April 2, 2024 • 32 mins
Today, we delve into the national anthem of Samoa, titled "Ole Fuā'ā O Le Soifuiga O Samoa," and explore its historical and cultural significance. Patrick takes us on a journey through the rich tapestry of Samoa's past, highlighting the impact of colonialism and the struggles for independence that shaped the nation. He discusses the anthem's creation by Sauni Elijah Carusa in the context of Samoa's newfound self-governance in 1948, leading to the anthem's eventual adoption in 1961. The episode also touches on the themes of national identity, pride, and unity encapsulated in the anthem's lyrics, which serve as a rallying call for the Samoan people. With insights into Samoa's geography, climate, and cultural practices, this episode provides a comprehensive look at the anthem that symbolizes freedom and resilience for the nation.
I know, I know. WWI started in 1914 and not 1948 but that is the year that Samoa was granted self governance. It was in my head and I didn't notice until after I edited the entire thing and I lack the time to go back and add me saying the correct date.
Here are the sources:
- https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-318925666/view?sectionId=nla.obj-333096340&partId=nla.obj-318987683#page/n81/mode/1up
- https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/218049060
- https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-317352062/view?sectionId=nla.obj-330039968&partId=nla.obj-317363860#page/n0/mode/1up
- http://www.paclii.org/ws/legis/consol_act_2019/ofanaosa1994308/
- https://moanaleilua.wordpress.com/2017/06/05/o-au-o-le-samoa/
- https://catholicoutlook.org/fr-tovia-bears-sign-jesus-died-samoa/
- https://www.samoaobserver.ws/category/samoa/98436
- https://ancestors.familysearch.org/en/L6Y8-RJV/malotuto%27atasi-iiga-sauni-ioane-kuresa-1901-1978
- https://natlib.govt.nz/records/35402307?search%5Bi%5D%5Bcategory%5D=Music+Score&search%5Bpath%5D=items&search%5Btext%5D=samoa
- https://symbolhunt.com/samoa/national-anthem/
- https://books.openedition.org/pacific/126#:~:text=Conversion%20made%20easy%20by%20the,to%20be%20accepted%20in%20Samoa.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:15):
Hello and welcome to theAnthems podcast. I'm Patrick and
I'm here to tell you the story of
a song that helps to tell the story
of a nation. Today we are taking
a9410 miles leap, or 15,148 km, into
almost literally the center of the
Pacific Ocean. Not quite, though.
It'sabout 400 miles more than all of
the railroad in the United States
bythe year 1850, or 1.2 times the earth's
mean equatorial radius. I suspect
thatI do this because I'm from the United
States and sometimes I am culturally
required to do the anything but the
metric system thing. But I digress.
Wehave some options for nations out
this way, but the one I picked was
Samoa. After I picked this place,
Iwas reading an instagram post from
these travel bloggers that go and
get tattoos in cool places from cool
people, where this girl found out
on camera that this other literal
childwas doing her first tattoo on her
wild stuff. I have some tattoos and
I enjoy the cultural narrative that
they can have. Samoa definitely has
a strong association with that aspect
of tattooing, a pea or a malu. The
male and female traditional pieces
areimpressive and visually stunning
expressions that, unlike many other
traditional forms of tattooing, actually
managed to survive colonialism. But
cool tattoos are not what got me
to pick this anthem for the episode.
This is another that was generated
by therandom country picker because I couldn't
think of a nation in time to get
started. That's why I mentioned I'll
take requests. This beginning part
is way less rambling when I've got
another person making the initial
decision for me. Look at me complaining
about having a little more work to
do. Sorry about that. Regardless,
it's agood enough excuse to tell you about
ole fuah ole sa ola toga o samoa
orthe banner of freedom. One thing
thatyou might be wondering if you're
in apart of the world that Disney's gotten
to is when I'm going to mention Moana
because there is a guy getting a
paja in the opening scene of that
movie. Well, this is the only mention
of it, and that's just so I can bring
up the fact that there is another
movietitled Moana that I just learned
about.It's a 1926 work of docu fiction
byRobert Flaherty, and the character
namedMoana is a boy. Because gender norms
for names are fluid through time,
docu fiction is a type of film that
does documentary stuff, but introduces
fictional elements into the narrative
ofthe movie in order to strengthen
the plotand tell the story. I think its a
strange way to make a film but people
seem to love them. I bet the music
was alright though and even if it
wasnt, it was probably still better
than the Segway into playing the
anthem that youre experiencing literally
as I speak. Its pretty great. I know
you cant see it but you might be
able to hear that im smiling because
Iknow how jarring this might be and
im hoping that you were surprised.
Seriously though, I am looking forward
to you hearing this song. It's a
minor spoiler but you know so be
it. Settle in for less than two minutes,
but more than 155 seconds of today's
song. My initial reaction is a smile
because 155 seconds is definitely
morethan two minutes. So I did my math
wrong but I like this song or at
least the version that I played here.
This group is called Tone six and
they're out of New Zealand as far
as I can tell from their facebook
page.Anyway. I know essentially nothing
about them, but they've got good
pipes and they did this song justice.
Again, we've got an anthem that's
onthe shorter side of things and someday
I'll learn what the length distribution
ofthese songs is and I will share all
of that information with you. I enjoy
that this is sung in samoan and not
in a language of a colonizing country.
