It's great to be able to send out the next promotional poster on our latest offering of "The footprint of Moso" or "O le tulaga vae o Moso". It's our 7th book and fourth picture book and this one was pretty interesting to write as it was quite different in there being quite a few versions and beliefs on Moso but the story on how his actual footprint got there is not to be found.I was also interested in trying to problem solve about not only what story I would write about but to find out in my research or "su'esu'ega" or "sa'iliga" that there are other Pacific Islands stories that also hail giants that have left their "mark" on the landscape as being in the Hawaiian Islands, Fiji as well as Samoa.
As is the case, I always try to keep as close to the original tale/s as I was told as a child, then check with older resources through my background readings and also what is currently found all over the internet.
I've also been reading the book "Whispers and Vanities Samoan Indigenous Knowledge and Religion" (2014) edited by Suaalii-Sauni, Wendt, Mo'a, Fuamatu, Va'ai, Whaitiri and Filipo but launched last year at around the same time that I launched one of my books and it seems so timely that there is an academic scholarship now writing about things that I knew to be important to research those many years ago as a new post graduate in the late 1980s from Auckland University.
And now to have some weight behind some of the issues and ideas that we will be sharing with our Samoa, Pasifika and others who are interested in learning about indigenous Samoan knowledge in that as we learn about the stories of where we came from to where we are now, it is possible to navigate our path to an informed future...
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