- 171

The origin of the Western Polynesian papāalagi~pālagi, and the Fijian vāvālagi~pāpālagi, 1 currently meaning ‘land of white people’ or ‘white people, Europeans’, 2 has been speculated on for at least 150 years. In this paper we review in detail the past and present meanings of the word, evaluate the various theories of its origins, and conclude by presenting our own theory.

The distribution of the word in its modern sense is:

Tonga:

• Dumont D'Urville 1827(1834 Vol. 15), papa langui ‘Blancs, hommes blacs’[Whites, white men].
• Churchward (1959), papālangi ‘European, (person) belonging to any white-skinned race’.
• See also Hale 1840 (1968 [1846]:321), Shumway (1971:424).

Niue:

• Sperlich (1997), pālagi ‘European’. var. pāpālagi, papalagi. See also McEwen (1970).

East Uvea:

• Bataillon 1870 (1932), papalagi ‘Européens. Les blancs en général’ [Europeans. Whites in general].
• Rensch (1984), papālagi ‘Européen, nom donné aux blancs’ [European, name given to whites].

East Futuna:

• Grézel (1878), papalagi ‘étranger, Européen; peuple civilisé’ [stranger, European; civilised people].
• Moyse-Faurie (1993), papālagi ‘un étranger; un Europēen (actuellement)’ [a stranger; a European (nowadays)].

- 172

Samoa: 3

• Hale 1840 (1968 [1846]:321), papalagi ‘foreign, foreigner (applied to whites)’.
• Milner (1966), papālagi ‘European, white man’.
• Hovdhaugen (1987:187), pālagi ‘European, white man. This shortened form of papālagi is very common. Sometimes the reduction of the initial (reduplicated?) syllable results in a geminated p in the beginning of the word’.
• See also Pratt (1911[1862]), Newell (1893).

Tokelau:

• Hale 1840 (1968 [1846]:363), papalagi ‘foreigner’.
• Office of Tokelau Affairs (1986), papālagi ‘white man, Caucasian, (also pālagi)’.

Tuvalu:

• Vaitupu: Hale 1840 (1968 [1846]:363), papalagi ‘foreigner’.
• Nanumea: Jackson (1994), pālagi ‘European, foreigner, white person’.
• See also Ranby (1980).

Kapingamarangi:

• Lieber and Dikepa (1974), baalangi ‘European, American’.

Tikopia:

• Firth (1985), papalangi ‘white person; white man's country. (Prob. loan word but of long usage)’.

Fiji:

• Lockerby 1809 (Schütz 1985:568), wankey ne pappilangi [i.e., waqa ni papālagi] ‘a ship’ [as opposed to a canoe].
• Richardson 1811 (Schütz 1985:577-81), Pappelange ‘a white man or ghost’; Goro ne pappelange [i.e., kuro ni papālagi] ‘an iron pot’; Moley ne pappelange [i.e., moli ni papālagi] ‘a lemon’; Callou ne pappelange [i.e., kalou ni papālagi, lit. ‘spirit of white man’] ‘a watch’.
• Capell 1941 (1968), kai Vavalagi ‘European’.
• See also Gaimard 1827 (Schütz 1985:595), Endicott 1829 (1923:71), Hale 1840 (1968 [1846]:420), 4 Hazlewood (1850), Neyret (1935).

Although the word papālagi was recorded in the 1773 Tongan word lists of Forster/Anderson and Pickersgill/Anderson (in Lanyon-Orgill 1979), the first textual use that we are aware of dates from 1777, when Captain James Cook wrote in Tonga:

The reference to ‘cloth’ we will return to below. 5

- 173

George Vason in Tonga (1797-1801). The next recorded use of papālagi comes from George Vason, a 24 year-old bricklayer from Nottingham, who went as a missionary to Tonga aboard the London Missionary Society's ship, the Duff. During his almost five year sojourn there, he adopted a completely Tongan way of life, even taking two Tongan wives. His narrative states:

Further on the term is used adjectivally:

William Mariner in Tonga (1806-1810). Another early use of papālagi is found in William Mariner's account of his four year sojourn in Tonga:

In the following citation, it carries the meaning ‘land of the white people’, although this meaning is not found in Tongan dictionaries:

Samuel Patterson in Fiji. At about the same time, the American sailor Samuel Patterson used the word on a number of occasions in the account of his shipwreck in Fiji in 1808:

These people were well shaped, and of comely features in many instances, their hair black and naturally straight, and their skin of a copper colour, - 174 excepting in a single instance we saw one who was white amongst them [i.e., an albino], as Steere and myself were walking out, he was in company with a large collection, and I thinking he was an European and being overjoyed, cried out, How fare you, shipmate? but the savages broke out in a great laughter, saying, taw haw, haw haw, peppa longa Feegee, peppa longa Feegee; that is, white man of Feegee (Patterson 1817:92-93).

William Cary in Fiji. William Cary, who was shipwrecked in Lau in 1825, used the word adjectivally when he wrote:

Captain Jules Dumont D'Urville in Fiji. The Frenchman Captain Dumont D'Urville who visited Fiji in 1827 wrote:

The Reverend John Williams in Samoa (1830,1832). During the same period, the missionary John Williams used the word in his account of his two visits to Samoa:

- 175

In a footnote, Williams glosses Papalangis as ‘Foreigners’ and, several pages later, uses papalangi adjectivally:

Williams also records the lyrics of a Samoan song in which the word occurs:

In a footnote Moyle (1984:152) offers as a possible reconstruction and translation:

And further on:

By the mid-19th century, the word papālagi~vāvālagi was a regular feature of writings in English on Fiji and Western Polynesia.

Numerous etymologies have been advanced for papālagi, almost all of which are based on the assumption that the word is composed of papā and lagi. While the first morpheme has been ascribed diverse meanings (which we review below), most of these etymologies agree that the second morpheme lagi means ‘sky’, ‘heaven’, ‘cloud’ or ‘horizon’. We list some of these below in approximate chronological order of first appearance.

- 176

Probably the earliest recorded etymology for papālagi is in George Vason 's narrative of his life in Tonga from 1797 to 1801 (see above). Vason spoke Tongan fluently, and would have been familiar with its morphology. He seems to have assumed that papālagi was bimorphemic and “coined” the etymology himself. This etymology was followed by John A. Fraser, an Australian prospector in 1930s Fiji (Fraser 1954:47), and by the eminent historian O.H.K Spate (1988:213).

John Stair, missionary to Samoa from 1838 to 1845, may have been the first to offer what has become perhaps the most commonly cited etymology:

A footnote here indicates: “After recently perusing this MS., my friend, the Rev. Samuel Ella, says, ‘This is also my idea.’”

As pointed out by Tcherkézoff (1999:417-19), this ‘sky-bursters’ translation may have been based on a fanciful interpretation of Polynesian cosmology by fellow LMS (London Missionary Society) missionary William Wyatt Gill, compounded by the fortuitous partial similarity of the Samoan verb pā (p1. pāpā) ‘explode, burst, hit, strike, crash, bang etc’ It was also followed by their colleague, George Turner:

The subsequent adherents to this theory include the lady traveller Constance Gordon Cumming, who visited Samoa in 1877 (Gordon Cumming 1882:95); the Acting British Consul and Deputy Commissioner for the - 177 Western Pacific, William Churchward (1971 [1887]:226); the missionary V.A. Barradale (1907:133); a former District Commissioner in Fiji, Reginald St Johnston (1921:22); the travel writer Newton A. Rowe (1930:9); author and aeronautical historian Roderick Owen (1955:135); Australian psychologist Ronald Rose (1959:17); Pacific historian and editor of Cook's journals, J.C. Beaglehole (1967:178,n.l); eminent Samoan chief and scholar Napoleone Tuiteleleapaga (1980:36-37); Pacific historian Ian C. Campbell (1981:65); mission historian, John Garrett (1982:121); German author Erich Scheuermann (1982: inside-front cover); Pacific historian Malama Meleisea (1987:42); travel writer Paul Theroux (1992:291); and Meleisea and the anthropologist Penelope Schoeffel (1997:119). Minor variants include “fallen from the skies”, espoused by writer H. Wilfred Walker (1909:50), and simply ‘from the sky’, suggested by the missionary to Tonga, Thomas West (1865:42-43).

Thomas Jaggar, missionary to Lakeba (Fiji), offers a Tongan origin of the word:

The linguist, Claire Moyse-Faurie (1993:314), follows this etymology for the East Futunan cognate.

In an account of a visit to Hihifo (Tongatapu), Basil Thomson, a colonial administrator to Fiji and Tonga, recounts a story told to him by the King of Tonga about the origin of papālagi:

- 178

Thomson (1902:205-6) offers yet another derivation:“Ba-ki-langi (‘shooting up to heaven’) is the derivation which Fatafehi favours, meaning that the ships' masts reached into the sky”. This etymology may be based on Tongan pā, meaning ‘to touch; to hit, knock against, collide with’ (Churchward 1959). The idea of ships' masts that appeared upon the horizon and reached up to the sky is used in the form of “sky piercers” in Albert Wendt's poem, “Inside us the dead” (1976:8-9).

The revered British anthropologist A.M. Hocart appears to have been the first to offer ‘those who came from the base of the sky’ or ‘horizon’ as an etymology: “Vāvālagi: base of the sky, common term for European countries” (1952:194). In this he was followed by the founding curator of the Fiji Museum, Coleman Wall (Tonganivalu 1918:15); long-time Fiji resident and well-known maritime historian, Captain Stan Brown (1973:14); historians Philip Snow and Stefanie Waine (1979:89); Charles Stuart Ramsay, a copra trader on Niuafo'ou (Tonga) from 1912 to 1937 (Ramsay and Plumb [1939?]: 15); and Allen Birtwhistle (1954:84) in his biography of the pioneering Fiji missionary John Hunt.

Coleman Wal, of the Fiji Museum, believed that papālagi was originally a Polynesian word for ‘ghost’:

This etymology however did not find much favour among the members of the Fijian Society, immediately eliciting a three-pronged refutation from the Society's secretary G.A.F.W. Beauclerc:

- 179

Five years later, E.N. Heycock weighed in:

More recently, the linguist Albert Schütz (1985:9-10) offered some support for Coleman Wall's proposal, pointing out that papālagi~vāvālagi is glossed as ‘ghost’ in one early Fijian word list (Richardson 1811).