It feels more authentic when that's
the case. We are however, going to
learn about some colonial interests
making a right mess of things in
the area. But first we need to know
where exactly in almost the middle
ofthe Pacific Ocean they had to sail
to to do it. When I say middle of
the ocean, this time I am talking
aboutthe geographic center. In the case
of the Pacific, that's located at
four degrees 58 minutes south, 158
degrees 45 minutes west, and Samoa
isabout 1000 miles southwest of that.
More helpfully perhaps, the island
nation is like 1700 miles northeast
ofAuckland, New Zealand. So it's kind
of pretty much in the middle of nowhere
spot. But people got there and they
survived there. Once you're there,
it's not so bad. It's tropical and
the average temperature is nearly
85degrees fahrenheit. It's about 26
and a half degrees celsius, but it
rains like a lot, at least compared
towhere I live. Samoa gets very nearly
10ft, about 3 meters of rain a year.
It seems like an awful lot to me,
but it has to be an amazing place
tolive despite that. Also a place that,
as an island in the middle of an
ocean, was brought to us by volcanism
which is a fun word to say. Volcanism.
Tryit. This particular set of volcanoes
area part of the samoan hotspot, which
also contains Wallace island, part
of Tuvalu, and some submerged banks.
The hotspot theory was developed
in 1963by a geophysicist named J. Tuza Wilson.
My undergrad in physics understanding
isbasically a fount of magma at a fixed
location through a lower part of
the plate and a moving upper part
generates an island chain. Pretty
coolif way outside my wheelhouse. That
gets me way, way further back than
Ineed to be when I'm starting to think
about a national anthem. But recall
that it was pretty cool, so I kind
of had to mention it. The story of
this anthem, like, like a lot of
them, man, a lot, uh, has to do with
colonialism again and hence a massive
injustice. The people of Samoa didn't
have a thing to be independent from
until the Europeans noticed they
were there and they were fine for
like 3000 years before. This is episode
15 and it's like the 15th country
thatI could do an entire series of podcasts
on because if I let it be, literally
everything is fascinating. So Samoa
is definitely not an exception to
that. But in this case, we're talking
about the national anthem, so I can't
wander as far off as I'd like, so
stop distracting me. There were a
couple of brief contacts in the 18th
century that included one in 1787
where a french scientific expedition
endedup getting attacked. The Samoans
killedtwelve people. Regular contact with
continental Europeans and Americans
started to happen about 1830 with
the arrival of christian missionaries
on thenext stopover from Tahiti as they
island hopped through the Pacific.
InSamoa, though, as elsewhere, the
missionaries were not really the
problem. It's the other stuff that
comes with them. But they arrived
at atime of local fighting and they helped
put a damper on that when the people
that were tired of fighting heard
about a gospel of peace. It didn't
stop the fighting, as we'll see,
butit didn't make it worse. The thing
that did that were the multinational
businessinterests of the United States, Britain
and Germany. That came with the notice
of the missionaries. Over the course
of the next 50 or so years, the three
countries established a business
footprint and expanded their footprint.
Abritish console had been installed
essentially concurrent with the arrival
of the London Missionary Society,
andthe US reached the islands in 1839
as part of a survey of the Pacific
Ocean. Sometime in 1855, the Germans
arrived when JC, Godfrey and Sohn
expanded their business out into
thePacific. I mentioned that company
specifically because when I looked
upthe owner, I learned about a terrible
thing that I didn't know about and
he did it. I didn't know it existed
before this. And it is called blackbirding.
It's a slavery or poorly paid forced
labor situation that occurs far from
one's homeland and you're either
coerced into it or straight up kidnapped.
Blackbirding is a practice that incredibly
enough, continues into the 21st century.
And unfortunately I'm not shocked
thatpeople are still terrible. However
theygot there and whatever means they
used to lay their claims, the US,
Germany and Britain laid those claims
and made some of the islands their
own. By the 1890s, the competing
interests and the different political
factions already present on the island
led to the First Samoan War, a largely
political affair that occurred roughly
between 18, 1886 and 1894. I say
largely political even though there
were skirmishes with western provided
troops and bombardments of villages
fromoffshore and warships are involved
in myreason for bringing it up. That reason
is the samoan crisis, wherein warships
from three countries that should
really have been butting out of what
was happening in Samoa got involved
inan intense dispute about who would
get to claim the place. Three american
ships and two german ships were bristling
their cannons at each other while
they were being monitored by a 6th
british ship. It was nearly war for
several months and then about in
the middle of the First Samoan Civil
War, the 1889 AP's cyclone stopped
anything that didn't involve trying
tolive through a cyclone and forced
anegotiation of sorts. When the five
ships were destroyed and the single
british corvette class vessel managed
to escape. And I will resist the
rabbit hole of ship classes in the
19th century Royal Navy. Regardless
of thenegotiations and the pauses, the
conflict continued and resolved in
the installation of one king and
the exile of another. Then, a mere
four years after the end of the war
in 1898, the installed king died
ofand the exiled king returned and
sued for control of the country,
theSamoan supreme court ruled that his
line could have the throne, but only
if it was his son and not him. So
a powerful rival chief that wanted
thecrown rebelled. This was the first
event of the Second Samoan War and
it's a real short war. It's also
awar that makes me sick about imperialism.
