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In search of tagaloa: pulemelei, samoan mythology and science.

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Abstract

This article touches upon views gained from traditional or oral history together with views of modern scientific method to reach at understandings of past actions. The text presents an emic view concerning the Pulemelei mound and a ceremony carried out at the site in 2003. It is an edited version of papers presented at Auckland University in 2003 (Tamasese 2003) and at the inauguration of an exhibition at the Kon-Tiki Museum in 2004, which featured the results of the archaeological excavations at Pulemelei mound in 2002-2004.

In search of Tagaloa: Pulemelei, Samoan mythology and Science

I want to begin my paper on the search for Tagaloa with a quote from Thor Heyerdahl (1998):

And both the wind and the people who continue to live close to Nature still have much to tell us which we cannot hear inside university halls. A scientist has to distinguish between legend and myth and make use of both.

Thor was one of the few scientists I know that actively engaged in an attempt to do this and to do so in a way that afforded our peoples and our knowledge respect and dignity.

Pulemelei and the archaeological excavation

In September 2002, the first archaeological excavations at Pulemelei began under the supervision of Drs Helene Martinsson-Wallin and Paul Wallin (Kon-Tiki Museum) and Dr Geoffrey Clark (ANU). The Pulemelei site is made up of several mounds. The principal mound was excavated during 2002-2004. When the excavation reached foundation level and the near approaches were cleared, the spectacle of what was exposed was awesome. It invited re-assessment.

In terms of the Samoan landscape, the Pulemelei mound seemed to me to be overwhelmingly large and high. One of the smaller mounds on elevated ground to the North gave a commanding view of the top level of the principal mound. Another platform on the Southern slope and the other stone platforms nearby each incited wonder and curiosity. Even more curious was the pathway from the East.

The pathway or auala in Samoan, is significant in Polynesian culture. Our funeral rituals are called auala or the pathway, meaning the pathway to lagi (heaven) or Pulotu (the underworld) (Pratt 1977; Mosel and Hovdhaugen 1992). From the top of the mound one has a good view to the South and it is possible to trace a "pathway" linking Manono, Apolima and Upolu islands. In early 2003 bush and trees hid this "pathway". However, today the "pathway" is clearly visible, thanks to the clearings made by the hurricane in January 2004. Whilst at the top of the principal mound one can not help but reflect on the strategic and navigational value of such a view for our ancestors.

Making connections: Polynesian mythologies, genealogies and science

In early 2003 I invited two Maori friends, an anthropologist Dr Pita Sharpies, and Rev Morris Gray, former Head of the Maori Dept at the University of Canterbury, to visit Pulemelei. We climbed the path to the Pulemelei complex and to the top of the large Pulemelei mound, where we seated ourselves on flat slabs of stones.

Shortly after, Morris stood up, walked inwards, stopped when he reached the middle, threw his arm out and pointed to the ground: "Down in the bottom in the ground level is buried an ariki" he said. He seemed like someone who was, as we say in Samoan, ua ulu i ai le agaga, meaning 'possessed'. "I know this place" he continued, "this is where our people came from. My family emblem is the wheke (octopus) and this mound is a legacy of the wheke. And, there are in this environment definitive markings which underline the sacred figure of eight".

Morris's reference to the wheke and the figure of eight impacted on me because the river that flows through the plantation on which Pulemelei is sited has eight waterfalls. He did not...

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