The outspoken and ever resourceful Beauclerc, after dismissing Coleman Wall's idea about ghosts and the conjunction of the Polynesian gods Papa and Lagi, came up with his own original theory, all in one breath-defying sentence (to which the reader is invited to supply his or her own question mark or marks):

Fellow member of the Fijian Society, George Barrow, subsequently wrote to Beauclerc, reporting that:

- 180

Although this theory still surfaces from time to time in contemporary oral tradition in Fiji, it appears that it has gained no further adherents in print; the only comment we have come across being decidedly dismissive: “I regard the alternative explanation, given by some people, that the word was a corruption of “Far, far land” which the early whites told the natives they came from, as childish” (St Johnston 1921:22).

The etymology of vāvālagi remained a regular topic of discussion among the members of the Fijian Society in the early 1920s. George Barrow reported that Ratu Joni Vaubula, a 19th century high chief of Lakeba and missionary to Tonga, derived vāvālagi from vava ‘to carry upon the back’ and lagi: “The native idea being that the earth and sky actually come into contact at this point [the horizon], they assumed that the sky there rested upon men's backs—or that they carried it, as a mother carries her child” (Barrow 1922:15).

Heycock (1923:8) reported to the Fijian Society that in Samoa papālagi was commonly derived from the conjunction of Samoan pa'epa'e ‘white’ and lagi, but rejected this “for various reasons”—none of which he actually gives.

Heycock did however endorse the idea that papālagi is derived from the conjunction of the Samoan pāpā ‘chief, 'a title of honour’ 8 and lagi (Heycock 1923:8), and went into some detail as to why. Nonetheless, his reasons are unconvincing and based on inaccurate information.

Heycock had a third etymology—another Samoan variant of the “heaven burster” theory: “… that when the white man arrived on the shore one fired a musket and the noise of the shot ‘papa’ added to the appearance of the fire and smoke from the gun barrel suggested at once the word ‘papalagi’ or ‘fire from heaven’” (Heycock 1923:9).

- 181

During a seven month sojourn on Niue, Edwin M. Loeb recorded the words of Eua's (Niuean) version of the tradition of Cook's arrival. He reports, “The head of Captain Cook was wrapped up, and that is the reason that the people of the island call white people ‘covered heads’ or Papalagi” (Loeb 1978 [1926]:30). This etymology is based on the Niuean words: pāpā v.t. ‘to keep in, shut in’ + lagi ‘sky, heaven; thunder; head, hair’ (McEwen 1970).

The words “sailing gods” in the title of Newton A. Rowe's book, Samoa under the Sailing Gods, refer to Europeans, and reflect the belief that the word papālagi alludes to the arrival of the Europeans as “gods on ships”. The first sentence in the first chapter entitled “Sailing gods” reads: “It is probably for little more than two centuries that Samoa has known us sailing gods” (Rowe 1930:9).

In reference to the meaning of Fijian vāvālagi, the colonial administrator Adolf Brewster wrote:

This etymology was repeated by the journalist and erstwhile Fiji resident, June Knox-Mawer (1965:41).

We have classified the above etymologies into three main groups. The first two are the most popular and reflect the idea that the Polynesians believed the first Europeans to visit their islands to be supernatural beings who came from the sky, clouds, or from under the horizon. The third group embraces what we may call “miscellaneous theories”. We list the three groups below.

Lagi ‘Sky, Heaven, Cloud’. In these etymologies, diverse meanings are assigned to the initial element papā, while lagi maintains the ascribed meaning ‘sky’, ‘heaven’, ‘cloud’, or ‘horizon’:

- 182

Lagi ‘Horizon’. In these etymologies, diverse meanings are assigned to the initial element papā, whilst lagi maintains the ascribed meaning ‘horizon’:

Other Etymologies. In these etymologies, diverse meanings are assigned to both elements of papālagi:

As mentioned above, almost all etymologies are based on the notion that papālagi is bimorphemic—composed of papā + lagi—which presupposes that the word was actually coined by the Polynesians themselves. The most detailed and scholarly account of papālagi's origin is Tcherkézoff's recent JPS paper in which he reviews the main etymologies put forward, while conceding than an option is borrowing from a non-Polynesian language (Tcherkézoff 1999:424 n.2). We agree with this conclusion and believe that the word is not a Polynesian coinage, but a loanword. However, before presenting our case in detail, we will argue that the existing “etymologies” are in fact folk-etymologies which have been readily accepted because of two basic assumptions we believe to be false.

Folk-etymology (or popular etymology) is a process whereby the structure of a word is re-analysed by identifying parts of it with synchronically attested independent words or morphemes which are (a) phonetically similar and (b) related in meaning. In doing so, it gives the word an etymology it previously lacked. Folk-etymology can apply also to words which simply look like compounds. For example, English carry-all < French carriole - 183 ‘(covered) carriage’, or English woodchuck < Algonquian otèek ‘ground hog’ (Hock 1986:203), and English crayfish < French crévisse (Crowley 1992:233). A nice example from Fijian is vakasisi ‘to give extra (purchases) for free’ (vaka Causative Prefix + sisi ‘to slip [to put stealthily]’), re-analysed from the Fiji Hindi (< Hindi < Urdu < Persian) baksis ‘a tip, gratuity’. According to Hock and Joseph (1996:263),“… borrowings are perhaps the most favoured target of popular etymology, because their structure frequently is opaque to the speakers of the borrowing language.” We feel this has happened with papālagi.

Sornig (1981:13,90) also points out that folk-etymological manipulation sometimes is supported by legend and the need for historicity (i.e., the desire to unravel the event which led to naming some object or phenomenon) is what is at the heart of these legends. We think the evidence we present below will show that many of the previously proposed etymologies of papālagi conform to the legend of European divinity and invincibility upon first contact with impotent and ignorant Pacific Islanders.

The etymologies of our first two listed groups are based on the assumption that the Polynesian world, prior to the arrival of the Europeans, was a limited one, bounded by an unassailable, uncrossable horizon. This notion is expounded by such writers as Meleisea (1987:42): “Samoans envisaged the universe as a dome, ending at the horizon.” Meleisea and Schoeffel (1997:119) also argue that:

See also Theroux (1992:291): “In the seventeenth century, Tongans and Samoans believed that their islands lay in a great and uncrossable ocean.”

Meleisea apparently derives this information from the missionary John Stair, who writes extensively, and fancifully, on what he was told by the Samoans of the supposed happenings when Europeans first came to their shores. It is worth citing Stair in full:

The Samoans of the day were accustomed to describe in a vivid manner the astonishment of their ancestors at the arrival of the first European vessel. - 184 Until that time they had been accustomed to regard themselves and the inhabitants of the few other groups, as the only human beings in existence. They thought the world was flat, and supported by a pillar ascending from the regions below, or salefe'e, whilst the sky was supposed to cover them as a canopy, forming a junction at the distant horizon. If by chance inhabitants of other islands visited them, they resembled them in person, and came to them in canoes similar to those in use among themselves, so that the arrival of a big ship with sails off their coasts might well excite astonishment and awe.

These marvellous visitors they called pāpālangi [sic] (sky-bursters), for, they said, these people have either burst through the clouds with their ship; or else, lifting them up, they have passed beneath, and come to visit us. It is possible the name pāpālangi may have been given to commemorate the noise of the ship's guns, as they first heard the dread sound. [A footnote here indicates: After recently perusing this MS., my friend, the Rev. Samuel - 185 Ella, says, ‘This is also my idea.’] The strange visitors were described as man-eaters, from the fact that portions of a pig had been seen hanging up on the ship, and these were supposed to be human flesh. This led them to think that the visitors had come to get fresh victims to eat; and hence they endeavoured to hasten their departure … (Stair n.d. [c.1897]:22-24).

There is much in Stair's account that is patently fanciful and ridiculous, such as the implication that Samoans could not distinguish between pork and human flesh, but we shall restrict ourselves to refuting the idea of the horizon circumscribing the Polynesians' minuscule world. The notion is hardly compatible with the well-known fact that the Polynesians were very accomplished ocean travellers (D'Arcy 1997:75-76, Dening 1962, Geraghty 1993, 1994, Irwin 1992). We know from Cook that the Tahitians knew of Rotuma (Dening 1962:135), and that the Tongans knew of Kiribati (Geraghty 1994:235), and from the 16th to the 18th centuries Micronesians from Kiribati and the Caroline Islands were often found in Melanesia and the Philippines (Quanchi 1993:45). We therefore doubt that the horizon was seen as a conceptual barrier; nor is there any evidence to suggest that it was of any great importance in Polynesian culture.

The etymologies we have catalogued above show it was not until the 20th century that writers claimed that the first Europeans to arrive in Polynesia were considered “gods” or “spirits” by the Polynesians. While this implied divinity has almost become a sine qua non of the modern popular etymologies for papālagi, none of the 19th century etymologies attribute divinity to Europeans, alluding only to them coming from heaven or the sky. There is no conclusive evidence that Polynesians considered the first European visitors to be divine beings.

What is the reason for this misconception? We believe there are several. One is the misinterpretation of the lagi element of papālagi, variously translated as ‘horizon’, ‘clouds’, ‘sky’ or ‘heaven’. Indeed, Tcherkézoff (1999), even after questioning and rejecting various etymologies for papā, still maintains lagi refers to the sky. It is not true, however, that lagi means ‘heaven’, since Polynesians did not believe the sky to be the abode of the gods—this is a Christian extension of the original meaning. The so-called divinity of Europeans may, therefore, be due to lagi being interpreted in this way.

Another reason is the European presumption of superiority. The idea that prior to European contact the Polynesian world was a limited one, bounded by an unassailable, uncrossable horizon is also founded on just this view. - 186 Many European accounts of first contact and early dealings with the inhabitants of Polynesia are full of self-importance and arrogance. Europeans often assumed they understood the actions of the Islanders perfectly well; and in giving trinkets which they deemed of little or no value, they assumed that Polynesians lacked any conception of the true or European value of things. With such attitudes, it is perhaps not surprising that Europeans eventually bestowed divinity upon themselves. Moreover, Europeans were probably quite happy to go along with their apotheosis; it stood them in good stead, and it would certainly do them no harm to perpetuate it.

A case in point is Captain James Cook. He arrived at Kealakekua Bay (Hawai'i) in 1778 during the Makahiki festival—the celebration of the annual return of Lono (god of peace, fertility, crops and rain) from Kahiki. 9 It is commonly held that because of the resemblance of his ships' sails to the tapa of Lono, and his arrival during the Makahiki, Cook was ceremonially received as an incarnation of Lono (Beaglehole 1979, Malo 1951 [1898], Badger 1988, Scarr 1990, Sahlins 1982, 1995) and, therefore, had to be killed. However, the circumstances of and reasons for the killing of Cook have been the subject of much debate. Kennedy (1978), Bergendorf et al. (1988) and Obeyesekere (1992) all argue that Cook being an incarnation of Lono is a Western-inspired myth, promoted largely by Christian missionaries and chiefly converts after 1820.

