--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Lee, W. O. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 2 number: 5 published: 1899-03 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Lee, W. O., "Samoa and Her Neighbors," *Improvement Era* 2, no. 5 (March 1899): 335–337.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera25unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera25unse start_page: 335 end_page: 337 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1899-03) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera25unse publication_year: 1899 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1899, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Samoa and Her Neighbors SAMOA AND HER NEIGHBORS, . LEE, SAMOAN MISSIONARY. Generally speaking there are two races of people that inhabit the division of the earth called Oceania. The reader can readily understand where the two races meet by turning to a map of the Pacific Ocean and drawing a line a little west of south, from the west side of the Sandwich Islands to the west side of the Ellice group; thence south through Fiji and west of New Zealand. This line from north to south is a little over 4,000 miles long, starting some twenty-two degrees north of the equator, and ending at least forty-seven degrees south latitude. All of the native inhabitants on the islands east of this race-line belong to the finely-formed, brown Polynesians; while the inhabitants of the islands on the west of this line belong to what are called Papuans—a diminutive negro race supposed to have come originally from Africa, and nick-named "Black Boys" by foreigners in the South Pacific, because of their small stature and thin limbs. Growing out of these two races, the Poljmesians and the Papuans where they have met and intermarried, there is a third race found on the Fiji and other groups near the center of the South Pacific. The Samoan or Navigator Islands, which group with its inhabitants will form the main topic of our article, will be found near the center of what we call Polynesia, and are situated between thirteen and fifteen degrees south latitude and one hundred and sixty-nine and one hundred and seventy-three degrees west longitude. Samoa is 5,000 miles from Salt Lake City, and it takes two weeks by steamer to reach there from San Francisco in a south-westerly direction, via Honolulu, which is the only land sighted and the half-way house en route. North of Samoa 2,100 miles are the Sandwich Islands, (Hawaii;) 1,500 miles east are the Society Islands, (Tahiti); 400 miles south are the Friendly Islands, (Tonga) ; the same distance west of Samoa are the Fiji Islands, and some 1,600 miles south is New Zealand, (Maoriland.) On all of the above groups, except Fiji, the Latterday Saints have established missons, and there is as much difference between the native inhabitants of these islands as there is between the Indian tribes of South, Central and North America. Yet, like our own Indians, the Polynesians, or brown race, of the Pacific isles, undoubtedly all sprang from the same source, but time and location since their separation have made many changes in their language, mode of living and habits, the same as among the various tribes of American Indians. Most writers on the subject of their origin agree that the Polynesians belong to the Malay race of the East Indian Archipelago. The similarity in the language of the natives of these two places being the weightiest argument in favor of this theory. It seems strange to the writer that with the winds and ocean currents against the above supposition, some of its adherents did not look to the American continent for a more natural solution to the problem of the origin of the Polynesians. On this subject we copy the following from the Encyclopedia Britannica: "The brown people who occupy the islands of Eastern Polynesia are generally regarded as having affinities with the Malays of the Indian Archipelago, and are sometimes spoken of as a branch of the Malay race, or family. They cannot, however, with any accuracy be so described. The Malays, as they now exist, are a comparatively modern people, who have become what they are by the mixture of several elements not found in the most primitive race. The Sawaioris (Polynesians) and the Tarapons (mixed race) of Polynesia, the Malagasy (Hovas) of Madagascar and the Malays are allied races, but no one of them can be regarded as the parent of the rest. The parent race has disappeared; but the Sawaiori (Polynesian) as the earliest off-shoot from it, and one which owing to the conditions under which it has lived, has remained almost free from admixture of blood, may be taken as most nearly representing what the parent was." We readily agree with all of the above except this statement, "The parent race has disappeared." We Latter-day Saints believe that there are millions of the parent race of the Polynesians now living on the Western Hemisphere known as the red- brown race, or Indians; and we argue this way: Driftwood from the western shores of America is constantly being cast upon the shores of Hawaii, what more natural then, than the supposition drawn from the Book of Mormon account of lost ships, that parties coasting from one place to another on our Pacific shores, and being lost at sea, should drift where the wind and ocean currents would naturally take them—to some of the Pacific isles? How interesting it will be some day if our United States government awakes to find that its new Hawaiian citizens and its Indian protegees are first cousins and as such entitled to the same privileges! We are reminded of the fact that our Hawaiian Saints in Utah came nearly being classed with the heathen Chinee, and denied papers of American citizenship. Then again, what if the Malay part of the population on our—to be, or not to be—Philippine Islands, has Lamanite-Polynesian blood in their veins? . While the ''red men" of America are classed as a different race from the Polynesians yet we contend, where the conditions are the same, both being civilized and dressed alike, only an expert can tell one from the other. Indians are red men for the same reason that some women have rosy cheeks—because they are painted. Once when we were showing some Samoan natives the portraits of their American cousins (Indians) they immediately exclaimed, E tusa lava ma Samoa! Exactly like Samoans! On the islands, native legends all point to the east as the direction they came from. Surely the natives of Samoa came from Hawaii, or vice versa, because they called the largest island in their new home after the one they had left behind them, that is, Hawaii and Savaii, the native names for the two largest islands on the Sandwich and the Samoan Islands respectively. The last mentioned group we will describe in our next.