosphere of carefree fantasy about these tales that sets them a little apart from many similar collections. “The Sacred Trees,” for instance, begins as a tale of revenge, but whether Lata in his canoe, “that as soon as it touched the water, bounced about as if eager to go,” would ever accomplish his purpose is left in doubt. “The Stolen River” is a graceful exploration of the fact that Apolima has a swiftly running stream, while neighbouring Manono has only a few shallow pools. Even more poetic is “Sina in the Moon,” Sina was spirited away, and “later when the moon reappeared in the sky, the people could faintly see the outline of Sina, her baby child and the tapa board, in the moon. And there they are to this day.” . “Vaea and Apaula” is of particular interest; for Vaea was a giant who was completely turned into rock and so became a great mountain. The author writes: “It was in the eastern foothills of Mount Vaea that years later a writer of stories from Scotland came and built himself a house. This man loved the ‘Giant,’ and when he died the people of Samoa cut a path called the Road of Loving Hearts to the top of Mount Vaea, at whose summit they buried him.” Several of the stones have similar links with other early visitors to old Samoa. One of the most surprising of these is the concluding tale, “A Kingdom from Heaven.”