10 Cooperation and Competition

In the early 1930s, largely in response to the writings of Benedict and Mead, the Social Science Research Council in the United States became „actively interested in developing as one of its areas of concentration, the field of personality and culture.“ A major expression of this interest was the publication, under the editorship of Mead, of a survey of the competitive and cooperative habits of the members of thirteen different „primitive societies.“ As well as appending a lengthy interpretative statement to this survey, Mead contributed chapters on the Arapesh and Manus and a specially written study of the Sa-moans.¹

In 1928 Mead had asserted that in Samoa a youth must „never excel his fellows by more than a little,“ and in 1931 she advanced the sweeping generalization that Samoan culture had taken the road of „eliminating … interest in competition.“ In 1937, in Cooperation and Competition among Primitive Peoples, where cooperation is defined as „the act of working together,“ and competition as „the act of seeking or endeavouring to gain what another is endeavouring to gain at the same time,“ Samoa was classified as a markedly cooperative society. Although in Samoan social organization a tendency for individuals to rebel against subordination and to foment trouble and rivalry is always present, this, Mead argued, is not so strong as the opposite tendency, which is to „place each individual, each household, each village, even (in Western Samoa) each district, in a hierarchy, wherein each is dignified only by its relationship to the whole … and competition is completely impossible.“ Thus, „competitiveness between villages usually does not reach important heights of intervillage aggressiveness,“ and when „rivalry situations occur between young men in the free lovemak-ing which precedes marriage … it is notable that these have the same unrealistic character as the rivalries which occur between villages.“ The Samoans then, as depicted by Mead, are markedly cooperative, having a society (as she stated in 1950, when expatiating on the ease of Samoan life) in which „competition is muted and controlled.“²

As I noted in Chapter 8, the individuals, families, and local polities of Samoa are indeed, as Mead states, arranged in hierarchies according to rank; it is, however, a cardinal error to suppose that within these hierarchies, with their ceremonious formalities, competition has been eliminated. While it is true that within all Samoan polities there are established orders of precedence, it is crucially important to realize that these orders of precedence are the institutionalized expression of an intense and pervasive competitiveness, and that while they are generally effective in its regulation, this competitiveness nonetheless remains inherent in the entire system. Indeed, among a people as obsessed with rank as the Samoans, there is a marked accentuation of competition for the numerous benefits that rank confers. Situations are generated at all levels of the social structure in which, as we have seen, the omnipresent competitiveness is liable to break through the constraints of convention into open contention and conflict.

This is certainly how Samoans see their own society. For example, during a political fono held on the south coast of Upolu in February 1967, one of the participating titular chiefs remarked of Samoa: „This country is indeed competitive,“ and went on to warn his fellow chiefs that intense competitiveness almost always ended in trouble and often in outright fighting. At this, another ali'i agreed that competitiveness was truly the principal feature of Samoan life, being intrinsic to the age-old rank system of Samoa, and therefore a much more potent force than the ethics of the Christianity of which Samoans had been adherents for only a relatively short time. Again, the 44-year-old daughter of a titular chief remarked to me, quite spontaneously, in September 1966: „The Samoan way is truly difficult, with constant competition for land and titles, nothing being gained but discord.“

Similar conclusions have been reached by numerous European observers of Samoan behavior. In his 1832 journal Williams noted the „extreme jealousy“ of respect for rank that existed among the Samoans, and made mention of the „very favourite“ Samoan amusement of fighting with clubs made from the butt-ends of coconut palm fronds, saying it was no uncommon thing for one of the contestants to be severely injured and fall senseless to the ground from a blow on the head. Arms were also frequently broken.³

In 1834 Thomas Nightingale witnessed one of these ritualized club-fighting contests that were so common in pagan Samoa. Held on the island of Manono, in western Samoa, it was attended by „three thousand persons habited in their war costumes,“ a great number of whom had „arrived from adjacent islands, each desirous of outvieing his neighbor in dexterity and warlike prowess.“ As Nightingale reports:

