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SPOTLIGHT Samoa – Island archipelago by several names
Travel Medicine and Infectious Disease xxx (2017) 1
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Travel Medicine and Infectious Disease journal homepage: www.elsevierhealth.com/journals/tmid
Serendipity
SPOTLIGHT Samoa e Island archipelago by several names Dieter Stürchler Büren, Switzerland
a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 6 February 2017 Accepted 6 February 2017 Available online xxx
These “islands in the sea” bring to mind palm trees, tattoos, and infections such as influenza (1918 pandemic), dengue (since 1970s), and Zika virus (since December 2015). Polynesians settled Samoa and other Pacific islands relatively recently, perhaps since 750e300 BCE. As a consequence, the Polynesian languages Hawaiian, Maori, Samoan, and Tahitian (part of Austronesian) have much (melodious) vocabulary in common. Examples in Samoan-Hawaiian-Tahitian are fale-hale-fare for house, fafine-wahine-vahine for woman, and moana for deep water. Samoa e this name is compounded from sa (sa'a) for sacred or dance, and moa for middle, chicken, or a flower. Thus, it literally means Sacred Center, although Samoa lies near the western branch of the Polynesian Triangle which is formed by Hawaii in the North, New
Zealand (Aotearoa) in the southwest, and Easter Island (Rapa Nui) in the southeast. After Magellan's ship circumnavigated the globe in 1519e22, seafarers visiting Samoa included Dutchman J. Roggeveen (1722, lost his flagship on the way), Frenchmen L-A. de Bougainville (1768, rouse (1787, lost named Samoa Navigator Islands) and J-F. de Lape some crew at „Massacre Bay“), and U.S. naval officer C. Wilkes (1839). Traders, whalers, missionaries, settlers, and diplomats followed, along with war ships and colonial and civil rivalries. In the Tripartite (British-German-US) Convention, Samoa was separated in 1899, along 171 W into American East with Tutuila island and Pago Pago and German West with Savai'i and Upolu islands, and Apia. American Samoa remains a U.S. protectorate to this day (with a popular National Park on Tutuila, Ofu, and Ta'u islands. German Samoa after World War I became Western Samoa under rule by New Zealand, as mandated by the League of Nations in 1920e46 and as a trust territory of the UNO in 1946e61. As the first country in Polynesia, Western Samoa gained independence in 1962. In 1997, parliament, against protests by American Samoa, changed the official name from Western Samoa to Samoa.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tmaid.2017.02.003 1477-8939/© 2017 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Please cite this article in press as: Stürchler D, SPOTLIGHT Samoa e Island archipelago by several names, Travel Medicine and Infectious Disease (2017), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tmaid.2017.02.003
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Travel Medicine and Infectious Disease journal homepage: www.elsevierhealth.com/journals/tmid
Serendipity
SPOTLIGHT Samoa e Island archipelago by several names Dieter Stürchler Büren, Switzerland
a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 6 February 2017 Accepted 6 February 2017 Available online xxx
These “islands in the sea” bring to mind palm trees, tattoos, and infections such as influenza (1918 pandemic), dengue (since 1970s), and Zika virus (since December 2015). Polynesians settled Samoa and other Pacific islands relatively recently, perhaps since 750e300 BCE. As a consequence, the Polynesian languages Hawaiian, Maori, Samoan, and Tahitian (part of Austronesian) have much (melodious) vocabulary in common. Examples in Samoan-Hawaiian-Tahitian are fale-hale-fare for house, fafine-wahine-vahine for woman, and moana for deep water. Samoa e this name is compounded from sa (sa'a) for sacred or dance, and moa for middle, chicken, or a flower. Thus, it literally means Sacred Center, although Samoa lies near the western branch of the Polynesian Triangle which is formed by Hawaii in the North, New
Zealand (Aotearoa) in the southwest, and Easter Island (Rapa Nui) in the southeast. After Magellan's ship circumnavigated the globe in 1519e22, seafarers visiting Samoa included Dutchman J. Roggeveen (1722, lost his flagship on the way), Frenchmen L-A. de Bougainville (1768, rouse (1787, lost named Samoa Navigator Islands) and J-F. de Lape some crew at „Massacre Bay“), and U.S. naval officer C. Wilkes (1839). Traders, whalers, missionaries, settlers, and diplomats followed, along with war ships and colonial and civil rivalries. In the Tripartite (British-German-US) Convention, Samoa was separated in 1899, along 171 W into American East with Tutuila island and Pago Pago and German West with Savai'i and Upolu islands, and Apia. American Samoa remains a U.S. protectorate to this day (with a popular National Park on Tutuila, Ofu, and Ta'u islands. German Samoa after World War I became Western Samoa under rule by New Zealand, as mandated by the League of Nations in 1920e46 and as a trust territory of the UNO in 1946e61. As the first country in Polynesia, Western Samoa gained independence in 1962. In 1997, parliament, against protests by American Samoa, changed the official name from Western Samoa to Samoa.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tmaid.2017.02.003 1477-8939/© 2017 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Please cite this article in press as: Stürchler D, SPOTLIGHT Samoa e Island archipelago by several names, Travel Medicine and Infectious Disease (2017), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tmaid.2017.02.003