Asfar as I can tell, this is basically
asingle battle where the british and
american forces were supporting the
prince and the chiefs forces were
defeated in kind. What blows my mind
about the entire thing is that the
end result of this battle is not
infact the Prince of Samoa taking power
in Samoa. The actual result is an
injustice to the people of Samoa
andan event that basically gets repeated
again and again through history.
What weget is a negotiation among the US,
Britain and Germany about how they
were going to split things up and
end the hostilities in the region.
TheSamoan tripartite Convention of 1899
resulted in western Samoa, the former
name of the country I'm talking about
right now, and American Samoa, a
later episode on this very show,
withBritain getting some concessions
fromGermany and other parts of the world.
But then the three countries also
took it upon themselves to dissolve
theexisting government entirely, abolish
the monarchy, arbitrarily established
newnations, and asked exactly zero Samoans
what they thought about the process.
I'mlearning a lot about how the world
ended up like this in my reading,
andsometimes it's some eye opening stuff,
but I do need to get around to talking
about the song, though. And now that
we've gotten the timeline up to the
very beginning of the 20th century,
Ican mention Sauni Elijah Carusa because
he was born on January 30 in the
year 1900, I get a sense from the
information that I can find that
Sauni is a way more interesting person
than the information on the Internet
implies. But again, as with a bunch
of these guys, I've been struggling
todiscover a full picture of his life.
National anthems have this weird
spotin history, and they're not like
important when it happens. They're
important sometimes way after the
fact, or maybe not at all. Sauni
wasborn in Fiji and sometime before
1948had moved to Apia, which is the capital
and largest city in Samoa. I'm pretty
sure he was samoan, but I can't confirm
that based on the information that
Iwas able to find. He was married
and hehad a couple of children, and one
newspaper clipping from 1950 refers
tohim as a chieftain, but offers no
further context. Sound was another
selftaught multi instrumentalist and
music teacher, just like our last
anthem creator. Although he did not
quit teaching, he had three bands
that he either played in or directed.
None of them hit it big. Another
oldsamoan newspaper article on the 22
October 1948 has a picture of Sauni
playing a coronethe. It's very similar
to a trumpet, and he's playing it
with his band during the very competition
that he won to have the song become
the anthem. You can see item three
inthe show notes if you want to look
at the picture. We know that he was
able to play two coronets at the
same time and could play two different
parts that way. It's wild to think
about that. What I find really fun
is that he figured out how to perform
that feat because his friend said
hesaw a man do it over in Tonga. And
Sami thought to himself, I bet I
could do that if a man in Tonga could
do it, and he figured it out. Then
it turned out that his friend was
lying to him and he never saw another
person play two coronets at once.
ButI found it. There's a couple of actually
real videos out there on the Internet
ofthis. There's some fake kind of hilarious
ones, but there's some real ones.
None that I can find are of the anthem
rider. Regardless, it's a cool trick,
and it figured into his act when
hewas touring around the region of
the Pacific that he was in. I can
also confidently say that he died
age 77 in Apia. At the time, he was
the choir master of the 7th day adventist
church. A man that, like I said,
isprobably far more interesting than
acouple of rambling paragraphs can
show, and a man that also lived long
enough to see the stable independence
of thecountry he wrote for the song for
become a reality again. We end up
with the anthem not really being
themain event of the creator's life.
It's sort of a feature for a bunch
ofthese guys. Now to catch up with
thetimeline and get us an anthem. So
the big western powers divide up
the islands like they had a right
to,and everything west of 170 degrees
westlongitude officially becomes German
Samoa. If my other reading about
german colonialism is indicative
of how itwent, they treated the country fairly,
explicitly as a business venture,
andbecause of that, as early as 1808,
the Mao movement was established.
Mao m a uis a Samoan word. It translates to
English most meaningful in this context
as a strong opinion, especially one
that is held resolutely. The chiefs
were pushing for independence and
were exiled along with their wives
and children. Then World War one
happened in July of 1948. Pretty
immediately after the war started,
Britain's government asked New Zealand
to seize the communication facilities
ingerman occupied Samoa. Coincidentally,
aprevious prime minister, their longest
serving, actually Richard Seddon,
really wanted his country in control
ofSamoa. The generals figured if hostilities
with Germany happened, this would
bea logical use of the military in
Samoa. So they already had a pretty
detailed plan drawn up on how to
move in and take over. Germany offered
no resistance when they did actually
goover there, so they didn't need the
plan they had. But the german government
refused to officially surrender the
country. New Zealand successfully
got whatthey wanted because first as an occupying
force, but then officially after
theTreaty of Versailles, Samoa came
under New Zealand's control. But
right before 1919 when the treaty
happened, the spanish flu hit the
country and it hit it hard. It killed
7000 native Samoans and the New Zealand
government was blamed by the people.
Itturns out that it was in fact their
fault because they did not quarantine
theship that brought the flu there and
American Samoa managed to actually
contain everything and not infect
their people. New Zealand made a
formal apology in 2002 to the samoan
people for failing to quarantine
that shipand it was so bad that there was
apetition that was withdrawn to change
over to American Samoa. But the general
distaste with foreign administration
was notjust because of the flu. You can
probably feel a distaste from yourself
no matter where you live or when
yougrew up. That helped fuel their independence
movement and there were enough repeated
efforts that eventually New Zealand
just stopped resisting and let Samoa
become independent. Not immediately
though,and quite a few people were shot
bythe police at a peaceful demonstration.