The scene commenced by each warrior menacing the other, partly in words, but still more forcibly by expressive gestures, thus mutually signifying a wish that the opposing party should begin hostilities—then, retiring to their respective stations, they successively engaged in single combat, in a most scientific, and sometimes too effective manner, each warrior inflicting blows of such overwhelming force on the head of his opponent, as to render it a matter of surprise, to the bystanders, how any human skull could escape unfractured. No quarter was granted, until one of the contending parties was rendered insensible, or his club broken. Should any unfair advantage be assumed during the encounter, on either side, immediate death was the offender's portion. At the conclusion the successful combatant seats himself before his chief, whose approbation he receives, then retires amongst his own party, who further celebrate the victory by loud yells and acclamations.⁴

Nightingale goes on to remark that these contests, although commenced as a mere trial of skill, are so „stimulated by rivalry and competition“ as to often become means of exciting serious jealousy and revenge. Such a breakdown of ritualization was witnessed by the missionary Charles Hardie during a club-fighting contest between two local polities on Savai'i in July 1837. On this occasion one contestant was disabled and his club shattered, whereupon the party of his opponent raised a shout, which, because the defeated combatant had not fallen, gave offense to his supporters. Immediately, there were „manifest signs of war in earnest“ as the offended party rushed upon their rivals with stones. Hardie commented that „civil and mild as the Sa-moans generally appear to us, they are as bears and tigers when excited by anger.“⁵

Ritualized club fighting, which, as these accounts show, was fiercely competitive, took place at all levels of the rank structure between the members of different extended families of the same village, between villages, and between such great districts of the island of Upolu as Atua and A'ana, which were virtually separate realms, each with its own high chief. Stair has given an account of club fighting between Atua and A'ana and of the highly sarcastic songs that were sung in the excitement of competition, when the champion of one district triumphed over that of another. Thus when a contestant from A'ana fell and was unable to rise, those of Atua, after emitting shouts of triumph and derision, would sing a song that ended with the wounding words, „A'ana, whose pastime is fighting, you are eating earth and rolling in the grass!“⁶

Club fighting among young warriors was paralleled in pagan Samoa by the highly competitive chiefly sport of netting pigeons, which was conducted at especially cleared and constructed mounds in the forest. At these sites, chiefly contestants from all over Samoa would assemble, each with his favorite decoy pigeons. These birds had been trained to fly, as directed by their owners, at the end of long strings. When a wild pigeon approached, the contestants would try to entangle it in a net fastened to the end of a long pole. The chief who netted the greatest number of wild pigeons was, in Turner's words, „the hero of the day,“ and received from the less successful competitors the food and other property they had all wagered. Pigeon netting, as Krämer records, was first and foremost the sport of high chiefs, whose ardor for it was such that „at times nothing could move them to call a halt to their passion“ and they would „spend many weeks without interruption in the forest.“ The competition for the renown that came to an especially skilled netter of pigeons sometimes had tragic consequences. Schultz records a case, famous in Samoan history, that took place at Olo, a pigeon-netting site in Savai'i. Uluma, a celebrated exponent of the art, was struck down by Tapusoa, „who was jealous of his reputation as a hunter,“ and then subjected to the grievous insult of being „cut up like a pig.“ For this flagrant act Tapusoa himself was treated in like manner by one of Uluma's kinsmen. The incident is remembered in the proverbial expression 'O ula i Olo, which is applied to any extreme form of retaliation.⁷

Turner, Stair, and others have described diverse other competitive activities of the pagan Samoans, such as spear-throwing, dart-throwing, „boxing,“ and wrestling, as well as numerous other contests like that reported by Turner in which a man engaged to „unhusk with his teeth and eat five large native chestnuts“ before another could „run a certain distance and return,“ this being for a wager of a basket of coconuts.⁸