Finally, the claim that early European visitors were deified may also have been based on a misunderstanding of early accounts of European persons and manufactures being designated by words, such as Fijian kalou, that subsequently came to be used as translations for the one, supreme God of Christianity. The pre-Christian meaning of kalou, however, was far broader, covering many kinds of supernatural being and much besides. The missionary John Davies was told by the Tongans that there were “nearly as many gods as men” in Fiji (im Thurn and Wharton 1925:156). The word kalou referred not only to the thousands of supernatural entities, but was also used sometimes for priests, and all manner of persons and things that were odd or unfamiliar, including cripples (im Thurn and Wharton 1925:44), oversized eels (Erskine 1953:434), and strangely shaped stones (Wallis 1851:366, Pritchard 1866:363, Waterhouse 1866:403). European visitors, then, clearly could qualify as kalou; but it is misleading to translate this simply as ‘gods’.

The deifying of Europeans is also challenged in Fernández- Armesto's recent book on Philip II of Spain's empire. Fernández-Armesto (1999:11) emphatically ridicules the oft-repeated claim that Europeans were received as gods in the Americas: “These godlike and heroic self-perceptions…, I suspect, explain the tradition in conquistador literature which so often and so implausibly claims that Spaniards were received by their victims as gods ….”

- 187

Because there are no contemporary first-hand Polynesian accounts of their first contact with Europeans, we are forced to rely on Europeans' accounts, which are replete with 18th and 19th century Eurocentric views. This issue is addressed by Campbell (1981:64), who fittingly concludes:

The vast majority of recorded Polynesian history, beginning with the first contacts, has been dictated by Europeans. Seed (1992:10) puts the point most succinctly and eloquently: “To the victor belongs the right to write history; his empowerment is even greater when he controls the weapons— the pen and paper—with which history is written.”

We offer here two examples of recent authors who comply with and promote the apotheosis of Europeans. The first, David Howarth's recounting of Wallis's visit to Tahiti in 1767, is full of pure conjecture:

However, several pages further on Howarth admits: “So the Dolphin discovered Tahiti; but she discovered almost nothing about the Tahitians…. [T]hey still knew nothing about the way the island was governed, what religion it had, what laws and conventions” (1983:25). This would certainly be true of most, if not all early European contact with Polynesians.

The second example comes from a paper entitled “Polynesian Perceptions of Europeans in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries”, in which Campbell (1981) strongly advocates the theory that Polynesians initially considered Europeans to be gods, and as we saw in the quotation above, draws a direct link between this perception and the name papālagi. In making - 188 this inference, Campbell neglects some crucial facts. Firstly, he forgets that the first Europeans to visit Western Polynesia were the Dutch in the first half of the 17th century. Secondly, Europeans came very sporadically with decades or generations separating visits. If, as Campbell (1981:65) implies, the word was coined in the 18th century when all the “strikingly majestic vessels” came in “such numbers”, we must assume it was the late 18th century, for it was not until at least that time that Europeans came so often and in “such numbers” (albeit still in small numbers compared to the 19th century) as to have the impact, and create the necessary conditions, for the word to be coined. However, the word papālagi cannot have been coined in the late 18th century, because it was already in use in Tonga in 1773 (see Forster/Anderson 1773 and Pickersgill/Anderson 1773) when Cook visited.

There has been considerable discussion on early Polynesian-European encounters, the type of reception the Europeans were given, and the perceptions each side had of the other (see Davidson 1966, Pearson 1970, Howe 1977, Campbell 1980, 1981, 1994, McLachlan 1982, Dutton 1987, Kuschel 1988, Paxman 1988, Linnekin 1991, Chappell 1992, Adams 1993, Quanchi 1993).

Quanchi (1993:47), for instance, reports that the initial reaction of Islanders to the arrival of Europeans was certainly not uniform. It ranged from “trembling and shaking at meeting the ‘ghosts’ of their ancestors”, unwillingness to show themselves, immediate friendship and willingness to trade, to hostility. Quanchi points out that even when Europeans were initially regarded as gods or spirits, this belief soon changed when the Islanders saw that Europeans were mortal, bled, and “demonstrated [the] quite familiar habits of toilet and sexual liaison”. This last point is echoed by Kofe (1983:104):

In a survey of first contacts between Europeans and Polynesians from Mendaña in 1568 to Wilson in 1797, Pearson (1970) concludes there were three types of Polynesian initial contact behaviour: (a) immediate hostility, or what seemed to be hostility to the Europeans, 10 (b) fear and caution, and the most common (c) ceremonial reception by the chief. It may be that the great humility, veneration and generosity shown towards Europeans, as well - 189 as the elaborateness of these traditional Polynesian welcoming ceremonies for strangers and honoured guests led Europeans to overestimate their own importance.

Campbell's research (1994) shows there is a very wide range of interpretations of contact relationships, and offers 11 reasons why it is difficult to interpret them. These include divergent cultural practices, assumptions and expectations; lack of comprehension of languages; lack of Polynesian records of initial contact; observer's paradox; reliability of observers and informants; and general ethnocentric biases. Quanchi (1993:46) is more specific:

Finally, there is the eloquent silence of the Islanders themselves. While many Polynesian cultures are rich in historical traditions dating back hundreds of years, there is rarely any recollection of first contact with Europeans. Generally, it seems to have been a non-event. For instance, less than 100 years after the first European contact in Fiji, Basil Thomson (1908) struggled to find any recollection of it, ending up with one very brief and enigmatic rhyme. Yet many other historical traditions recorded at the same time, such as the history of Bau (Anon. 1891), recall in great detail events that must have taken place well over a century previously. Some 130 years after Tasman's visit to Tonga, a Polynesian nation particularly noted for retaining detailed historical traditions over hundreds of years, Cook enquired “if any memory of Tasman's ships had been preserved among them” and was merely told that their ancestors had mentioned two ships staying for a few days at a particular place (Beaglehole 1967:178). If the Tongans had been impressed by the visit, they would surely have had more detailed recollections to offer, and Cook would have recorded them, but he did not. Our conclusion is that, overall, the arrival of Europeans in Polynesia was not as momentous as some would have us believe.

- 190

We believe papālagi is most likely derived from a Malay word which was brought to Tonga by Tasman and Visscher and their crews during their visits to Tongatapu and Nomuka in January 1643. 11 From Tonga it was spread throughout Western Polynesia and Fiji, to the Marquesas in Eastern Polynesia, to Tikopia (Solomon Islands), and to Micronesia. The introduction of this word (and its referent) to Tonga is in line with the Dutch loanwords (and their referents) also introduced to Polynesia by the Dutch explorers (see Geraghty and Tent 1997a, 1997b).

It is our contention that the Malay word was introduced by either the Dutch themselves or Malay-speaking crew members. There are no extant muster rolls of Tasman's 1642-1643 voyage, so we are not in a position to claim that East Indians were on board the Heemskerck and Zeehaen. But since Tasman's point of embarkation was Batavia, it is not unreasonable to assume that they might have been. It was a common practice for the Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (V.O.C.) (United Dutch East India Company) to employ Malay speakers on board ships departing Batavia as interpreters, especially on its many voyages of exploration (Wildeman pers. comm. 4/4/1997). Such voyages were for reconnaissance to find new, more direct and more efficient trade routes, and to find new markets. Tasman's voyage was such a voyage—his brief was to find a new trade route to Chile via the south-east (Slot 1992:15).

Boxer (1988:86), however, does not believe East Indians were on board the V.O.C. ships, and claims that the recruiting of “coloured mariners [by the V.O.C.] was never sanctioned in the seventeenth century”, and “very few Asian hands [were] aboard even their ‘country’ ships' [i.e., V.O.C. ships trading in Southeast Asia].” This view is supported by Bruijn and van Eyck van Heslinga (1980:16-17), Ketting (pers. comm. 19/2/1997) and Gaastra (pers. comm. 24/6/1997). However, the 1643-1644 Dagh-Register gehouden int Casteel Batavia vant passerende daer ter plaetse als over geheel Nederlandts-India (Journal kept in Batavia Castle of the traffic/shipping passing there as well as throughout the whole Dutch East Indies) (Colenbrander 1902:42) contains a table that gives a breakdown of the crews on board Hendrik Harousé's fleet of five ships sailing to Cambodia from Batavia. 12 While the ships' soldiers and sailors would have been almost exclusively Dutch or other northern European nationals (Bruijn and van Eyck van Heslinga 1980:16), and comprised 93% of the 431 men in the fleet, 24 of the men are listed as swarten [lit. ‘blacks’]. Although this term was generally applied to Indian slaves brought to Batavia from Malabar, Coromandel or Bengal (Barend-van Haeften 1992:137), it was also used in reference to East Indians. This can be seen in a 1693 letter from Jacob van - 191 Elstland (a coppersmith in Batavia) to his cousin. The letter claims that women in the East Indies are categorised into three groups: whites, coloureds (bontjes) and blacks (cited in Barend-van Haeften 1992:146). Bontjes refers to Eurasian women, and “blacks” can only refer to Asian women in general, including East Indians. It is, therefore, not at all impossible that the swarten who comprised 5.5 percent of the crews on Harousé's ships could have comprised or included East Indians. This conclusion is also drawn by Gaastra (pers. comm. 24/6/1997).

Since Harousé's voyage was contemporary with Tasman's voyage into the Pacific, these figures offer some support for the view that East Indian hands may have formed a component of Tasman's crews. 13 It may also be that the absence of reference to East Indian hands on V.O.C. ships was due to their not being considered important enough to be recorded.

Even if there were no East Indian hands on Tasman's ships, Malay words could have been introduced to the Tongans by the Dutch themselves. Malay words began to find their way into the Dutch language right from the establishment of the V.O.C.'s trading colony in Batavia in the opening years of the 17th century. Some of these words are regularly used (without gloss) in the journals of the early Dutch explorers in the South Pacific (Le Maire, Schouten, Claeszoon and Tasman), indicating the speed with which they had become nativised into the Dutch language. Common examples from these journals include: Baley~Baleije ‘house, hut’ (< balai), Oubas~Ubas~Oubis ‘yam’ (< ubi), Pinange~Pinangh~Pissangh~Pizzangh ‘banana’ (< pisang), Clappus~Clappes ‘coconuts’ (< kelapa), Bamboezen ‘bamboos’ (< mambu), Prauw~Prau~Praeuw ‘proa’ [kind of boat] (< perahu) (Engelbrecht and van Herwerden 1945, Claeszoon 1646, Meyjes 1919).

