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Robert Norton photographs of Falefa village, Upolu, Samoa

  • AU PMB PHOTO 156
  • Collection
  • 1975 - 1982

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.

Norton, Robert

Reverend Conrad Stallan, album of photographs, New Hebrides (Vanuatu), 1940-1946

  • AU PMB PHOTO 109
  • Collection
  • 1940 - 1946

Album of photographs and two loose images taken by Reverend Conrad George Stallan, who was a missionary stationed on Malekula in the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu) from 1940-1946. Supported by the John G Paton Mission Fund, Stallan was based in Wintua, South West Bay, Malekula, with his wife Christina (Chriss) and their children Donovan, Roger, Janet, and Margaret. During his life, Stallan was a keen photographer. He maintained a dark room on Malekula to develop and print his photographs, as well as later while stationed in Georgetown, British Guiana, 1955-1961.

The original images are mounted in a barkcloth/tapa bound album, accompanied by typed captions. See item PMB PHOTO 109-000 for a PDF of full album layout. The album contains numerous images of the Big Nambas region of Malekula. During the war, regulations forbade Europeans, including Stallan, from entering the Big Nambas area. However, Stallan was lucky enough to accompany a US Army patrol to the area, which included a member of their publicity section. Some of the images are possibly taken by that US photographer. High Chief Nisai of Amokh is one of the named people in those images, and it is likely multiple photographs are from Amokh village itself. The album also includes photographs from South West Bay, Malekula, captured around the Wintua mission. Several young women associated with the mission are named in the photographs (see individual items)

Stallan, Conrad George

Reverend Conrad Stallan, album of photographs of the New Hebrides (Vanuatu), 1940-1946

  • AU PMB PHOTO 111
  • Collection
  • 1940 - 1946

Album of photographs taken by Reverend Conrad George Stallan, who was a missionary stationed on Malekula in the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu) from 1940-1946. The original images are mounted in a black bound album, accompanied by typed captions. See item PMB PHOTO 111-000 for a PDF of full album layout. Some pages are missing photographs.

Supported by the John G Paton Mission Fund, Stallan was based in Wintua, South West Bay, Malekula, with his wife Christina (Chriss) and their children Donovan, Roger, Janet, and Margaret. During his life, Stallan was a keen photographer. He maintained a dark room on Malekula to develop and print his photographs, as well as later while stationed in Georgetown, British Guiana, 1955-1961.

Stallan, Conrad George

Reverend Conrad Stallan, album of photographs of the New Hebrides (Vanuatu), 1940-1946

  • AU PMB PHOTO 110
  • Collection
  • 1940 - 1946

Album of 226 photographs taken by Reverend Conrad George Stallan, who was a missionary stationed on Malekula in the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu) from 1940-1946. The original images are mounted in an album, accompanied by handwritten captions, some of which are now faded. See item PMB PHOTO 110-000 for a PDF of full album layout. Many images are of the Stallan family, particularly in the years 1940-41, as well as a number of named Malekulan adults and children. The album includes photographs captured at the Wintua mission station, and Mindu and Aulua villages, Malekula, as well as on Toman island and several images of Santo.

Supported by the John G Paton Mission Fund, Stallan was based in Wintua, South West Bay, Malekula, with his wife Christina (Chriss) and their children Donovan, Roger, Janet, and Margaret. During his life, Stallan was a keen photographer. He maintained a dark room on Malekula to develop and print his photographs, as well as later while stationed in Georgetown, British Guiana, 1955-1961.

Stallan, Conrad George

Reverend Conrad Stallan's photographs of the New Hebrides (Vanuatu), 1940s

  • AU PMB PHOTO 104
  • Collection
  • 1940 - ?

A collection of photographs taken by Reverend Conrad George Stallan, who was stationed on Malekula in the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu) from 1940-1946. Supported by the John G Paton Mission Fund, Rev Stallan was based in Wintua, South West Bay. During his life, Stallan was a keen photographer. He maintained a dark room to develop and print his photographs in both Malekula and Georgetown, British Guiana, where he was stationed in 1955-1961.