Theyalso exiled critics of their administration
off to New Zealand. So this country
does not get a pass on imperialism
either.That's not all right. After the New
Zealand administration capitulated,
Samoawas granted self governance in 1948
and complete independence came in
1962. They were the first nation
inthat part of the world to be again
the process of shaking off colonialism.
It'spretty cool. The anthem was written
fora contest held shortly after self
governance was granted in 1948 and
played after God Save the Queen at
all official ceremonies and such
later that year. However, it was
not until 1961, when full independence
wasimminent, that it became the de facto
national anthem of Samoa. None of
that officially made the banner of
freedom the official national anthem.
It was not until the official flag
and national anthem Samoa act of
1994 that I get to say that we have
gotten our anthem and now we can
goon to discuss the song itself. Musically
it's an enjoyable song for me, but
one that I don't know enough about
music to categorize as one genre
oranother. I do know that it's in the
key of c and it's moderato like 130
bpm. Most of the full band versions
ofthe song seem a little processional
and notquite a march, but honestly I can't
really tell with this one. At any
rate, it's not an incredibly complicated
tune when you look at the music and
it lends itself to many interpretations.
Lyrically there's a little bit more
to say about it, even if the entire
song is just seven lines long. I'm
going to read it in English, but
the original is written and sung
inSamoan. Samoa, arise and raise your
banner that is your crown. Oh see
and behold the stars on the waving
banner they are a sign that Samoa
isable to lead. Oh Samoa, hold fast
your freedom forever do not be afraid
as you are founded on God, our treasured,
precious liberty Samoa, arise and
wave your banner that is your crown.
And that's it. Just seven lines.
Twoof them are in fact the same. Given
the brevity of the banner of freedom.
I'm just gonna sort of talk my way
through the lyrics and hope that
that method works for this anthem.
We'll see. The song opens with a
call to action for the people to
arise and display the flag. It's
asymbol of honor and sovereignty.
Referringto the banner as a crown and placing
itin the first line is an indication
of theimportance associated with the national
identity. Stars on the flag can sometimes
mean guidance and direction. That
makes sense here for people that
lived somewhere that the Europeans
namedthe navigator islands because they
had such a prowess at sea navigation,
sowe're going to go with that. The
second line is trying to instill
confidence and assurance in the nation's
potential because the nation will
lead well, but is also well guided.
Thethird line is a more anthem appropriate
line, and it shows that the writer
isindeed singing of the country holding
on to the freedom that was gained
andnever ever letting go of it shows
theimportance of independence. Then
weget an explicitly christian line
inhonestly, what is not that religious
ofan anthem compared to what we've
already seen? It's a surprise because
Samoa is a very deeply christian
place.It is explicitly stated in their
constitution as of 2016, and more
than 90% of the population is a member
of some kind of Christianity. They
were, and presumably still are, a
group of Samoans that were actually
vocally displeased that the anthem
wasnot far more religious than it is,
and there is a set of alternate lyrics
that is sometimes sung. It makes
sense that the song would invoke
theblessings and protections and guidance
of their lord. Surely with him showing
the way the nation can overcome any
adversity, then Sauni focus is right
back on liberty and has the most
anthem esque of the lyrics. His choice
of words implies not just an appreciation
ofthe nation's freedom, but a reverence
forit. They must be cherished and saved
for posterity. The last line is a
refrain of the first it makes the
tune nice and circular for me. Actually,
I like circularity in songs and it
reaffirms the sense of unity and
pride that Samoans should feel as
they continue their journey forward.
Overall, the lyrics of ole fuah o
le so ola to gao samawa encapsulate
themesof national identity, pride, leadership,
faith and perseverance. While it
is a short song, Sauni very much
understood the assignment and delivered
for his country with a song that
seeks to inspire and unite the people.
They should be reminded by the lyrics
that as a nation, their people share
values and aspirations. It functions
wellas an anthem and seeks to inspire
adeep sense of solidarity among the
people and instill a deep commitment
tothe collective well being of the
nation. It makes it fairly obvious
whyit was the song that won the contest,
although to be honest, I've heard
exactly none of the other entries,
sothere's a chance that personally,
I wouldlike a different one better. I don't
know. I'm not disappointed in the
song this time, though. It felt a
little more disjointed as far as
the story goes, than I would like
itto sometimes does on the show. But
Sawney was an interesting guy, at
least in the context of what I was
able to find out, and Samoa is a
very interesting place, even if history
is light on the details about the
author of the anthem. But it's a
hard to find archetype. I haven't
foundit yet. I'll get there eventually.
Maybe.We'll see. It's a future topic. Turnover
for now. We're gonna hear the credits
and I'm gonna get to preparing for
a record. Well, I'm making one. It's
weird. I said I'm gonna prepare for
one, but that was when I was writing
itand I'm currently making it now.
Nowit's awkward, but anyway, awkward's
kinda. It's kinda my thing. The writing,
recording and production for the
show are done by me and I wrote and
played the theme music. The music
wasused by me with my permission. Unless
otherwise noted, the anthems I play
are public domain or some other equivalently
free to play license. And here I
am indeed noting that I did not yet
get permission to play this song.