A further consideration is that V.O.C. personnel in the East Indies signed up to serve the company for five to ten years, surely long enough to learn some Malay. As cases in point, before Tasman and Visscher's 1642-43 voyage, Tasman had lived in the East Indies for some seven years, Visscher for about 13 years, and Isaack Gilsemans (the supercargo of the Zeehaen) for some eight years. Moreover, many V.O.C. personnel stayed on in the Indies after finishing their terms with the company, as did Tasman. After his retirement from the V.O.C. in about 1652, he remained in Batavia until his death in 1659—living a total of about 24 years in the East Indies. Men who married East Indian women were forced to stay in the East because they were forbidden to return to Holland with their wives. Naturally enough, there were numerous children born in the Indies of either one or two Dutch parents. These children spoke a mixture of Portuguese, Malay and Dutch (Vlekke 1945:169), and many of the male children became employees of - 192 the V.O.C. (Ketting pers. comm. 19/2/1997, Gaastra pers. comm. 21/10/ 1997).

There is some disagreement over the amount of Malay the Dutch knew and used. Vlekke (1945:133), Blussé and de Moor (1983:166) and Barendvan Haeften (1992:136) report the language best known to all inhabitants of Batavia was Portuguese, which had been introduced by the slaves brought from the Coromandel and Malabar coasts and Ceylon, where the Portuguese had been established for a century and a half. Vlekke (1945:111) specifically comments upon the Dutch knowledge of Malay, or rather lack of it, in the early years of the V.O.C.: “The difficulty which the Dutch and Indonesians had in understanding each other—there were very few Hollanders who learned to speak Malay ….”

So while there may be doubt that Malay speakers were present on V.O.C. ships, and that the Dutch V.O.C. personnel knew Malay, there is no doubt that Malay words were rapidly nativised into the Dutch language in the East Indies during this time. Nativisation of lexical items from a substrate language is a common phenomenon in languages of colonisers.

The following are the Malay words we believe to be possible sources for papālagi. Given their meanings, it is not unreasonable to assume that they had become nativised and were, therefore, in common use by the Dutch. They are listed in order of what we judge to be the likelihood of each being the true donor word.

We believe the most likely source of papālagi is the Malay word barang‘thing, object, goods, article, commodity, luggage’ (Winstedt 1957:33, Hairul and Khan 1977:67). We know it was current in 17th century Malay because it is cited in the Malay-Dutch dictionaries of de Houtman (1707 [1603]), Haex (1707 [1631]), and Loderus (1707). For instance, the entry in the Wiltens and Danckaerts (1707 [1623]) dictionary says:

Tasman's journal records that nails, mirrors, beads, knives, dungaree, cups, plates, copper wire, clothing, sail cloth, several fathoms of linen, pieces of canvas, a piece of printed satin, a hat and a shirt, and some flags were either traded with or given to the Tongans in 1643 (Meyjes 1919, Roest n.d.). The most common commodity traded or presented, however, was cloth of various types.

- 193

It is quite conceivable that barang (and its plural barang-barang) was used by the Dutch, much as the word yaya ‘goods, furniture, luggage’ (< Fijian iyāyā) is commonly used today in Fiji English (even in the English of expatriates in Fiji). The term barang is still used in modern informal Malaysian English (Benson 1990:21).

Most significantly, the earliest recorded meanings of papālagi were rather different from its modern meaning:

Tonga:

• Forster/Anderson 1773 (in Lanyon-Orgill 1979:63), pālāngho ‘cloth, English, or any piece of our dress’.
• Pickersgill/Anderson 1773 (in Lanyon-Orgill 1979:65-66), palangee ‘cloth, English, or any piece of our dress’, babba'langa ‘cloth’.
• Samwell 1777 (in Beaglehole 1967:1045), papalangee ‘our cloth (‘their cloth’ ngadoo)’.
• Malaspina 1793 (in de Viana 1958:224), papaa-Iangui ‘vestidos (los nuestros) [clothes (ours)]’.
• Labillardiére 1793 (1800 Appendix 21), papalangui ‘Cloaths [sic] (our)’.
• Mariner 1806-10 (in Martin 1818), papalagi ‘white people; Europeans: also European manufactures, such as cloth, linen etc.’
• Dumont D'Urville 1827 (1834 v. 15), papa langui ‘object d'industrie européenne [object of European manufacture]’. 14

Samoa:

• Pratt (1911[1862]), apapalagi ‘foreign cloth’.
• Newell (1893), āpapālagi ‘foreign cloth’. 15

Reference to European goods is also found in early Marquesan and contemporary Rotuman, Tuvalu, Mokilese, Nukuoro and Kapingamarangi:

Marquesas:

• Anderson 1773 (Lanyon-Orgill 1979:58), papa'annēē ‘nail (an iron)’.
• Crook et al., 1799 (1998:41), páppá áne ‘a part of the sky, a term applied by them to iron, whence it is usually called pappā’.
• Hale (1968 [1846]:321), Nukuhiva papa-ani ‘a part of the sky;—also a term applied by them to iron (i.e., a foreign substance)’. 16

Rotuma:

• Churchward (1940), papalạgi ‘beads’. 17

Tuvalu:

• Jackson (1994), pāpālagi ‘a sharp object, broken glass’

Mokil:

• Harrison and Albert (1977:66), pahrang ‘metal’.

Kapingamarangi:

• Lieber and Dikepa (1974:9), baalanga ‘metal pot, metal’.

- 194

Nukuoro:

• Carroll and Soulik (1973:16), baalanga ‘metal (any kind) [from trade Malay?]’.

We presume that the contemporary Tuvalu meaning is derived from an earlier meaning ‘glass bead’. Regarding the Mokilese form, although a detailed study has yet to be done, the loss of the final vowel does conform to the phonological adaptations found in some other Polynesian loans in Mokilese, for example, odol ‘kind of large mackerel’ from Tongan ‘otule (Geraghty 1994:244), and while the realisation of /l/ as /r/ is not otherwise found in the small corpus available, it is not unmotivated, since Tongan /l/ has an r-like intervocalic allophone (Churchward 1953:1). We presume also that the Nukuoro and Kapingamarangi forms are loans from Mokilese—or perhaps the closely related language of Pohnpei, historically a more likely source of loans to Nukuoro and Kapingamarangi, though the word is not recorded in the standard dictionary (Rehg and Sohl 1979)—with the final vowel added to conform to the usual Polynesian open-syllable structure.

If we were to reconstruct papālagi as if it were a directly inherited lexical item we would be obliged to assign to it the meaning ‘European/foreign manufactures’, since this is the common denominator of the three geographically distinct meanings: ‘cloth’, ‘beads’ and ‘iron’.

Beads were a common trade item for early European explorers with Pacific Islanders. During his visit to the Manu'a group (Samoa) in 1722, Roggeveen noted that a girl on the island of Nu'u (off Ofu) wore “a string of oblong blue beads” and that she “asked the Mate by signs if he had any such, pointing to the string, whereupon the Mate, by nodding his head, said yes, but indicated by his hand towards the ship that the beads were there, and he would bring them to the land” (Sharp 1970:152). In reference to Roggeveen's remark, Sharp notes the following: “If the blue beads which the girl wore round her neck were of European make, they could have come from Tonga, various islands in that group having been visited previously not only by Le Maire and Schouten but also by Tasman” (Sharp 1970:153). 18

As to how each reflex became thus restricted in meaning, we can only speculate. An obvious possibility is that, of all European goods obtained by Tongans, only beads found their way to Tuvalu and Rotuma, and only iron made it to Micronesia and the Marquesas. The meaning ‘foreign cloth’ in Tonga and Samoa is perhaps explained by the amount of cloth Tasman presented to the Tongans. Moreover, the following story recounted by Basil Thomson indicates that European cloth was very highly prized:

- 195

There is some evidence too that papālagi~vāvālagi meant ‘European cloth’ not only in Tonga (and possibly Samoa), but also in 18th century Fiji. In 1800, the Vūnivalu of Bau, Bānuve, the most influential chief in eastern Fiji, died during an epidemic of what is believed to have been an imported disease. The sickness, which the Fijians called lila balavu (lit. ‘long thinness’), has never been positively identified, but it was most likely cholera or some form of dysentery. After his death, Bānuve was given the title Baleinavāvālagi, which has usually been translated as ‘dead by foreign disease’.

The epidemic and Bānuve's death are mentioned in Ko Via Kila's meke (a Fijian poetic dance): A meke ni cokadra—Ka mate kina ko Ratu Banuve na turaga mai Bau, ka sa yacana kina ko Bale na Vavalagi (The meke of dysentery—That caused the death of Ratu Bānuve the chief of Bau, and his being named Bale na Vāvālagi) (1893:121-22), as well as by the missionaries Hunt (1861) and Waterhouse (1866):

- 196

According to Routledge (1985:42), the disease was probably introduced by the survivors of the schooner Argo that had been wrecked in the Lau Passage in January 1800 while en route from Canton to the penal settlements at Norfolk Island and Port Jackson. In Thomas Jaggar's account of Bānuve's death, written in the 1840s, we read that cloth from a foreign vessel was thought to be the carrier of the disease to Bau:

The idea of the cloth plates being the vector of the disease is quite plausible. Leaks in the hulls of wooden ships were covered with sail cloth or tarpaulin. This process was called “fothering”. Jaggar's “cloth plates” almost certainly refers to fothering cloth. Dysentery-type diseases are normally spread via contaminated water and/or food. However, cloth that has been contaminated by sewage or infected stagnant water can also harbour the spores of a number of diseases if still wet. Such cloth, given the right conditions, could carry salmonella, shigella and cholera bacilli (Adams pers. comm. 2/11/1997, Cossart pers. comm. 7/6/1999). 19 Considering the circumstances on board ships in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the cloth plates retrieved from the Argo may well have been infected by contaminated bilge, especially since the schooner came directly from Canton, where dysentery-type diseases and cholera were endemic.

Another reference to cloth in connection with Bānuve's death—this time in the form of a “canvas house” or “canvas tent”—is found in two of Basil Thomson's books, South Sea Yarns (1904) and The Fijians (1908):

…from the traditions of Mbau we learn that Mbanuve, the son of Nduruthoko (Nailatikau), the Vunivalu of the [sic] Mbau, died of a new disease introduced - 197 by a foreign vessel, and was surnamed Mbale-i-vavalangi (He who died of a foreign disease) in accordance with the custom of calling dead chiefs after the place where they were slain.… On his death the Levuka people came from Lakemba to install his successor … and they brought with them a canvas tent, which was the first article of European manufacture which the Mbau people had seen (Thomson 1908:26).