In the second half of the nineteenth century these traditional forms of ritualized competition were gradually supplanted by new forms of sport, particularly by cricket, which was introduced by the crew of a British naval vessel and was taken up throughout the islands with immense enthusiasm. Having been adapted to Samoan conditions with a bat shaped like a war club, cricket matches were soon being arranged, as a mission report of 1888 records, with „two hundred a side,“ and with play continuing „during the whole day for a month at a time, to the utter neglect of home, plantations and worship.“ This total absorption in a new form of contest led to attempts by both church and government to outlaw cricket; it has, however, become a game that is played with lively competitiveness by males and females of all ages in virtually every Samoan village. All manner of other contests have also been introduced, as, for example, racing in long-boats, volleyball and baseball, and, in Western Samoa, rugby football.⁹

In villages it is still the custom for any number of individuals to make up a side in cricket, and such is the competitiveness of children that it is common to see one fielder hitting another of the same side who has beaten him to the ball. Cricket matches are taken most seriously, and I have often seen fights on a cricket pitch over disputed decisions. Usually there are elders or talking chiefs at hand, armed with staffs, who swiftly intervene to restore the peace. On occasion, however, the fighting can be serious, as for example during a cricket match in a village on the north coast of Upolu on 27 July 1966. A 22-year-old man, Solo-mua, was so put out when his side was beaten that he hurled the ball at one of the opposing team, Motu, who at once retorted, „Don't play with such bad spirit, you excrement eater!“ A fight ensued in which Motu was stabbed in the thigh by Solomua, who was later convicted and sentenced to nine months' imprisonment. As this example indicates, as do the many others that I might instance, the rank-conscious Samoans become so deeply involved in contests that there is an ever present likelihood that participants in ritualized competition will resort to outright violence against their opponents.¹⁰

The evidence I have presented reveals the Samoans to have long been an intensely competitive people in contests of all kinds. This same competitiveness is to be found in virtually all other areas of their society. This is not to say that Samoans are not capable of cooperation. They are, in fact, conspicuously proficient at working together in diverse ways. This cooperation, furthermore, is most effective when one unit in their society, say a local polity, is openly competing with another unit of the same kind, whether it be in playing cricket, staging a major ceremony, or making a collective offering to the church. This cooperation, moreover, exists side by side with intense competition at other levels; thus, within the local polity its component sections are in competition, and within these sections their component families.

Tales of highly competitive encounters abound in the traditions of Samoa. I have already dealt in Chapter 9 with the most celebrated of all these encounters, that of the lethal rivalry of Ali'a Matua and Ali'a Tama in ancient Manu'a. Dr. Peter Buck was told in Manu'a in 1927 that when in ancient times Malietoa arrived from Savai'i, and one of his talking chiefs was outwitted by Le Polo of Ta'ü, he killed this unfortunate retainer „for not being able to compete.“ In Savai'i there is the well-remembered tale of Fatu and Sala who belonged to different sections of the village of Safune. Having become involved in an argument, these two women set out for their taro gardens to establish which of them did the most work, a contest that ended when Sala died of exhaustion. In Upolu, probably the most historic rivalry is that of the two talking chiefs Ape and Tutuila, of the closely related polities of Fasito'outa and Fasito'otai, who, in the late sixteenth century, went to Safata on the south coast of Upolu to carry off the high-ranking infant son of Vaetamasoa, who became the founder, as Krämer notes, of the Tui A'ana line. When these two talking chiefs returned to their own district, so fierce a quarrel took place over the possession of the royal infant that it has become enshrined in ritual. An account of this ritual, as it was performed at a kava ceremony attended by the Tui A'ana in 1901, has been given by S. Osborn. When, during this sacrosanct kava ceremony, the current holders of the titles of Ape and Tutuila began to quarrel ritually, so convincing was their performance that Governor Solf intervened to try to stop them. In the full version of this ritual, as Osborn describes it, Ape and Tutuila contend so violently for the possession of a live piglet that they tear it in two, each of them making off with his own portion—a primevally competitive ritual if ever there was one. Again, Shore has given a detailed account of the long-standing competitiveness of two talking chiefs of Sala'ilua in Savai'i which led to the murder of one by the other after a violent quarrel instigated by an accusation of cheating at cards.¹¹