Ihave tried though, and reached out
to tone six via Facebook, email and
YouTube, but as of the time of this
recording, I have not heard from
them. My sources and the specific
itemsI mention in the show are contained
inthe show notes, and the most direct
way to get to those show notes is@anthemspodcast.com
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be back.
Hello and welcome to theAnthems podcast. I'm Patrick and
I'm here to tell you the story of
a song that helps to tell the story
of a nation. Today we are taking
a9410 miles leap, or 15,148 km, into
almost literally the center of the
Pacific Ocean. Not quite, though.
It'sabout 400 miles more than all of
the railroad in the United States
bythe year 1850, or 1.2 times the earth's
mean equatorial radius. I suspect
thatI do this because I'm from the United
States and sometimes I am culturally
required to do the anything but the
metric system thing. But I digress.
Wehave some options for nations out
this way, but the one I picked was
Samoa. After I picked this place,
Iwas reading an instagram post from
these travel bloggers that go and
get tattoos in cool places from cool
people, where this girl found out
on camera that this other literal
childwas doing her first tattoo on her
wild stuff. I have some tattoos and
I enjoy the cultural narrative that
they can have. Samoa definitely has
a strong association with that aspect
of tattooing, a pea or a malu. The
male and female traditional pieces
areimpressive and visually stunning
expressions that, unlike many other
traditional forms of tattooing, actually
managed to survive colonialism. But
cool tattoos are not what got me
to pick this anthem for the episode.
This is another that was generated
by therandom country picker because I couldn't
think of a nation in time to get
started. That's why I mentioned I'll
take requests. This beginning part
is way less rambling when I've got
another person making the initial
decision for me. Look at me complaining
about having a little more work to
do. Sorry about that. Regardless,
it's agood enough excuse to tell you about
ole fuah ole sa ola toga o samoa
orthe banner of freedom. One thing
thatyou might be wondering if you're
in apart of the world that Disney's gotten
to is when I'm going to mention Moana
because there is a guy getting a
paja in the opening scene of that
movie. Well, this is the only mention
of it, and that's just so I can bring
up the fact that there is another
movietitled Moana that I just learned
about.It's a 1926 work of docu fiction
byRobert Flaherty, and the character
namedMoana is a boy. Because gender norms
for names are fluid through time,
docu fiction is a type of film that
does documentary stuff, but introduces
fictional elements into the narrative
ofthe movie in order to strengthen
the plotand tell the story. I think its a
strange way to make a film but people
seem to love them. I bet the music
was alright though and even if it
wasnt, it was probably still better
than the Segway into playing the
anthem that youre experiencing literally
as I speak. Its pretty great. I know
you cant see it but you might be
able to hear that im smiling because
Iknow how jarring this might be and
im hoping that you were surprised.
Seriously though, I am looking forward
to you hearing this song. It's a
minor spoiler but you know so be
it. Settle in for less than two minutes,
but more than 155 seconds of today's
song. My initial reaction is a smile
because 155 seconds is definitely
morethan two minutes. So I did my math
wrong but I like this song or at
least the version that I played here.
This group is called Tone six and
they're out of New Zealand as far
as I can tell from their facebook
page.Anyway. I know essentially nothing
about them, but they've got good
pipes and they did this song justice.
Again, we've got an anthem that's
onthe shorter side of things and someday
I'll learn what the length distribution
ofthese songs is and I will share all
of that information with you. I enjoy
that this is sung in samoan and not
in a language of a colonizing country.
It feels more authentic when that's
the case. We are however, going to
learn about some colonial interests
making a right mess of things in
the area. But first we need to know
where exactly in almost the middle
ofthe Pacific Ocean they had to sail
to to do it. When I say middle of
the ocean, this time I am talking
aboutthe geographic center. In the case
of the Pacific, that's located at
four degrees 58 minutes south, 158
degrees 45 minutes west, and Samoa
isabout 1000 miles southwest of that.
More helpfully perhaps, the island
nation is like 1700 miles northeast
ofAuckland, New Zealand. So it's kind
of pretty much in the middle of nowhere
spot. But people got there and they
survived there. Once you're there,
it's not so bad. It's tropical and
the average temperature is nearly
85degrees fahrenheit. It's about 26
and a half degrees celsius, but it
rains like a lot, at least compared
towhere I live. Samoa gets very nearly
10ft, about 3 meters of rain a year.
It seems like an awful lot to me,
but it has to be an amazing place
tolive despite that. Also a place that,
as an island in the middle of an
ocean, was brought to us by volcanism
which is a fun word to say. Volcanism.
Tryit. This particular set of volcanoes
area part of the samoan hotspot, which
also contains Wallace island, part
of Tuvalu, and some submerged banks.
The hotspot theory was developed
in 1963by a geophysicist named J. Tuza Wilson.