The apparent confusion over whether the men from Levuka brought with them a white man or foreign goods (which included a tent) may be the result of a change in meaning of the word vāvālagi. We have already seen that papālagi only meant ‘foreign goods’ or ‘foreign cloth’ in late 18th century Tonga, so it may have had the same meaning in Fiji during the early 19th century. Even if cloth was not the disease vector, the Fijians' belief that it was would have been sufficient for them to confer upon Bānuve his posthumous title Baleinavāvālagi. The title may, therefore, have referred to his death not by a foreign disease, but by foreign cloth.

We therefore propose that pālagi or pāpālagi, when originally borrowed in Tonga in 1643, meant something like ‘exotic goods’. The meaning became more specific as the word was spread, according to which goods were carried to, or survived in, the various islands—beads in Tuvalu and Rotuma, iron in the Marquesas and Mokil (and probably Pohnpei), and cloth in the Tonga-Samoa-Fiji area, where a word for iron already existed. 22

As noted by Cook (Beaglehole 1967:178, quoted above), Tongans referred to European vessels as “cloth ships”, We suggest that, as the bearers of cloth and other exotic goods re-appeared on the scene towards the end of the 18th century, this expression came to mean ‘ships from pālagi’ and ‘ships belonging to pālagi’, the word that originally meant ‘goods’ being re-analysed semantically as meaning the source of those goods, that is, ‘Europeans’ and their ‘land of origin’.

The phonological derivation of papālagi from barang. The change from Malay /b/ to Tongan /p/ is regular (Schütz 1970), since Tongan does not have /b/. The realisation of /a/ as /a:/ is regular, cf. pāsese ‘passage'’ pāsione ‘passion’, pālasi ‘palace’, pāloti ‘ballot’, etc. Tongan does not have /r/ so the closest corresponding sound, /l/, is employed (Schütz 1970). Finally, being a Polynesian language, Tongan has open syllables, hence the paragogic vowel. Paragogic /i/ is regular with other loanwords from English, for example, Tongan palani < ‘plan’, sasepani < ‘saucepan’, and epenthetic /i/ in tangike < ‘tank’, and kaniteli ‘candle’. Schütz (1970:415) estimates that /i/ accounts for more than half the epenthetic and paragogic vowels in English loanwords in Tongan.

- 198

Another possible source for papālagi is parang “a type of large knife, machete, chopper, cleaver” or “a large heavy sheath-knife used by the East Indians for various purposes especially as a weapon” (OED 1989).

We know Tasman carried parangs on his two ships because each of their manifests contains the entry “50 parranghs”. Tasman also uses the term in his description of the murder of his three crew members at Moordenaers Baij (‘Murderer's Bay’ known today as “Golden Bay” near the modern-day township of Takaka on the north coast of New Zealand's South Island): “'t geene wij eerst meende Zware stompe parranghs te sijn” (what we first thought to be heavy blunt parangs) (Meyjes 1919:42). These uses of the term attest to its currency in 17th century Dutch. Citations of its use in Dutch in the authoritative dictionary of the Dutch language, the Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal (WNT), also date back to this period—1636 (WNT).

Although Tasman makes no specific mention of parangs being traded or presented as gifts to his Tongan hosts, he mentions that knives were given or traded. Apart from a knife described as having a beslagen Zilver bantien ‘(small) mounted silver band’ (Meyjes 1919:61), no other description of knives is given. Tasman's manifest does, however, include the entry “50 slechte messen” (50 ordinary knives), and it is of course possible these were the knives that were presented to the Tongans. Despite the uncertainty as to what types of knives were given to the Tongans, it is still not unreasonable to assume that they included parangs, considering their potential usefulness. This derivation presents no phonological problems being derivable in the same way as barang, but the semantic changes required do seem rather improbable.

A less likely source, though still a very enticing one, is the word faranggi ‘a European, a Frank, a Portuguese’. Various forms of this word—faranggi, faranji, pěringgi, fěringgi, firingi, fringe, frangee, faringee, ferenghi and feringhee— have been in common use throughout the Middle East since the Crusades (Thion 1993). The word spread through Muslim trade routes after the Crusades into Africa, India (Lewis 1991:110-11), and central and Southeast Asia. Harris (1986) traces the probable immediate source of the word in Thai to Persian traders who were established in Siam by the 16th century.

The word faranggi is cited in 17th and early 18th century Malay-Dutch dictionaries (de Houtman 1707[1603], Heurnius 1707[1603], Loderus 1707), which shows that the word was current in Malay during this period. Heurnius (1707 [1603]) explains that all Europeans are called faranggi (“Afaranggi, - 199 soo werden alle Europæers genaamd”). The OED's first citation of the word in English dates back to a similar time, 1634 (OED 1989). 23

It is difficult to know if the Dutch ever referred to themselves as faranggi. It is more likely the East Indians would have done so, since the evidence suggests that the Dutch referred to themselves as Oran (H)Olanda or Oran Belanda (at least to Malay speakers). For instance, near the end of Le Maire and Schouten's voyage some of their sailors were attacked by a group of inhabitants of the island of “Gilolo” (i.e., Halmahera, Moluccas). Before any harm could be done, one of the sailors called out to the attackers that they were “Oran Hollanda” (Engelbrecht and van Herwerden 1945:213). 24 However, if Tasman had indigenous East Indians on board they might have referred to their Dutch masters as faranggi.

There are, however, both phonological and semantic problems with this source. The normal Tongan realisation of faranggi would not be pālagi, but falangaki [falaŋaki], or falaki (cf. tangakalī < dungaree; kangikalū < kangaroo; mongokuusi < ‘mongoose’; and matakali ‘clan, tribe’ < Fijian mataqali [mataŋgali]). 25 Also, as we have seen, the earliest meaning is ‘exotic goods’, not ‘European people’. 26

We considered a number of other Malay words as possible sources for papālagi, but judged them to be semantically or phonologically too far removed. We list them here in case some future researcher may be inclined to look on them more kindly than we have: kain pelangi ‘woman's scarf’ (from pelangi ‘rainbow’), perang ‘blond, dark brown’, belanga ‘earthenware pot or pan’, and pelanggi ‘kind of colourful marble’.

Although the form is typically cited as papālagi, simple pālagi was recorded for Tongan in 1773 and has been reported also for modern Tongan, Niuean, Samoan, Tokelau, Tuvalu, Mokil, Nukuoro and Kapingamarangi. It also occurs in Fiji as vālagi, which is certainly more common in colloquial Fijian than vāvālagi. On the other hand, the partially reduplicated form is the only one cited for East Uvea, East Futuna, Tikopia, Tuvalu (with the meaning ‘beads’), Rotuma and the Marquesas, and in all languages, other than Mokil, Nukuoro and Kapingamarangi, it is the more commonly cited. While it is possible that the basic form is papālagi, and pālagi a later derivation, it is also possible that the reverse is true, or even that the two forms are long-standing alternates.

In Tongan, as in other Polynesian languages, partial reduplication such as is apparent in papālagi is a common process, but not with nouns. We - 200 suggest therefore that, if papālagi were indeed the original form (or one of the original forms), it would have been borrowed from a reduplicated form in the donor language, Malay, where reduplication is a sign of plurality in nouns. Since, however, the current Malay plural of barang is barangbarang, we would speculate that papālagi either derives from a partially reduplicated form in the variety of Malay used by Tasman's men, or a loanword in their Dutch, or that it is a reduction in Tongan of an earlier *palapālagi.

As we have seen, papālagi is found in Eastern Polynesia only in the old Marquesan word for ‘iron’. However, there are intriguing phonological and semantic correspondences between papālagi and another Eastern Polynesian word:

Mangareva:

• Hale (1968 [1846]:321), papā ‘foreign, foreigner (applied to whites)’.
• Anon. (1908), papaha 27 ‘étranger à l'Océanie, qui est d'un autre pays’ (stranger in Oceania, who is from another land).

Tahiti:

• Hale (1968 [1846]:321), papā ‘foreign, foreigner (applied to whites)’.
• Davies (1851), papa[']a ‘a foreigner, formerly applied to the inhabitants of the Paumotu [Tuamotu] islands before europeans [sic] visited them, but since to all foreigners; in some islands it is papalangy’.
• Lemaître (1986), popa'ā, papa'ā ‘personne de race blanche; d'origine ètrangère, introduit’ (white person; of foreign origin, introduced).

Tuamotu:

• Hale (1968 [1846]:321), papā ‘foreign, foreigner (applied to whites)’.

Rarotonga:

• Savage (1962), papa'ā ‘used to denote a foreigner or European or white man. The word itself means, four layers, and was given to Europeans when first seen because of their “wearing four layers of clothes” as seen by them, the natives’.
• Buse (1995), papa'ā ‘white man, European’.

Perhaps the first reference to Tahitian papa 'ā ‘European’ dates from around 1790: “Morrison [1935:146] wrote that the Tahitians called the European shaddock ‘ooroo Papaa’ which he translated as ‘English Bread’” (Langdon 1975:337). Some time later, John Davies, a missionary to Tahiti from 1799 to 1830, gave an etymology for the word:

[Popaa] … is a native word for a foreigner and it was used formerly before the arrival of Europeans or white people applied to the Paumotuans particularly the Parata party whose dialect differed from the Tahitian, and - 201 were then the only strangers of a foreign speech known to the Tahitian and Society Islanders. Their large canoes were called Pahai popaa, and a chief of theirs that was a friend of the first Pomare was called Ovairaatoa popaa. In late times popaa has been transferred to all white people and the eastern islanders are called Paumotu (Newbury 1961:270).

We find this etymology implausible, based as it is on the premise that Tuamotuan was the only foreign language known to the Tahitians, whereas data supplied by Tupaia and others indicate that Tahitians had relations with many other Pacific Island groups, including Fiji and Rotuma (Dening 1962).

A possible scenario for the Eastern Polynesian form is that Western Polynesian papālagi was borrowed into Marquesan as papā'ani (the sound correspondences are regular) with the meaning ‘iron’, as noted above. Subsequently, the word was reanalysed or simply truncated to papa'a, as witness the following: 28

Marquesas:

• Mosblech (1843:86), papaa ‘fer [iron]’.
• Dordillon (1931), pa'apa'a ‘iron, nail, tool’.

Tahiti:

• Davies (1851), pa[']a ‘hoops of a cask’.

Rarotonga:

• Buse (1995), pa'a ‘metal hoop round a barrel, rim of a cartwheel’.