Competition in the making of orations is especially marked among talking chiefs, the whole pattern of oratory, as Holmes has noted, being based upon „competition … in order to win prestige both for the orator himself and for the village or family he represents.“ Engaging in this activity is termed fa'atau, which literally means to provoke contention, and such competition is the standard practice among talking chiefs at a fono or any other important social occasion at which orations are made. The main form of competition is for the right to speak first. Any talking chief present has the right formally to contend with any other for this highly coveted privilege. The competition is often settled by the rank of one or another of the contending talking chiefs, but the depth of an individual's traditional knowledge (especially of fa'alupega and genealogies), his eloquence, and his age are also major factors. Each talking chief argues his own case, and, as Brother Herman notes, the number of contestants gradually decreases as the participating individuals concede defeat, until only one is left. This form of competition is of great antiquity; as J. B. Stair, who arrived in Samoa in 1838, has noted, much stress was always laid upon the privilege of addressing a public assembly, and when the time came for a particular settlement to address the meeting „the whole of the speakers stood up and contended amongst themselves for the honour of speaking on that day.“ This custom is still followed, and on important occasions the competition may last for well over an hour. It also tends to be intensely emotional, with, for example, angry responses when one speaker interrupts another. Any opportunity to shame a rival into submission is eagerly grasped. For example, on 5 May 1966 Ape of Fasito'outa rebuked another talking chief, Tupa'i of Nu'usuatia, who had challenged his knowledge of genealogy, with the words: „You talk like a Fijian! Don't speak to me of that which lies beyond your understanding!“ The humiliated Tupa'i at once withdrew from further contention. On another occasion, when an inexperienced but ambitious young talking chief made an egregious mistake in referring to the Tui Atua, his rival remarked crush-ingly, for all present to hear: „Laddie, just shut your mouth! Your mouth is fuddled, go back to school!“¹²

Sometimes the competitiveness of talking chiefs becomes so intense that they resort to physical violence. When making a standing oration a tulafale customarily grasps a long staff in one hand and a switch in the other; in Sa'anapu in 1967 I witnessed two visiting talking chiefs, competing for the right to speak, begin openly fighting for possession of the staff that they were both intent on using.

Because of the unsurpassed rank of the Tui Manu'a and his attendant talking chiefs, no tulafale from elsewhere in Samoa is able to win a fa'atau contest on the ceremonial ground of Ta'u. I have seen talking chiefs of high rank from Western Samoa reduced to tears when faced with this overwhelming situation. Equally strong emotion is sometimes displayed by those who triumph in a fa'atau contest. On occasion even a seasoned talking chief will be so overcome as to weep in the elation of victory.

There is also, as will have become apparent from my discussion of rank, great competitiveness among titular chiefs. In Savai'i in 1835, George Piatt observed that every chief was „jealous of his neighbor, wishing to be as great as he in every respect.“ As already noted, competition for succession to the position of paramount rank in western Samoa, the tafa'ifa, was almost always marked by violent conflict between rival contenders and their supporting districts. If one of these districts, as Robert Louis Stevenson remarked in 1892, bestowed its high title „on competitor A“ it would be the signal and sufficient reason for the rival district to bestow its high title „on competitor B or C.“ This competitiveness, moreover, persisted long after the actual conferment of titles. Thus, as T. H. Hood noted in 1863, there was great jealousy among the principal chiefs, so much so that they never went to sleep „without guards on the watch lest they should be murdered by the often unbidden retainers of some rival chief.“ Although large-scale fighting over the succession to high titles ceased at the end of the nineteenth century with the establishment of the governments of German and of American Samoa, there is still in modern Samoa intense competition over titles, with frequent recourse, as in Western Samoa, to the Land and Titles Court. This competitiveness, furthermore, pervades the entire rank structure, so that throughout contemporary Samoa, as Franklin Young (who conducted research in both western and eastern Samoa in 1970 and 1971) has noted, „vying for matai … titles and social position“ is of paramount importance. Again, Margaret Mackenzie (who did field research in Savai'i in 1976) has observed that in Samoa „competitiveness and manipulation pervade political contexts.“¹³