My undergrad in physics understanding
isbasically a fount of magma at a fixed
location through a lower part of
the plate and a moving upper part
generates an island chain. Pretty
coolif way outside my wheelhouse. That
gets me way, way further back than
Ineed to be when I'm starting to think
about a national anthem. But recall
that it was pretty cool, so I kind
of had to mention it. The story of
this anthem, like, like a lot of
them, man, a lot, uh, has to do with
colonialism again and hence a massive
injustice. The people of Samoa didn't
have a thing to be independent from
until the Europeans noticed they
were there and they were fine for
like 3000 years before. This is episode
15 and it's like the 15th country
thatI could do an entire series of podcasts
on because if I let it be, literally
everything is fascinating. So Samoa
is definitely not an exception to
that. But in this case, we're talking
about the national anthem, so I can't
wander as far off as I'd like, so
stop distracting me. There were a
couple of brief contacts in the 18th
century that included one in 1787
where a french scientific expedition
endedup getting attacked. The Samoans
killedtwelve people. Regular contact with
continental Europeans and Americans
started to happen about 1830 with
the arrival of christian missionaries
on thenext stopover from Tahiti as they
island hopped through the Pacific.
InSamoa, though, as elsewhere, the
missionaries were not really the
problem. It's the other stuff that
comes with them. But they arrived
at atime of local fighting and they helped
put a damper on that when the people
that were tired of fighting heard
about a gospel of peace. It didn't
stop the fighting, as we'll see,
butit didn't make it worse. The thing
that did that were the multinational
businessinterests of the United States, Britain
and Germany. That came with the notice
of the missionaries. Over the course
of the next 50 or so years, the three
countries established a business
footprint and expanded their footprint.
Abritish console had been installed
essentially concurrent with the arrival
of the London Missionary Society,
andthe US reached the islands in 1839
as part of a survey of the Pacific
Ocean. Sometime in 1855, the Germans
arrived when JC, Godfrey and Sohn
expanded their business out into
thePacific. I mentioned that company
specifically because when I looked
upthe owner, I learned about a terrible
thing that I didn't know about and
he did it. I didn't know it existed
before this. And it is called blackbirding.
It's a slavery or poorly paid forced
labor situation that occurs far from
one's homeland and you're either
coerced into it or straight up kidnapped.
Blackbirding is a practice that incredibly
enough, continues into the 21st century.
And unfortunately I'm not shocked
thatpeople are still terrible. However
theygot there and whatever means they
used to lay their claims, the US,
Germany and Britain laid those claims
and made some of the islands their
own. By the 1890s, the competing
interests and the different political
factions already present on the island
led to the First Samoan War, a largely
political affair that occurred roughly
between 18, 1886 and 1894. I say
largely political even though there
were skirmishes with western provided
troops and bombardments of villages
fromoffshore and warships are involved
in myreason for bringing it up. That reason
is the samoan crisis, wherein warships
from three countries that should
really have been butting out of what
was happening in Samoa got involved
inan intense dispute about who would
get to claim the place. Three american
ships and two german ships were bristling
their cannons at each other while
they were being monitored by a 6th
british ship. It was nearly war for
several months and then about in
the middle of the First Samoan Civil
War, the 1889 AP's cyclone stopped
anything that didn't involve trying
tolive through a cyclone and forced
anegotiation of sorts. When the five
ships were destroyed and the single
british corvette class vessel managed
to escape. And I will resist the
rabbit hole of ship classes in the
19th century Royal Navy. Regardless
of thenegotiations and the pauses, the
conflict continued and resolved in
the installation of one king and
the exile of another. Then, a mere
four years after the end of the war
in 1898, the installed king died
ofand the exiled king returned and
sued for control of the country,
theSamoan supreme court ruled that his
line could have the throne, but only
if it was his son and not him. So
a powerful rival chief that wanted
thecrown rebelled. This was the first
event of the Second Samoan War and
it's a real short war. It's also
awar that makes me sick about imperialism.
Asfar as I can tell, this is basically
asingle battle where the british and
american forces were supporting the
prince and the chiefs forces were
defeated in kind. What blows my mind
about the entire thing is that the
end result of this battle is not
infact the Prince of Samoa taking power
in Samoa. The actual result is an
injustice to the people of Samoa
andan event that basically gets repeated
again and again through history.
What weget is a negotiation among the US,
Britain and Germany about how they
were going to split things up and
end the hostilities in the region.
TheSamoan tripartite Convention of 1899
resulted in western Samoa, the former
name of the country I'm talking about
right now, and American Samoa, a
later episode on this very show,
withBritain getting some concessions
fromGermany and other parts of the world.
But then the three countries also
took it upon themselves to dissolve
theexisting government entirely, abolish
the monarchy, arbitrarily established
newnations, and asked exactly zero Samoans
what they thought about the process.
I'mlearning a lot about how the world
ended up like this in my reading,
andsometimes it's some eye opening stuff,
but I do need to get around to talking
about the song, though. And now that
we've gotten the timeline up to the
very beginning of the 20th century,
Ican mention Sauni Elijah Carusa because
he was born on January 30 in the
year 1900, I get a sense from the
information that I can find that
Sauni is a way more interesting person
than the information on the Internet
implies. But again, as with a bunch
of these guys, I've been struggling
todiscover a full picture of his life.
National anthems have this weird
spotin history, and they're not like
important when it happens. They're
important sometimes way after the
fact, or maybe not at all. Sauni
wasborn in Fiji and sometime before
1948had moved to Apia, which is the capital
and largest city in Samoa. I'm pretty
sure he was samoan, but I can't confirm
that based on the information that
Iwas able to find. He was married
and hehad a couple of children, and one
newspaper clipping from 1950 refers
tohim as a chieftain, but offers no
further context. Sound was another
selftaught multi instrumentalist and
music teacher, just like our last
anthem creator. Although he did not
quit teaching, he had three bands
that he either played in or directed.