Finally, while it is possible that this word simply underwent a semantic shift similar to that which occurred in Western Polynesia, from “European goods” (here specifically iron) to “European people”, we would like to tentatively offer a hypothesis that also accounts for the change in length of the final vowel. There is a morphological process in Polynesian languages whereby suffixation of -a yields a form meaning ‘full of’. For example, the name of the island Niua north of Tonga (now distinguished from Niuafo'ou as Niuatoputapu) appears to be derived from niu ‘coconut’, in recognition of the fact that coconuts flourish there. This naming strategy, incidentally, was also followed by Schouten and Le Maire in 1616, when they named neighbouring Tafahi “Cocos Island” (Langdon 1977:42). We propose, then, that the Eastern Polynesian word papa'ā, referring to Europeans and their place of origin, may be similarly derived from papa'a ‘iron’, referring to the land where iron originates from, and its inhabitants. The main problem with this hypothesis is simply that, while -a can be reconstructed with this function in Proto Polynesian, it appears not to be witnessed in contemporary Eastern Polynesian languages.

- 202

Since the etymology of papālagi has for so long been a subject of conjecture, it is surprising so little scholarly research has been devoted to it. To date, we have found only four serious attempts at unravelling its origins: the Fijian Society's discussion in the 1920s (Barrow 1922, Heycock 1923), Napoleone Tuiteleleapaga's two page chapter in his Samoa: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow (1980), an endnote to Neil Gunson's chapter ‘The coming of foreigners’ (1977), and Tcherkézoff's recent JPS article, which is by far the most comprehensive and scholarly. Gunson and Tcherkézoff are also the only other researchers to have noted papālagi's earlier meanings of ‘cloth’ and ‘European manufactures’. On this Gunson writes:

Although Tcherkézoff acknowledges the “cloth” and “foreign goods” meanings, he does not take this any further and seems to have missed the point that these were the earliest recorded meanings. Moreover, Tcherkézoff's dismissal of various meanings of papā but acceptance of lagi as meaning ‘sky’ perpetuates the notion of the word's bimorphemic status.

Figure 1: Chronological epitome of the distribution and changes in meaning of papālagi.

- 203

We have argued in this paper that the Western Polynesian word papālagi was borrowed from a Malay word, probably barang ‘goods’, used by Tasman's men during their stay in Tonga in 1643, and subsequently spread to Fiji, Rotuma, parts of Eastern and Outlier Polynesia and Micronesia. The proposed scenario is summarised in Figure 1.

As linguists, we take our leave at this point, and invite historians and others to investigate why it was that spurious etymologies implying that the Polynesians and Fijians viewed Europeans as gods have been so overwhelmingly popular in the literature of the past two centuries.

- 204 Page of endnotes

- 205

We wish to acknowledge that this research was financially supported by a University of the South Pacific Research Grant (No.6153-1221-70766-00), Professor Subramani (Head of Department of Literature and Language, University of the South Pacific), Professor Konai Helu-Thaman (Head of School of Humanities, University of the South Pacific), and a Macquarie University Research Grant (No.2.07.23.260).

We are also much indebted to G.J.D. Wildeman (Librarian, Nederlands Scheepvaartmuseum, Amsterdam) and Dr Femme Gaastra (Rijks Universiteit Leiden) for supplying us with valuable information on the V.O.C.; Waruno Mahdi - 206 (Fritz Haber Institut of the Max Planck Gesellschaft, Berlin) for his unstinting help with information on the languages and history of Southeast Asia; and Dr Ken Regh (The University of Hawai'i) for information on Micronesian languages.

• Adams, Ron, 1993. European discovery or multiple discoveries. In M. Quanchi and R. Adams (eds), Culture Contact in the Pacific: Essays on Contact, Encounter and Response. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.32-44.
• Anon., 1891. Ai Tukutuku kei Ratu Radomodomo Ramatenikutu na Vunivalu mai Bau. Na Mata 1/1891-12/1891.
• Anon. [Basil Thompson], 1896. Report of a Commission of Enquiry Appointed to Enquire into the Decrease of the Native Population. Suva: Government Printer.
• Anon., 1908. Essai de Grammaire de la langue des Iles Gambier ou Mangaréva. [Paris?]: Baine-le-Comte.
• Australian National Dictionary. 1988. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.

• Badger, Geoffrey, 1988. The Explorers of the Pacific. Kenthurst, Sydney: Kangaroo Press.
• Barend-van Haeften, Marijke, 1992. Oost-Indië Gespiegeld: Nicolaas de Graaff, een Schrijvend Chirurijn in Dienst van de VOC. Zutphen: Walburg Pers.
• Barradale, V.A., 1907. Pearls of the Pacific: Being Sketches of Missionary Life and Work in Samoa and Other Islands in the South Seas. London: London Missionary Society.
• Barrow, George L., 1922. Vavalagi. Transactions of the Fijian Society for the Year 1921:15.
• Bataillon, Pierre, 1932[c.1870]. Langue d'Uvea (Wallis). Paris: Libraire Orientaliste Paul Geuthner.
• Beaglehole, J.C. (ed.), 1967. The Journals of Captain James Cook. Vol. III The Voyage of the Resolution and Discovery 1776-1780. Published for the Hakluyt Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• —— 1979. The Death of Captain Cook. Wellington: Alexander Turnbull Library.
• Benson, Phillip, 1990. A language in decline? English Today, 6(4): 19-22.
• Bergendorf, Steen, Ulla Hasager and Peter Henriques, 1988. Mythopraxis and history: On the interpretation of the Makahiki. Journal of the Polynesian Society, 97(4):391-408.
• Biggs, Bruce, 1965. Direct and indirect inheritance in Rotuman. Lingua, 14:383-415.
• Birtwhistle, Allen, 1954. In His Armour: The Life of John Hunt of Fiji. London: The Cargate Press.
• Blussé, Leonard and Jaap de Moor, 1983. Nederlanders Overzee: De Eerste Vijftig Jaar 1600-1650. Franeker: Uitgeverij T. Wever B.V.
• Boxer, Charles Ralph, 1988 [1963]. The Dutch East-Indiamen: their sailors, their navigators, and life on board, 1602-1795. In C.R. Boxer (ed.), Dutch Merchants and Mariners in Asia: 1602-1795. London: Variorum Reprints.
• Brewster, A.B, 1937. King of the Cannibal Isles: A Tale of Early Life and Adventure in the Fiji Islands. London: Robert Hale.

- 207

• Brown, Stanley, 1973. Men From under the Sky: The Arrival of Westerners in Fiji. Rutland, Vt: Charles E. Tuttle.
• Bruijn, J.R. and E.S. van Eyck van Heslinga, 1980. De scheepvaart van de Oost-Indische Compagnie en het verschijnsel muiterij. In J.R. Bruijn and E.S. van Eyck van Heslinga (eds), Muiterij: Oproer en Berechting op Schepen van de VOC. Haarlem: de Boer Maritiem, pp.9-26.
• Buse, Jasper and Raututi Taringa, 1995. Cook Islands Māori dictionary. Edited by Bruce Biggs and Rangi Moeka'a. Rarotonga: Ministry of Education, Government of the Cook Islands et al.

• Cain, Horst, 1986. A Lexicon of Foreign Loan-words in the Samoan Language. Köln: Böhlau Verlag GmbH and Cie.
• Campbell, Ian C., 1980. Savages noble and ignoble: The preconceptions of early European voyagers in Polynesia. Pacific Studies, 4(l):45-59.
• ——1981 Polynesian perceptions of Europeans in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Pacific Studies, 5(2):64-80.
• ——1994. European-Polynesian encounters: A critique of the Pearson thesis. Journal of Pacific History, 29(2):222-31.
• Capell, Arthur, 1968 [1941]. A New Fijian Dictionary. Suva: Government Printer.
• Carroll, Vern and Tobias Soulik, 1973. Nukuoro Lexicon. Honolulu, University Press of Hawai'i
• Cary, William S., 1972 [1887]. Wrecked on the Feejees. Fairfield, Washington: Ye Galleon Press.
• Chappell, David A., 1992. Shipboard relations between Pacific island women and Euroamerican men 1767-1887. Journal of Pacific History, 27(2):131-49.
• Churchward, C. Maxwell, 1940. Rotuman Grammar and Dictionary. Sydney: Australasian Medical Publishing Co.
• ——1953. Tongan Grammar. London: Oxford University Press.
• ——1959. Tongan Dictionary. London: Oxford University Press.
• Churchward, William B., 1971 [1887]. My Consulate in Samoa: A Record of Four Years' Sojourn in the Navigators Islands, with Personal Experiences of King Malietoa Laupepa, His Country, and His Men. Folkstone and London: Dawsons of Pall Mall.
• Claeszoon, Axis, 1646. Australische navigatien, Ontdekt door Jacob le Maire ende Willem Cornelisz. Schouten inde jaren 1615. 1616. 1617. In [I. Commelin] (ed.), Begin ende Voortgangh vande Vereenighde Nederlandtsche Geoctroyeerde Oost-Indische Compagnie, deel II. [Amsterdam?: s.n.]
• Colenbrander, H.T. (ed.), 1902. Dagh-Register Gehouden int Casteel Batavia vant Passerended Daer ter Plaetse als Over Geheel Nederlandts-India. 's-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff.
• [Commelin, Isaac] (ed.), 1646. Begin ende Voortgangh vande Vereenighde Nederlandtsche Geoctroyeerde Oost-Indische Compagnie, deel I and II. [Amsterdam?: s.n.]
• Crook, William Pasco, Samuel Greathead and Tima'u Te'ite'i, 1998. An Essay Towards Dictionary and Grammar of the Lesser-Australian Language, According to the Dialect used in the Marquesas. Edited by M.G.A. Hughes

- 208

• and S.R. Fischer. Auckland: Institute of Polynesian Languages and Literatures.
• Crowley, Terry, 1992. An Introduction to Historical Linguistics. Auckland: Oxford University Press.

• D'Arcy, Paul, 1997. The people of the sea. In D. Denoon et al. (eds), The Cambridge History of the Pacific Islanders. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.74-77.
• Davidson, J.W., 1966. Problems of Pacific history. Journal of Pacific History, 1:5-21.
• Davies, John, 1851. A Tahitian and English Dictionary. Tahiti: London Missionary Society.
• ——1925 [1809-10]. Journal of the missionaries put ashore from the “Hibernia” on an islet in the Fiji group in 1809-10. In E. im Thurn and L.C. Wharton (eds), The Journal of William Lockerby, Sandalwood Trader in the Fijian Islands 1808-1809. London: The Hakluyt Society, pp.117-60.
• Davies, John, 1851. A Tahitian and English Dictionary. Tahiti: London Missionary Society.
• de H., F. [de Houtman, Frederick], 1707 [1603]. Dictionarium, ofte woord ende spraeck-boeck, in de Duytsche ende Maleysche tale, met verscheyde t' saamen-sprekingen, in Duytsch en Maleys…. In A.L. Loderus (ed.), Maleische Woord-boek Sameling. Collectanea Malaica Vocabularia…. Batavia: A.L. Loderus.
• de Viana, Francisco Xavier, 1958. Diario de Viaje: Tomo II. Colección de Clásicos Uruguayos, Vol. 28. Montevideo: Ministereo de Instructión Pôblica y Previsión Social.
• Dening, Gregory M., 1962. The geographical knowledge of the Polynesians and the nature of inter-island contact. In J. Golson (ed.), Polynesian Navigation. Supplement to the Journal of the Polynesian Society, 71:102-53.
• Dordillon, René I., 1931-2. Grammaire et Dictionnaire de la Langue des Isles Marquises. Travaux et Mémoires de l'Institut d'Ethnologie XVII. Paris: Institut d'Ethnologie.
• Dumont D'Urville, Jules, 1834. Voyage Pittoresque Autour du Monde. Paris: [s.n.]
• Dutton, Tom, 1987. “Successful intercourse was had with the natives”: Aspects of European contact methods in the Pacific. In D.C. Laycock and W. Winter (eds), A World of Language: Papers Presented to Professor S.A. Wurm on his 65th Birthday. Pacific Linguistics, Series C-100. Canberra: Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University, pp.153-71.

