Palagi and Samoan culture

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33775, 22 February 1975, Page 10

Palagi and Samoan culture

Flying Fox in a Freedom Tree. By Albert Wendt. Longman Paul Pacific paperback. 148 pp. N.Z. price $2.50. Albert Wendt has followed his novel, “Sons for the Return Home” with this collection of short stories and a novella written • from a contemporary Samoan point of view. His stories deal with Samoan civil servants, pimps, pastors, prostitutes and the effect of palagi (European) culture on their attitudes. The implication is that Church and police

have not put them right, but h«v« unwittingly misled them with comic and sometimes tragic results. The first story. “A Descendant of the Mountain.” tells of a Samoan chiefs grief at the death of his wife ln an epidemic introduced by the white man. Semi-assimilated Christianity, confused with traditional belief/ causes him to seek a reason for the epidemic in his own wrongdoing Ihiview of a stem Calvinist God wreaking vengeance is contrasted with the simple mating which led to the chiefs marriage. In the next story. “The Cross f Soot.” set in a Samoan prison, a tattoo symbolises the stigmata. After that, the stories are less concerned with symbolism and more successful, drawing direct unpretentious portraits of people in a communin caught between the old ways and the new Two stories, “Captain Full — the Strongest Man Alive who got Allthing Strong Men got,” and “Virgin-wise — the Last Confession of Humble Man who is Man got Religion,” use the Samoan form of pidgin English to good effect:“In mine neighbourhood you buy strong home-brew beer drive man crazy mad. It also got woman and allthing men want to have bad — but this not mean mine neighbourhood evil sinful bad. It not.. .If you sin Church put you right or police put you right path again.” “Flying Fox in a Freedom Tree” shows a talent for lively writing and a ■great deal of insight into the strengths, motivations and weaknesses of Samoan characters. Moreover, the wav in which these stories reflect the acceptance of physical violence as an integral part of Samoan justice should make them required reading for those

dealing with Samoan assault cases in New Zealand. Albert Wendt was principal of Samoa College for nine years. He has now taken up an appointment at th# University of the South Pacific in Fiji.