Vying for titles now most commonly occurs within the confines of an extended family. I have on several occasions been privileged to join the assembled members of a family in their private deliberations on the succession to a chiefly title. Each occasion was marked by intense rivalry. Further, this rivalry is freely recognized by those involved. It is usual, indeed, for the dignified proceedings to begin with a solemn warning by the senior members of the family as to the perils of excessive competitiveness within an extended family. Despite these warnings there are often disputed successions and occasionally outbursts of rivalrous aggression. For example, in one case when the daughter of the sister of a talking chief, acting in accordance with his dying will, secured succession for his adopted son, a more senior holder of the title at issue assaulted her with a bamboo headrest.

Intense rivalry also frequently occurs among the different families making up a local polity. For example, in 1961 a note was found in front of the chiefly residence of Taimalie, one of the high-ranking titular chiefs of the village of Nofoali'i. It bore the words, „Taimalie, you have no power in this village, nor have you any rank in Nofoali'i.“ Fetu, a 19-year-old female member of the Taimalie family, who found this note, at once suspected Leuila, a 15-year-old female of a rival family. Fetu thereupon assaulted Leuila's 14-year-old sister. In the ensuing affray fourteen individuals varying in age from 14 to 62 and of both sexes, joined in the fighting. They were all convicted of provoking a breach of the peace, and Leuila, who admitted to writing the note, was fined £2.¹⁴

Addressing the U.S. Congressional Investigation Commission in 1930, Chief Su'a described the Samoans as a people steeped in family pride who „consider feasts and ceremonies that are not elaborate as a disgrace to the family.“ This pride in family is paralleled by a comparable pride in one's local polity and paramount chief. Mead was thus mistaken in claiming, as she did in 1937, that „Samoa relied to a very slight degree upon group rivalry as a cohesive force within the group.“ Rather, as John Soloi, the pastor of Fitiuta, remarked when I was discussing this point with him in 1967, „group rivalry is basic to Sa-moan politics.“ He instanced the intense rivalry between the two sections of Fitiuta, between the entire village of Fitiuta and the village of Ta'tl, and between the whole of Manu'a and Tu-tuila. Segmentary rivalries of these kinds, as I have already noted, abound in Samoan history, and they were certainly active in both western and eastern Samoa in the 1920s. Frances Hubbard Flaherty, who was in Savai'i in 1924, has recounted that when she and her husband brought a ceremonial virgin to Safune from the neighboring and rival village of Sasina, to appear in a film they were making, the women of Safune vowed this taupou would die before morning, such was „the intense rivalry that exists between Samoan villages.“ Mead herself, in a letter, mentions that the 'aumaga of the village of Ta'u was thinking of burning down what was left of the village on the island of Ofu (an ancient rival of Ta'u) for having stoned their pastor. It was the fiercely rivalrous spirit evident in contentions such as these to which George Drummond was referring, when in 1842 he described the „natural character“ of the Samoans as being one „of ungovernable pride.“¹⁵

This pride is also conspicuously displayed in elaborate and extravagant prestations. For example, when a chapel, measuring 120 feet by 40 feet, was opened in Leone, Tutuila, in 1839, 2300 pigs were slaughtered for the occasion, with other articles of food in proportion. A. W. Murray, in reporting this display by a local polity, attributed it principally to „a spirit of rivalry.“ Again, W. B. Churchward has noted that, when in competition with others, everything a village can afford is „ungrudgingly sacrificed“ to add to the glorification of its highest ranking ceremonial virgin, as the principal ornament of its rank. On such occasions the rivalry between villages knows no bounds and may easily lead to altercation. For example, at the end of the great kava ceremony held at Fasito'otai in September 1901, to which I have already referred in discussing the ritualized rivalry of Ape and Tutuila, two quite separate ceremonial processions, one from the village of Fasito'outa and the other from Faleasiu, each bearing fine mats and other valuables and each headed by several taupou, happened to enter the ceremonial ground from different directions at the same time. As Osborn, who witnessed this event records, neither would give precedence. An altercation resulted, with more serious fighting being narrowly averted by the strenuous efforts of the local leaders and police.¹⁶