• Elbert, Samuel H., 1972. Puluwat Dictionary. Pacific Linguistics Series C-24. Canberra: Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University.
• Endicott, William, 1923. Wrecked Among Cannibals in the Fijis: A Narrative of Shipwreck and Adventure in the South Seas. Salem: Marine Research Society.
• Engelbrecht, W.A. and P.J. van Herwerden (eds), 1945. De Ontdekkingsreis van Jacob le Maire en Willem Cornelisz. Schouten in de Jaren 1615-1617, Journalen, Documenten end Andere Bescheiden. Vol. I and II. 's-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff.
• Erskine, John Elphinstone, 1853. Journal of a Cruise among the Islands of the Western Pacific. London: John Murray.

- 209

• Fernández-Armesto, Felipe, 1999. Philip II's Empire: A Decade at the Edge. London: The Hakluyt Society.
• Fraser, John A., 1954. Gold Dish and Kava Bowl. London: J.M. Dent and Sons.
• Firth, Raymond, 1985. Tikopia-English Dictionary—Taranga fakatikopia ma taranga fakainglisi. Auckland: Auckland University Press and Oxford University Press.

• Garrett, John, 1982. To Live Among the Stars: Christians Origins in Oceania. Geneva and Suva: World Council of Churches and Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific.
• Geraghty, Paul A., 1978. Fijian dialect diversity and foreigner talk: The evidence of pre-missionary manuscripts. In A.J. Schütz (ed.), Fijian Language Studies: Borrowing and Pidginization. Bulletin of the Fiji Museum No. 4: 51-67, Suva.
• ——1993. Pulotu, Polynesian homeland. Journal of the Polynesian Society, 102(4):343-84.
• ——1994. Linguistic evidence for the Tongan empire. In T. Dutton and D.T. Tryon (eds), Language Contact and Change in the Austronesian World. Trends in Linguistics Studies and Monographs 77. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp.233-49.
• Geraghty, Paul and Jan Tent, 1997a. Early Dutch loanwords in Polynesia. Journal of the Polynesian Society, 106(2):131-60.
• ——1997b. More early Dutch loanwords in Polynesia. Journal of the Polynesian Society, 106(4):395-408.
• Goodenough, Ward H. and Hiroshi Sugita, 1980. Trukese-English Dictionary. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society.
• Gordon Cumming, C.F, 1882. A Lady's Cruise in a French Man-of-War. Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood.
• Gravelle, Kim, n.d. Fiji's Times: A History of Fiji. Suva: Fiji Times.
• Grézel, Le Père, 1878. Dictionnaire Futunien-Français avec Notes Grammaticales. Paris: Maisonneuve et Cie, Libraires-Editeurs.
• Gunson, Neil, 1977. The coming of foreigners. In N. Rutherford (ed.), Friendly Islands: A History of Tonga. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, pp.90-113.

• Haex, Davidis, 1707 [1631]. Dictionarium Malaico-Latinum et Latino-Malaicum… opera et studio. In A.L. Loderus (ed.), Maleische Woord-boek Sameling. Collectanea Malaica Vocabularia…. Batavia: A.L. Loderus.
• Hairul, Awang Sudjai and Yusoff Khan, 1977. Kamus Lengkap. Selangor: Pustaka Zaman.
• Hale, Horatio E., 1968 [1846]. United States Exploring Expedition During the Years 1838, 1839, 1840, 1841, 1842 under the Command of Charles Wilkes, U.S.N. Vol. 6. Ethnography and Philology. Ridgewood, N.J.: The Gregg Press.
• Harris, Jimmy, 1986. The Persian connection: Four loanwords in Siamese. PASAA, Vol.XVI, No. 1 (June). Bangkok: Chulalongkorn University Language Institute, pp.9-12.
• Harrison, Sheldon P. and Salich Albert, 1977. Mokilese-English Dictionary. Honolulu: University Press of Hawai'i.
• Hazelwood, D., 1850. A Feejeean and English and an English and Feejeean Dictionary. Vewa [Viwa, Fiji]: Wesleyan Mission Press.

- 210

• Heurnius, Justus, 1707 [1603,1650]. Vocabularium; ofte woordenboeck, Duytsch en Mallays…. In A.L. Loderus (ed.), Maleische Woord-boek Sameling. Collectanea Malaica Vocabularia…. Batavia: A.L. Loderus.
• Heycock, E.N., 1923. Vavalagi. Transactions of the Fijian Society for the Year 1922:7-10.
• Hocart, A.M., 1952. The Northern States of Fiji. Occasional Publication No.11. London: The Royal Anthropological Institute.
• Hock, Hans Heinrich, 1986. Principles of Historical Linguistics. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
• Hock, Hans Heinrich and Brian D. Joseph, 1996. Language History, Language Change, and Language Relationship: An Introduction to Historical and Comparative Linguistics. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
• Hovdhaugen, Even, 1987. From the Land of Nāfanua: Samoan Oral Texts in Transcription with Translation, Notes and Vocabulary. Oslo: Norwegian University Press.
• Howarth, David, 1983. Tahiti: A Paradise Lost. London: Harvill Press.
• Howe, K.R., 1977. The fate of the “savage” in Pacific historiography. New Zealand Journal of History, 11:137-54.
• Hunt, John, 1861. Memoir of the Rev. William Cross, Wesleyan Missionary to the Friendly Islands and the Feejee Islands. London: Thomas Mason.

• im Thurn, Everard and Leonard C. Wharton (eds), 1925. The Journal of William Lockerby, Sandalwood Trader in the Fijian Islands 1808-1809. London: The Hakluyt Society.
• Irwin, Geoffrey, 1992. The Prehistoric Exploration and Colonisation of the Pacific. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

• Jackson, Geoffrey W., 1994. Te Tikisionale o te 'Gana Tuvalu:—A Tuvaluan-English Dictionary. Revised edition. Apia: The Author.

• Keesing-Styles, Esther and William Keesing-Styles (eds), 1988. Unto the Perfect Day: The Journal of Thomas James Jaggar, Feejee 1838-1845. Auckland: Solent Publishing.
• Kennedy, Gavin, 1978. The Death of Captain Cook. London: Duckworth.
• Kern, R.A., 1948. The vocabularies of Iacob le Maire. Acta Orientalia, 216-37.
• Knox-Mawer, June, 1965. A Gift of Islands: Living in Fiji. London: John Murray.
• Kofe, Laumua, 1983. Palagi and pastors. In H. Laracy (ed.), Tuvalu: A History. Suva: Institute of Pacific Studies, pp. 102-20.
• Kuschel, Rolf, 1988. Early contacts between Bellona and Rennell Islands and the outside world. Journal of Pacific History, 23(2): 191-200.

• Labillardière, Jacques Julien Houton de, 1971 [1793]. Voyage in Search of La Pérouse, 1791-1794. Relation d'un voyage à la recherche de La Peyrouse. Amsterdam: N. Israel and New York: Da Capo Press.
• Langdon, Robert, 1975. The Lost Caravel. Sydney: Pacific Publications.
• ——1977. The maritime explorers. In Noel Rutherford (ed.), Friendly Islands: A History of Tonga. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, pp.40-62.
• Lanyon-Orgill, Peter A., 1979. Captain Cook's South Sea Island Vocabularies. London: The Author.

- 211

• Lemaître, Yves, 1986. Lexique du Tahitien comtemporain. Paris: ORSTOM.
• Lewis, Ivor, 1991. Sahibs, Nabobs and Boxwallahs. A Dictionary of the Words of Anglo-India. Bombay: Oxford University Press.
• Lieber, Michael D. and Kalio H. Dikepa, 1974. Kapingamarangi Lexicon. Honolulu: University Press of Hawai'i.
• Linnekin, Jocelyn, 1991. Ignoble savages and other European visions. Journal of Pacific History, 26(l):3-26.
• Loderus, Andries Lambert (ed.), 1707. Maleische Woord-boek Sameling. Collectanea Malaica Vocabularia…. Batavia: A.L. Loderus.
• Loeb, Edwin M., 1978 [1926], History and Traditions of Niue. Millwood, N.Y.: Kraus Reprint Co.

• Malo, David. 1951 [1898]. Hawaiian Antiquities. Honolulu: Bishop Museum.
• Martin, John, 1818. An Account of the Natives of the Tonga Islands, in the South Pacific Ocean With an Original Grammar and Vocabulary of Their Language. Compiled and Arranged From the Extensive Communications of Mr William Mariner, Several Years Resident in Those Islands. London: John Murray.
• McEwen, J.M., 1970. Niue Dictionary. Wellington: Department of Maori and Island Affairs.
• McLachlan, Sue, 1982. Savage Island or savage history? An interpretation of early European contact with Niue. Pacific Studies, 6(1):26-51.
• Meleisea, Malama, 1987. Lagaga: A Short History of Western Samoa. Suva: Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific.
• Meleisea, Malama and Penelope Schoeffel, 1997. Discovering outsiders. In D. Denoon et al. (eds), The Cambridge History of the Pacific Islanders. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.119-51.
• Meyjes, R. Posthumus (ed.), 1919. De Reizen van Abel Janszoon Tasman en Franchoys Jacobszoon Visscher ter Nadere Ontdekking van het Zuidland in 1642/3 en 1644. 'sGravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff.
• Milner, George B., 1966. Samoan Dictionary. London: Oxford University Press.
• Morrison, James, 1935. The Journal of James Morrison. Edited by Owen Rutter London: Golden Cockerel Press.
• Mosblech, Boniface, 1843. Vocabulaire Océanien-Français et Français-Océanien des Dialectes Parlés aux Iles Marquises, Sandwich, Gambier, etc. d'après les Documens Receuillis sur les Lieux, par les Missionaires Catholiques et les Ministres Protestans, et Particulièrement d'après les Manuscrits du R.P. Mathias, Auteur des Lettres sur l'Océanie. Paris: J. Renouard et Cie.
• Moyle, Richard M. (ed.), 1984. The Samoan Journals of John Williams: 1830 and 1832. Canberra: Australian National University Press.
• Moyse-Faurie, Claire, 1993. Dictionnaire futunien-français. Paris: Peeters.