None of them hit it big. Another
oldsamoan newspaper article on the 22
October 1948 has a picture of Sauni
playing a coronethe. It's very similar
to a trumpet, and he's playing it
with his band during the very competition
that he won to have the song become
the anthem. You can see item three
inthe show notes if you want to look
at the picture. We know that he was
able to play two coronets at the
same time and could play two different
parts that way. It's wild to think
about that. What I find really fun
is that he figured out how to perform
that feat because his friend said
hesaw a man do it over in Tonga. And
Sami thought to himself, I bet I
could do that if a man in Tonga could
do it, and he figured it out. Then
it turned out that his friend was
lying to him and he never saw another
person play two coronets at once.
ButI found it. There's a couple of actually
real videos out there on the Internet
ofthis. There's some fake kind of hilarious
ones, but there's some real ones.
None that I can find are of the anthem
rider. Regardless, it's a cool trick,
and it figured into his act when
hewas touring around the region of
the Pacific that he was in. I can
also confidently say that he died
age 77 in Apia. At the time, he was
the choir master of the 7th day adventist
church. A man that, like I said,
isprobably far more interesting than
acouple of rambling paragraphs can
show, and a man that also lived long
enough to see the stable independence
of thecountry he wrote for the song for
become a reality again. We end up
with the anthem not really being
themain event of the creator's life.
It's sort of a feature for a bunch
ofthese guys. Now to catch up with
thetimeline and get us an anthem. So
the big western powers divide up
the islands like they had a right
to,and everything west of 170 degrees
westlongitude officially becomes German
Samoa. If my other reading about
german colonialism is indicative
of how itwent, they treated the country fairly,
explicitly as a business venture,
andbecause of that, as early as 1808,
the Mao movement was established.
Mao m a uis a Samoan word. It translates to
English most meaningful in this context
as a strong opinion, especially one
that is held resolutely. The chiefs
were pushing for independence and
were exiled along with their wives
and children. Then World War one
happened in July of 1948. Pretty
immediately after the war started,
Britain's government asked New Zealand
to seize the communication facilities
ingerman occupied Samoa. Coincidentally,
aprevious prime minister, their longest
serving, actually Richard Seddon,
really wanted his country in control
ofSamoa. The generals figured if hostilities
with Germany happened, this would
bea logical use of the military in
Samoa. So they already had a pretty
detailed plan drawn up on how to
move in and take over. Germany offered
no resistance when they did actually
goover there, so they didn't need the
plan they had. But the german government
refused to officially surrender the
country. New Zealand successfully
got whatthey wanted because first as an occupying
force, but then officially after
theTreaty of Versailles, Samoa came
under New Zealand's control. But
right before 1919 when the treaty
happened, the spanish flu hit the
country and it hit it hard. It killed
7000 native Samoans and the New Zealand
government was blamed by the people.
Itturns out that it was in fact their
fault because they did not quarantine
theship that brought the flu there and
American Samoa managed to actually
contain everything and not infect
their people. New Zealand made a
formal apology in 2002 to the samoan
people for failing to quarantine
that shipand it was so bad that there was
apetition that was withdrawn to change
over to American Samoa. But the general
distaste with foreign administration
was notjust because of the flu. You can
probably feel a distaste from yourself
no matter where you live or when
yougrew up. That helped fuel their independence
movement and there were enough repeated
efforts that eventually New Zealand
just stopped resisting and let Samoa
become independent. Not immediately
though,and quite a few people were shot
bythe police at a peaceful demonstration.
Theyalso exiled critics of their administration
off to New Zealand. So this country
does not get a pass on imperialism
either.That's not all right. After the New
Zealand administration capitulated,
Samoawas granted self governance in 1948
and complete independence came in
1962. They were the first nation
inthat part of the world to be again
the process of shaking off colonialism.
It'spretty cool. The anthem was written
fora contest held shortly after self
governance was granted in 1948 and
played after God Save the Queen at
all official ceremonies and such
later that year. However, it was
not until 1961, when full independence
wasimminent, that it became the de facto
national anthem of Samoa. None of
that officially made the banner of
freedom the official national anthem.
It was not until the official flag
and national anthem Samoa act of
1994 that I get to say that we have
gotten our anthem and now we can
goon to discuss the song itself. Musically
it's an enjoyable song for me, but
one that I don't know enough about
music to categorize as one genre
oranother. I do know that it's in the
key of c and it's moderato like 130
bpm. Most of the full band versions
ofthe song seem a little processional
and notquite a march, but honestly I can't
really tell with this one. At any
rate, it's not an incredibly complicated
tune when you look at the music and
it lends itself to many interpretations.
Lyrically there's a little bit more
to say about it, even if the entire
song is just seven lines long. I'm
going to read it in English, but
the original is written and sung
inSamoan. Samoa, arise and raise your
banner that is your crown. Oh see
and behold the stars on the waving
banner they are a sign that Samoa
isable to lead. Oh Samoa, hold fast
your freedom forever do not be afraid
as you are founded on God, our treasured,
precious liberty Samoa, arise and
wave your banner that is your crown.