The main valuables disbursed on major ceremonial occasions are the exquisitely made fine mats, which for the Samoans are among the most important measures of traditional wealth and rank. These mats frequently become the objects of ri-valrous contention, as revealed in an excerpt from the minutes of the Fono of Faipule (the appointed leaders of the people of Western Samoa) dating from 1909. In these minutes, fine mats, although described as being the wealth of Samoa, as bringing dignity to titular chiefs, and as being a help in time of trouble, were also called a principal source of misunderstandings and squabbles between chiefs and orators and between families and of poverty because of the propensity of Samoans to try to „equal the number of mats given by others“ or to try to „outdo others.“ In 1916 this competitiveness over fine mats led the Faipule and the High Chiefs of Western Samoa to condemn what they considered to be the resultant underhand-scheming, quarreling, falsehood, selfish ambition, arrogance, avarice, and self-glorification. These, I would emphasize, are the judgments of the Samoans themselves about the competitiveness over fine mats that pervades their society.¹⁷

The lively consciousness of rank and the intense competitiveness that pervade the secular life of Samoans have also penetrated their religious institutions. When John Williams made his second voyage to Samoa in 1832 he found that the paramount chief of western Samoa wanted all of Williams' eastern Polynesian teachers of the Christian gospel to be brought to him first, and soon after this a serious quarrel broke out between the factions of the chief's sons about where the first Christian chapel in Samoa should be built, „each party wanting it on their own ground.“ Directly comparable difficulties arose with the arrival of the first resident missionaries. For example, when the new missionary, Alexander Chisholm took up residence at Sala'ilua on the south coast of Savai'i in June 1843, the people of Fogatuli, a village further to the west, were „so much under a discontented feeling,“ having wanted an English missionary for themselves, that they refused to let their teachers go to Chisholm for instruction, this reaction being rooted in „the jealousy which one land manifests against the other.“¹⁸

In later years this rivalry was exploited by missionaries to raise funds for the London Missionary Society both in Samoa and other parts of the Pacific. The whole of Samoa was divided into religious districts, which were enjoined to compete with each other in the raising of funds, with the results being publicly announced each year. This was a new version of the competitive disbursement of food and property that had been a major social institution in pagan times, and the Samoans took to it with alacrity. The pioneer missionary George Pratt records that when in 1868 he visited a district extending from Safata to Aleipata (on the south coast of Upolu) they issued a challenge to all the other districts in Samoa to beat them in the making of contributions to the church. Pratt reminded them that his district (on the north coast of Savai'i) had once beaten them in a traditional game of chance. Taking up the challenge from Upolu, the people of Pratt's district surmounted every difficulty to raise „hard on £700 for the L.M.S.“ and to win the contest.¹⁹

This competitive raising of funds for the church soon became a major preoccupation of the Samoans. The initial competitiveness is among the families within a village, then among the villages of a district, and, finally, among all the districts of the Sa-moan archipelago. Considerable shame accompanies defeat by a rival family, village, or district, and those who come out on top are irpmensely proud of their competitive success. For example, when I visited the village of Fitiuta in Manu'a in 1967, one of the first pronouncements haughtily made to our traveling party was that Fitiuta had achieved the highest total in all Samoa during the previous year, with donations exceeding $3,000, and that 13,000 kegs of beef had been disbursed at the ceremonial opening of their new church.

