This is a collection of 134 digitised slides of Falefa, on the northeast coast of the island of Upolu, 20 km from the Samoan capital Apia. With a population in recent years of over 1500, Falefa comprises four ‘sub’ villages - Sagapolu, Saleapaga, Gagaemalae, and Sanonu. Its leading matai [chiefly] ali’I titles Leutele and Salanoa and leading tulafale [orator] titles Moeono and Iuli figure prominently in Samoan political history, particularly in relation to the district title Tui Atua, and Tama Aiga titles Tupua Tamasese and Mataafa.

The photographs were taken in Falefa by Robert Norton during four periods of sociological field research - October 1975-January 1976, August-September 1977, December-January 1980, February 1982. Norton was studying aspects of social and political change, particularly influences of the growing remittance economy. The large scale emigration of Samoans to New Zealand for wage employment was encouraged by the hurricane destruction of banana plantations in 1966 and an increasing need for industrial labour in New Zealand. Norton began his research in Falefa just nine years after the commencement of this exodus of young people to earn money to send home.

Many of the photos illustrate the changes in housing underway funded mainly by remittances in the early years of the labour emigration. A family’s success in establishing members in New Zealand’s work force was soon displayed and measured by the construction of modern houses. The change had slowly begun some years before the labour emigration wave, but was greatly accelerated by it.

Some families were a lot more successful than others in their access to remitted funds, having established several members in overseas employment. So the new era of migration and remitting brought a new dimension of economic and social inequality in the village. The inequality was sometimes quite stark in housing contrasts even between different households of the same aiga [land-owning descent group] - Traditional fale [houses] were still common in the village. Some families also used the new income to make a strong showing in their funding of fa’a’lavelave - important and expensive events such as weddings, matai title bestowals, funerals, and church dedications. The new source of economic inequality led to new dependencies between different households within an aiga.

Remittance income to village families was spent to a lesser extent in capital investments in plantation production, copra driers, utility vehicles etc; Vehicles were very few in the village during the 1970s [around half a dozen]. Although some people became successful entrepreneurs on their aiga land with the aid of remittances, more became less interested in their plantations and more contemplative of anticipated regular money gifts from emigrant family members.

Before the labour emigration wave, money income was gained mainly by the sale of produce from the land and sea [taro and other root vegetables, coconuts and copra, fish]. A few households included members with salaried jobs in town or in the village itself [the school, and the health centre], and several maintained small shops with everyday commodities purchased in Apia, Samoa’s main town. Travel to Apia 20 km to the west was mainly by bus - to schools, to visit and attend social events in other villages, or for shopping or visits to government offices, banks, hospital, lands and titles court etc

Norton also gave particular attention to leadership and authority, eventually publishing an academic paper on electoral politics at the village level. To enable him to sit with the matai [aiga titled chiefs] in the village fono [council] meetings he was given an honorary title.

Many of the photos were taken at Fono meetings - at village, sub-village, and inter-village levels. Some photos are of a Fono meeting functioning as a court hearing and judging minor disputes and imposing fines. These photos are restricted access. Norton himself once faced the prospect of attracting a fine that would be levied on the matai head of his host household if he refused to remove his beard. The village fono had for a year or two decreed it an offence for men to grow beards or long hair and for women to wear slacks. The rule expressed tension between the Fa’a’Samoa [Samoan way] and the Fa’a’Palagi [European way] that had strengthened a little with the impact of the labour migration, not just on material living conditions and social competition, but on popular consciousness, particularly in the youths who became accustomed to interactions with emigrants returning to the village for important social celebrations and to display their successes and tell stories about life in New Zealand. Norton didn’t hesitate to shave for the duration of his short stay in 1977. But by his next stay three years later the anti-beard rule had been dropped.

Please see PMB 581 for full entry.

The documents comprise:

1. Official and political papers and correspondence re presidency of the municipality of Apia, 1899
2. Miscellaneous papers and press clippings, re presidency of the municipality of Apia, 1899
3. -9. Official and political papers and press clippings re governorship of Samoa, 1900-1906 (7 vols). These include an unpublished paper by Dr Erich Schultze on 'The development of the political situation in Samoa'. Dr Schultze was Solf's successor as governor.

The Niue Centennial album 1846-1946 includes 77 photographs and maps presented as an album to celebrate 100 years of the London Missionary Society (LMS) in Niue, Rarotonga and Samoa. The photographs were taken by a New Zealand LMS delegation travelling on the Maui Pomare. They include pictures of people, life and the environment of Niue in 1946. The photographs document the Centennial celebration on 5 November 1946 and include pictures of students, men and women marching, Mission staff, crowds of people at the celebration, boys and girls dancing, music, sports and tug-of-war games, and feast offerings.
The Rarotongan section include photographs of the arrival in Rarotonga, Churches, the Mission house at Talamoa, children of the Administration School at Avarua and the Ngatangia church.