And that's it. Just seven lines.
Twoof them are in fact the same. Given
the brevity of the banner of freedom.
I'm just gonna sort of talk my way
through the lyrics and hope that
that method works for this anthem.
We'll see. The song opens with a
call to action for the people to
arise and display the flag. It's
asymbol of honor and sovereignty.
Referringto the banner as a crown and placing
itin the first line is an indication
of theimportance associated with the national
identity. Stars on the flag can sometimes
mean guidance and direction. That
makes sense here for people that
lived somewhere that the Europeans
namedthe navigator islands because they
had such a prowess at sea navigation,
sowe're going to go with that. The
second line is trying to instill
confidence and assurance in the nation's
potential because the nation will
lead well, but is also well guided.
Thethird line is a more anthem appropriate
line, and it shows that the writer
isindeed singing of the country holding
on to the freedom that was gained
andnever ever letting go of it shows
theimportance of independence. Then
weget an explicitly christian line
inhonestly, what is not that religious
ofan anthem compared to what we've
already seen? It's a surprise because
Samoa is a very deeply christian
place.It is explicitly stated in their
constitution as of 2016, and more
than 90% of the population is a member
of some kind of Christianity. They
were, and presumably still are, a
group of Samoans that were actually
vocally displeased that the anthem
wasnot far more religious than it is,
and there is a set of alternate lyrics
that is sometimes sung. It makes
sense that the song would invoke
theblessings and protections and guidance
of their lord. Surely with him showing
the way the nation can overcome any
adversity, then Sauni focus is right
back on liberty and has the most
anthem esque of the lyrics. His choice
of words implies not just an appreciation
ofthe nation's freedom, but a reverence
forit. They must be cherished and saved
for posterity. The last line is a
refrain of the first it makes the
tune nice and circular for me. Actually,
I like circularity in songs and it
reaffirms the sense of unity and
pride that Samoans should feel as
they continue their journey forward.
Overall, the lyrics of ole fuah o
le so ola to gao samawa encapsulate
themesof national identity, pride, leadership,
faith and perseverance. While it
is a short song, Sauni very much
understood the assignment and delivered
for his country with a song that
seeks to inspire and unite the people.
They should be reminded by the lyrics
that as a nation, their people share
values and aspirations. It functions
wellas an anthem and seeks to inspire
adeep sense of solidarity among the
people and instill a deep commitment
tothe collective well being of the
nation. It makes it fairly obvious
whyit was the song that won the contest,
although to be honest, I've heard
exactly none of the other entries,
sothere's a chance that personally,
I wouldlike a different one better. I don't
know. I'm not disappointed in the
song this time, though. It felt a
little more disjointed as far as
the story goes, than I would like
itto sometimes does on the show. But
Sawney was an interesting guy, at
least in the context of what I was
able to find out, and Samoa is a
very interesting place, even if history
is light on the details about the
author of the anthem. But it's a
hard to find archetype. I haven't
foundit yet. I'll get there eventually.
Maybe.We'll see. It's a future topic. Turnover
for now. We're gonna hear the credits
and I'm gonna get to preparing for
a record. Well, I'm making one. It's
weird. I said I'm gonna prepare for
one, but that was when I was writing
itand I'm currently making it now.
Nowit's awkward, but anyway, awkward's
kinda. It's kinda my thing. The writing,
recording and production for the
show are done by me and I wrote and
played the theme music. The music
wasused by me with my permission. Unless
otherwise noted, the anthems I play
are public domain or some other equivalently
free to play license. And here I
am indeed noting that I did not yet
get permission to play this song.
Ihave tried though, and reached out
to tone six via Facebook, email and
YouTube, but as of the time of this
recording, I have not heard from
them. My sources and the specific
itemsI mention in the show are contained
inthe show notes, and the most direct
way to get to those show notes is@anthemspodcast.com
you can find me on Facebook and WhatsApp
as the Anthems podcast. You should
follow me on Facebook. It'll be a
rare post in your feed, but it'd
bebetter to subscribe on your favorite
podcast player. That is the best
wayto listen to me for now. I tried
toget the episodes shared onto whatever
platform I can with the hashtag anthemspod.
It would be cool if you also hashtag
the post like that, and I heard it
will actually make you cooler too.
You can email me corrections, comments,
suggestions, ideas, instructions,
concerns,and even ask me questions. Maybe
noone's done it yet, but you could.
Youcould ask them@anthemspodmail.com.
for better or forworse, I've made it possible to leave
me a voicemail or send a text at
120-375-9833 hundred and 75. Or better
still, leave me a review wherever
youcan so I can find out what you think.
Because I really, really want to
know what you think. No one's told
me yet. Give me a rating on your
podcast app. Ratings and reviews
matterto the algorithms people. Perhaps
there's a chance that you bring up
the show at your next family gathering,
because they're all into this really
specific kind of history too, and
as such are also awesome people.
If youhave any suggestions for future episodes,
the best way to get them to me is
at the emailanthemspodmail.com. but
even if all you do is listen to this
show once in a while, thanks, because
that's really cool. And I do notice
Ikeep track of all this stuff. It's
fun, and I hope you enjoy it. I'll
be back.
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