The keenest competition is between the ancient village polities of Samoa. To avoid the shame of being outclassed, entire communities are ready to put themselves into debt. For example, on 17 December 1942, the people of Sa'anapu village arrived at the district meeting with the sum of £110 as the annual gift for their pastor, only to find that their closest rival village, Sataoa, had raised £130. After a hurried consultation, the Sa'anapu delegation anounced its total as £130; the resulting debt of £20 was gradually paid off during the following months. At the next such district meeting I attended, on 15 December 1966, Sa'anapu's gift to its pastor was £501 7s 4d., easily excelling the Sataoa total of £320 15s. At this there was general elation, and the next Sunday the senior deacon praised the Sa'anapu congregation with the words „Thanks for raising up our village.“ On another such occasion the comment made was, „Being below some other village is not what is wanted, but rather, the victory of Sa'anapu.“

This same system of competitive giving was, as the records of the London Missionary Society show, fully established throughout Samoa at the time of Mead's research. This is confirmed by the report of Aletta Lewis, who was in American Samoa in 1929, that a pastor was able, „by stimulating the naturally strong competitive spirit“ of the Samoans, to divert to himself perhaps half of the money that was earned by the peo-pie of a village in copra cutting, or by services to the naval population of Pago Pago.²⁰

As further evidence of the lack of competitiveness among Samoans, Mead asserted in 1931 that „the Samoans deprecate all precocity.“ Each individual, she stated, was expected „not to exceed by any more than is possible the typical achievement of the slowest and stupidest member of the group.“ In 1937 this statement was embellished by the improbable generalizations that those who exceeded the slowest in a group brought „blushes to their parents' cheeks,“ and that when children who had achieved success in their formal education came home from school to report they had been put ahead of former companions „their parents hung their heads in shame.“²¹

While it is true that in Samoa individuals who impudently question the views of those senior to them in age or rank are roundly condemned, there is commonly much competitiveness between peers, of whatever age. Mead's account is once again directly contradicted by the observations of other investigators. F. M. Keesing, who carried out field research in both American and Western Samoa within just a few years of Mead's sojourn in Manu'a, paid particular attention to education. Having noted „the urge to emulate and excel in forms of activity valued by the group“ as being basic to the traditional pattern of Samoan life, Keesing went on to describe the „competitive spirit“ that had emerged in the education systems set up by the New Zealand and American authorities. The competitive spirit among students and the overweening pride of parents in the outstanding educational achievements of their children were also phenomena that I regularly observed from 1940 onward as a member of the Education Department of Western Samoa. G. B. Milner, in his excellent Samoan Dictionary, illustrates the use of felosia'i, meaning „to compete against others,“ with the sentence „The children are competing for the first place in the class.“ This they indeed do in both the modern government schools and in the much older church schools, presided over by the village pastor, which were instituted soon after the arrival of the pioneer resident missionaries in 1836.²²

When the Samoans encountered writing for the first time in the early 1830s, they flocked to the houses of the teachers John Williams had brought from eastern Polynesia „to learn this mysterious art, many of them coming eight to ten times each day, to be taught their letters.“ By 1842 there were in the Sa-moan islands, in addition to 11 missionaries, some 224 native teachers, most of them Samoan, and such was the eagerness for instruction that paper for writing had become a principal medium of exchange. From about this time onward prizes were given, and later certificates were issued, for superior educational achievement. Today such certificates can be seen prominently displayed in homes throughout the Samoan islands, including Manu'a.²³

Further, as Holmes reported on the basis of his observations in American Samoa in 1954, „ability in formal education is always acclaimed.“ Indeed, I have often seen parents with tears in their eyes in intense pride at the public recognition (as at a school prize-giving ceremony) of the competitive success of one of their children. This pride in exceptional achievement also extends to entire communities. Thus, when on 18 December 1966 the pastor of Sa'anapu told the assembled people that for the first time in the history of the village a youth had succeeded in passing his university entrance examination, he began to weep and his voice trembled and broke with emotion. He had, he said later, been overcome with pride that one of his former students had brought such renown to Sa'anapu.²⁴

The Samoans, then, within their social conventions based upon dominance and rank, are a highly competitive people, among whom the „extreme jealousy“ and „ungovernable pride“ on which the early missionaries remarked are conspicuously present to this day. These characteristics indeed are even present in the migrant Samoan communities in New Zealand, some of which I visited in 1968 and again in 1979. David Pitt and Cluny Macpherson report the observation of a European supervisor in a New Zealand factory (in which a number of migrant Samoans worked) that „if they see another Samoan rising above them they get jealous and try to pull him down.“²⁵

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