Stallan, Conrad George

Reverend Conrad Stallan's photographs of the New Hebrides (Vanuatu), 1940-1946

  • AU PMB PHOTO 107
  • Collection
  • 1940 - 1946

A collection of 58 photographs taken by Reverend Conrad George Stallan, who was stationed on Malekula in the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu) from 1940-1946. Supported by the John G Paton Mission Fund, Rev Stallan was based in Wintua, South West Bay. Stallan was a keen photographer. He maintained a dark room to develop and print his photographs in both Malekula and Georgetown, British Guiana, where he was stationed in 1955-1961.

Stallan, Conrad George

Resident Commissioner's Office: Correspondence with Pukapuka Resident Agents

  • AU PMB MS 1411
  • Collection
  • 1921-1953

This collection includes correspondence between the Resident Commissioner’s office with the Pukapuka Resident agents. Topics covered include correspondence, memorandums, telegrams, medical news, health alerts on the island, beetles and insects, burial of the dead, building proposals, ordering supplies from Burns Philp, health, trade and vital statistics, land and succession cases, native school, disputes.
Information about plants, legal cases, improvement to the residency, public works and water supplies, shipping etc.
Includes information on the hurricane damage of 19 Feb 1962, government properties, school inventory, another hurricane in January 1944, Maude's inspection of the islands for possible relocation of Gilbert Islanders on 17 August 1944, annual reports, mat making, shipping of copra
Includes correspondence, information on unrest in Pukapuka and copra growing and shipping.
Includes correspondence, information on the island council, re-purchase of Nassau island with a proposal for working and settling on Nassa in September 1950, information on coconut termites in September 1950

Cook Islands Administration

Research notes on the Gilbert Islands

  • AU PMB MS 1057
  • Collection
  • c.1956-1962

Educated at Cambridge, Harry Maude spent the years 1929-48 working as a civil servant and administrator in various Pacific Islands, in particular the British colony of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands. From 1948-57 he worked for the South Pacific Commission, following which he worked as a Research Fellow for the Australian National University Research School of Pacific Studies until 1971. He has published widely on aspects of Pacific Islands history and was a prime mover in the establishment of the Pacific Manuscripts Bureau. The bulk of his personal papers are held at the University of Adelaide Barr-Smith Library. A refined version of some of Professor Maude’s research notes on the history of the Gilbert Islands has been published as, H.E. Maude (compiler), The Gilbert Islands Observed. A source book of European contacts with and observations of the Gilbert Islands and the Gilbertese, Adelaide, Homa Press, 2006; 148pp.

Seven volumes of typescript and Ms research notes and transcripts relating to the history of the Gilbert Islands, microfilmed in the following order:
Gilbert Islands (general) 1870-1879
Gilbert Islands (general) 1880-1889
Gilbert Islands (general) 1890-1899
Gilbert Islands (general) undated
Gilbert Islands (general) to 1849
Gilbert Islands (general) 1850-1859
Gilbert Islands (general) 1860-1869
The documents in each file are arranged in chronological order. The notes were taken from such sources as the Archives of the Western Pacific High Commission and various newspapers. Interleaved is some of Maude's original correspondence relating to the Gilbert Islands. Topics covered in the notes include missions, the labour trade, copra, customs, trading activities, health, education, historical events, murders, Ocean Island and visits of ships.

Maude, H. E. (Henry Evans), 1906-

Reports of deputations and secretarial visits to the South Seas, Papua etc.

  • AU PMB MS 709
  • Collection
  • 1915 - 1966

The reports are of the following deputations and secretarial visits:<BR>1. Revs A.J. Viner, G.J. Williams and Frank Lenwood, June 1915 - June 1916<BR>2. Rev. V.A. Barradale, April - September 1919<BR>3. Rev. V.A. Barradale, August 1926 - June 1927<BR>4. Rev. Norman Goodall, March 1939 - April 1940<BR>5. Rev. C. Stuart Craig, May 1952 - March 1953<BR>6. Rev. C. Stuart Craig, 13 July - 8 September 1960<BR>7. Rev. C. Stuart Craig, 16 April - 17 May 1961<BR>8. Rev. C. Stuart Craig, 11 February - 15 May 1963<BR>9. Rev. E.J. Edwards, 23 May - 24 June 1966

London Missionary Society

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