• Newell, J. E. 1893. English and Samoan Vocabulary—'o le Faasologālepu Peritania. London: Religious Tract Society, for The London Missionary Society.
• Newbury, Colin W. (ed.), 1961. The History of the Tahitian Mission 1799-1830, Written by John Davies, Missionary to the South Sea Islands, with Supplementary Papers from the Correspondence of the Missionaries. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press for the Hakluyt Society.

- 212

• Neyret, Jean-Marie, 1935. Fijian-English and English-Fijian dictionary. Typescript. 4 vols. Cawaci, Ovalau.

• Obeyesekere, Gananath, 1992. The Apotheosis of Captain Cook: European Mythmaking in the Pacific. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
• Office of Tokelau Affairs, 1986. Tokelau Dictionary. Apia, Western Samoa: Office of Tokelau Affairs.
• Orange, James, 1840. Narrative of the Late George Vason of Nottingham. One of the First Missionaries Sent to the South Sea Islands by the London Missionary Society in the Ship Duff, Captain Wilson, 1796. London: John Snow.
• Owen, Roderick, 1955. Where the Poor are Happy. London: The Travel Book Club.
• Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, 1989. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

• Patterson, Samuel, 1817. Narrative of the Adventures and Sufferings of Samuel Patterson Experienced in the Pacific Ocean, and Many Other Parts of the World, with an Account of the Feegee, and Sandwich Islands. Palmer, Mass: [s.n.]
• Paxman, David B., 1988. Freeman, Mead, and the eighteenth-century controversy over Polynesian society. Pacific Studies, 11(3):1-19.
• Pearson, W.H., 1970. The reception of European voyagers on Polynesian islands, 1568-1797. Journal de la Société des Océanistes, 26:121-53.
• Pratt, George, 1911 [1862]. Pratt's Grammar and Dictionary of the Samoan Language. Samoa: Malua Printing Press.
• Pritchard, W.T., 1866. Polynesian Reminiscences. London: Chapman and Hall.

• Quanchi, Max, 1993. Being discovered: Perceptions and control of strangers. In M. Quanchi and R. Adams (eds), Culture Contact in the Pacific: Essays on Contact, Encounter and Response. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.45-56.

• Ramsay, Charles Stuart and Charles P. Plumb, [1939?]. Tin Can Island: A Story of Tonga and the Swimming Mail Man of the South Seas. [n.p.]: Hurst and Blackett.
• Ranby, P., 1980. A Nanumea Lexicon. Pacific Linguistics C65. Canberra: Australian National University.
• Rehg, Kenneth L. and Damian G. Sohl, 1979. Ponapean-English Dictionary. PALI Language Texts: Micronesia. Honolulu: University Press of Hawai'i.
• Rensch, Karl H., 1984. Tikisionalio Fakauvea-Fakafalani/Dictionnaire Wallisien-Français. Pacific Linguistics C86. Canberra: Australian National University.
• Richardson, William Putnam, 1811. Feejee Vocabulary. 23, 1. Peabody Museum. [Pacific Manuscripts Bureau 225, frames 77-44.]
• Roest, Paul K. (ed. and transl.), n.d. Extract uittet Journael van Abel Janszoon Tasman bij Heself Intontdecken van't Onbekende Zuidlandtgevonden [1642-3; copy of the Huydecoper MS. Mitchell Library D240].
• Rose, Ronald, 1959. South Seas Magic. London: Robert Hale.
• Routledge, David, 1985. Matanitū: The Struggle for Power in Early Fiji. Suva: Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific.
• Rowe, N.A., 1930. Samoa Under the Sailing Gods. London: Putnam.

• St. Johnston, T.R., 1922. South Sea Reminiscences. London: T. Fisher Unwin.
• Sahlins, Marshall, 1982. The apotheosis of Captain Cook. In M. Izard and P. Smith (eds), Between Belief and Transgression: Structuralist Essays in Religion, History and Myth. Chicago: Chicago University Press, pp.73-102.

- 213

• ——1995. How “Natives” Think: About Captain Cook, For Example. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Savage, Stephen, 1962. A Dictionary of the Maori Language of Rarotonga. Wellington: Department of Island Territories.
• Scarr, Deryck, 1990. The History of the Pacific Islands, Kingdoms of the Reefs. Melbourne: Macmillan.
• Scheurmann, Erich, 1982. Der Papalagi. Ein Südseehäuptling Erlebt unsere Zivilisation. Stuttgart: Ernst Klett Verlag.
• ——1985 [1920]. Der Papalagi. Die Reden des Südseehäuptlings Tuiavii aus Tiavea. Zürich: Tanner and Stähelin.
• Schütz, Albert J., 1970. Phonological patterning of English loan words in Tongan. In S.A Wurm and D.C. Laycock (eds), Pacific Linguistic Studies in Honour of Arthur Capell. Pacific Linguistics Series C-13. Canberra: Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University, pp.409-428.
• ——1985. The Fijian Language. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.
• Seed, Patricia, 1992. On Caribbean shores: Problems of writing history of the first contact. Radical History Review, 53:5-11.
• Senft, Gunter, 1999. Weird papalagi and a fake Samoan chief: A footnote to the noble savage myth. Rongorongo Studies, 9(l):23-32, 9(2):62-75.
• Sharp, Andrew (ed.), 1970. The Journal of Jacob Roggeveen. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Shumway, Eric B., 1971. Intensive Course in Tongan. Honolulu: The University Press of Hawai'i.
• Slot, B.J., 1992. Abel Tasman en de Ontdekking van Nieuw-Zeeland. Amsterdam: Otto Cramwinckel Uitgever.
• Snow, Philip and Stefanie Waine, 1979. The People from the Horizon: An Illustrated History of the Europeans among the South Sea Islanders. Oxford: Phaidon.
• Sornig, Karl, 1981. Lexical Innovation: A Study of Slang, Colloquialisms, and Casual Speech. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
• Spate, O.H.K., 1988. Paradise Found and Lost. London: Routledge.
• Sperlich, Wolfgang B., 1997. Tohi Vagahau Niue: Niue Language Dictionary, Niue-English with English Niue Finderlist. Government of Niue.
• Stair, John B., n.d. [c.1897]. Old Samoa or Flotsam and Jetsam from the Pacific Ocean. Oxford: The Religious Tract Society.

• Tcherkézoff, Serge, 1999. Who said the 17th-18th centuries papālagi/“Europeans” were “sky-bursters”? A Eurocentric projection onto Polynesia. Journal of the Polynesian Society, 108(4):417-25.
• Theroux, Paul, 1992. The Happy Isles of Oceania. New York: G.P. Putnam.
• Thion, Serge, 1993. On some Cambodian words. Australian National University Thai-Yunnan Project Newsletter, Number 20 (March). Canberra: Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, pp.18-23.
• Thomson, Basil, 1902. Savage Island: An Account of a Sojourn in Niué and Tonga. London: John Murray.
• ——1904. South Sea Yarns. Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons.
• ——1908. The Fijians. London: William Heinemann.

- 214

• Tippett, Alan R., 1973. Aspects of Pacific Ethnohistory. Pasadena: William Carey Library.
• Toganivalu, Deve, 1918. Ai yau kei nai yaya vakaviti (Fijian property and gear). Translated by G.A.F.W. Beauclerc. Transactions of the Fijian Society for the Year 1917:1-18.
• Tuiteleleapaga, Napoleone A., 1980. Samoa: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow. New York: Todd and Honeywell.
• Turner, George, 1884. Samoa: A Hundred Years Ago and Long Before. London: Macmillan.

• Via Kila, Ko [pseud. Ilai Motonicocoka], 1893. A lila balavu. Na Mata, 25:121-22.
• Vlekke, Bernard H.M., 1945. Nusantara: A History of the East Indian Archipelago. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

• Walker, H. Wilfred, 1909. Wanderings among South Sea Savages and in Borneo and the Philippines. London: H.F. and G. Witherby.
• [Wallis, Mary], 1851. Life in Feejee, or, Five Years among the Cannibals, by a Lady. Boston: William Heath.
• Waterhouse, Joseph, 1866. The King and People of Fiji: Containing a Life of Thakombau; with Notices of the Fijians, their Manners, Customs, and Superstitions, Previous to the Great Religious Reformation in 1854. London: Wesleyan Conference Office.
• Wendt, Albert, 1976. Inside Us the Dead: Poems 1961 to 1974. Auckland: Longman Paul.
• West, Thomas. 1865. Ten Years in South-Central Polynesia: Being Reminiscences of a Personal Mission to the Friendly Islands and their Dependencies. London: James Nisbet.
• Williams, John, 1842. A Narrative of Missionary Enterprises in the South Sea Islands with Remarks upon the Natural History of the Islands, Origin, Languages, Traditions and Usages of the Inhabitants. London: John Snow.
• Wiltens, Caspar and Sebastiaan Danckaerts, 1707 [1623]. Vocabularium, ofte woortboeck… in 'tDuytsch-Maleysch, ende Maleysch-duytsch… Kitab Bacattahan, daulo Malaio: commedien Hollando. In A.L. Loderus (ed.), Maleische Woordboek Sameling. Collectanea Malaica Vocabularia…. Batavia: A.L. Loderus.
• Winstedt, Richard, 1957. An Unabridged Malay-English Dictionary. Kuala Lumpur: Marican and Sons.
• Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal, 1949. Vol. XII, 1. 's-Gravenhage and Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff.

Personal Communications
• Warwick Adams MBBS, MS, FRACS, Surgeon, Illawarra Area Health Service, N.S.W.
• Ann Chowning, Honorary Fellow, Department of Anthropology, The University of Auckland.
• Ross Clark, Institute of Linguistics, The University of Auckland.
• Yvonne Cossart, Department of Infectious Diseases, University of Sydney.
• Janet Davidson, Te Papa Tongarewa (Museum of New Zealand), Wellington.
• Femme Gaastra, Faculty of Letters, Department of History, University of Leiden.
• Herman Ketting, Faculty of Letters, Department of History, University of Leiden.
• G.J.D. Wildeman, Librarian, Dutch Maritime Museum, Amsterdam.