The Samoan face of God

Abstract

The Samoan Face of God changed from Tagaloa and Nafanua goddess of war to "Ieova" (Jehovah) in 1830 when the Christian missions arrived in Samoa. I will attempt to describe some of the factors that led to this historical event. The objective of this paper is to explore aspects of Samoa's pre-Christian religion, the advent of the missionary movement and the effect this had on Samoan culture and the Fa'a Samoa (the Samoan Way). The line of argumentation investigated leads to the conclusion that although Samoa easily adopted the Christian God it was not necessarily only for reasons of faith, it was also a matter of power and authority. This new power and authority not only increased the status of men but subjugated the role of women from goddess, queen and covenant to daughter, wife and mother. It will attempt to reclaim aspects of Samoa's history through legend, genealogy and song and search for an authentic Samoan Spirituality. The purpose, to interweave Samoa's oral history into a contemporary literary context, thus recording and thereby acknowledging the authenticity of Samoa's pre-Christian religious experience.