This is another interesting book to read called 'Su'esu'ega Manogi' by Tui Atua Tupua Tamasese Ta'isi Efi. As I continue to read through the various books that I've prescribed for myself, I can't help but wish that the rocks and the trees could talk for they would say so much about the history of Samoa which wasn't written.Which brings me to this very finely written book that every Samoan educator should read in which Tui Atua discusses some very important information that would have been very difficult to discuss some years ago but in relating it for the next generations to know, I've found it a real privilege to be able to understand.
One of the findings, he discussed was regarding the dreaded Tamafaiga having been slain when Rev. John Williams arrived in Samoa in 1830, as Fauea, his Samoan advisor who had been living in Tonga at the time expressed that if Tamafaiga was to be in rule, all hopes of Christianity would be thwarted.
In his book, he discusses how Tamafainga was captured and then slain, incidentally this was supposed to have happened in the village where my parents are currently living in Fasito'o-uta and my mother showed the place that my father talked about called 'Pisia'. According to Tui Atua, this was place that Tamafainga 'splashed' into the sea in trying to run away after being caught, however, within the village there is another story but similar.
I am so thankful that there has been much written but still much that wasn't. I'll continue to try and tie the strings together for my own understanding that might in time be passed on through books for our next generations...
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