The Samoa section includes photographs of the London Missionary Society at Malua, chapels, student housing, Papauta Girls’ School and girls’ dancing.

Included in the album is a 23 page account (Items 101-121) describing the geography, people and history of Niue. The account includes a travel diary describing the 1946 NZ delegation visit and Centennial celebrations in Niue, Rarotonga and Western Samoa.
Items 122-32 include typed descriptions of the individual photographs in the album.
Among the photographs of people in Niue, there are photographs of LMS Reverend Caleb and Mrs Margaret Beharell. At the time of the Centenary Celebrations, the Beharells were residents of Niue, having been reappointed there by the LMS in 1945. They had previously lived and worked in Niue from 1920 to 1929, leaving “for the sake of their children.” The Beharells left Niue in 1949 and Rev Beharell died in Brisbane, Australia, in 1951.
Also photographed are Mr and Mrs C.R. Lankshear, of Wellington, New Zealand. The Lankshears represented the London Board of the Society and both played a part on behalf of the Society in the Celebrations. Mr and Mrs Lankshear were well known members of the Terrace Congregational Church in Wellington and of the Congregational Union of New Zealand. Lankshears’s Printing Company Ltd at 22 Harris St had been established by Mr Lankshear’s father, W.J. Lankshear, a Congregationalist and expert in the binding of bibles.

Not photographed but mentioned in the text are the Resident Commissioner and his wife, Mr Hector and Mrs Jessica Larsen. Mr Larsen officially represented the New Zealand Government and was head of the Niue Administration. In 1953, aged 45, Mr Larsen was killed at his residence on the island. Also mentioned is the Official Interpreter, Robert Rex, later to become Niue’s first Premier.
A photograph of the headstone of Robert Henry Head is also included. Head, originally a trader, was appointed in 1879 as Acting Deputy Commissioner to Niue. He lived on the island until his death at age 88 in 1921.

Another headstone photographed is that of the Reverend James Cullen, LMS missionary on Niue at the time of his death in his 55th year, 1919. Rev Cullen was first appointed in 1891 to Niue, then to Mangaia in the Cook Islands. He left Mangaia to work for a short time in Papua, moved to South Africa, returning after a number of years to the mission in Niue. He combined his missionary work with the duties of printer and translator.

Rev Robert L Challis and Mrs Challis are mentioned in the text. Rev Challis was a LMS missionary at Takamoa Theological College on Rarotonga in the Cook Islands during the period 1933-1947. On leaving Rarotonga, he worked in Auckland with Pacific Island people and helped to establish the Pacific Island Church.

Mention is also made of two memorial tablets to Rev Hutchin. Rev John JK Hutchin was principal of the LMS Training College for Native Teachers in Rarotonga 1883-1891, first Principal of the LMS boarding school Tereora College which opened in 1895, and involved in the work of the LMS Takamoa Theological College. Rev Hutchin died in 1912.

All associated with Malua Theological College, Rev JD and Mrs Copp, Rev J Hoadley, Miss Joy Fowles and Mr and Mrs Edwards are mentioned in the Western Samoa section of the diary. Rev Edwards was Principal of Malua Theological College twice, 1941 to 1948 and 1950 to 1952. Rev Hoadley followed Rev Edwards as Principal in 1953, serving until 1955.

The Oceania Marist Province Archives Series (OMPA) is the result of a special project during which records of the Catholic Church in islands of the Western Pacific were copied by Father Theo B. Cook, SM in collaboration with the Pacific Manuscripts Bureau. (Cook was born Theodorus Bernardus Wilhelmus Kok but chose to go by the name Cook in Australia: Povey, 2010). The OMPA series covers the Diocese of Tonga (OMPA 1-25), Diocese of Samoa and Tokelau (OMPA 26-74), Marist Fathers, Rome (OMPA 80-100), Diocese of Wallis and Futuna (OMPA 101-126), Diocese of Port Vila (OMPA 127-178), Archdiocese of Noumea (OMPA 179-360) and the Oceania Marist Province Archives (OMPA 361-400).

Detailed indexes were prepared for the six diocese and those records copied in Rome. These can be found at http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/pambu/collections/microfilm.php or compiled in The Catholic Church in the Western Pacific: a guide to records on microfilm (Robert Langdon, ed.), Canberra, 1986.