Ethnology is an academic field and discipline that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them.
Margaret Mead was an American cultural anthropologist, author and speaker, who appeared frequently in the mass media during the 1960s and the 1970s.
Robert Louis Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, essayist, poet and travel writer. He is best known for works such as Treasure Island, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Kidnapped and A Child's Garden of Verses.
Samoa, officially the Independent State of Samoa and until 1997 known as Western Samoa, is a Polynesian island country consisting of two main islands ; two smaller, inhabited islands ; and several smaller, uninhabited islands, including the Aleipata Islands. Samoa is located 64 km (40 mi) west of American Samoa, 889 km (552 mi) northeast of Tonga, 1,152 km (716 mi) northeast of Fiji, 483 km (300 mi) east of Wallis and Futuna, 1,151 km (715 mi) southeast of Tuvalu, 519 km (322 mi) south of Tokelau, 4,190 km (2,600 mi) southwest of Hawaii, and 610 km (380 mi) northwest of Niue. The capital and largest city is Apia. The Lapita people discovered and settled the Samoan Islands around 3,500 years ago. They developed a Samoan language and Samoan cultural identity.
The history of Tonga is recorded since the ninth century BC, when seafarers associated with the Lapita diaspora first settled the islands which now make up the Kingdom of Tonga. Along with Fiji and Samoa, the area served as a gateway into the rest of the Pacific region known as Polynesia. Ancient Tongan mythologies recorded by early European explorers report the islands of 'Ata and Tongatapu as the first islands having been hauled to the surface from the deep ocean by Maui.
In Western anthropology, philosophy, and literature, the noble savage is a stock character who is uncorrupted by civilization. As such, the noble savage symbolizes the innate goodness and moral superiority of a primitive people living in harmony with Nature. In the heroic drama of the stageplay The Conquest of Granada by the Spaniards (1672), John Dryden represents the noble savage as an archetype of Man-as-Creature-of-Nature.
Deadlands is a genre-mixing alternate history role-playing game which combines the Western and horror genres, with some steampunk elements. The original game was written by Shane Lacy Hensley and published by Pinnacle Entertainment Group in 1996.
Paʻao is a figure from Hawaii. He is most likely a Hawaiian historical character retold through Hawaiian legend. According to Hawaiian tradition and folklore, he is said to have been a high priest from Kahiki, specifically "Wewaʻu" and "ʻUpolu." In Hawaiian prose and chant, the term "Kahiki" is applied in reference to any land outside of Hawaii: the linguistic root is conclusively derived from Tahiti. "Upolu" point to actual places in Samoa; and, Hawaiian scholars and royal commentators consistently claim Paʻao came from Samoa.
David Franklin Noble was a historian and critic of technology, science and education, best known for his seminal work on the social history of automation. In his final years he taught in the Division of Social Science and the department of Social and Political Thought at York University in Toronto, Canada. Noble held positions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Smithsonian Institution, and Drexel University, as well as many visiting professorships.
Coming of Age in Samoa: A Psychological Study of Primitive Youth for Western Civilisation is a 1928 book by American anthropologist Margaret Mead based upon her research and study of youth – primarily adolescent girls – on the island of Taʻū in American Samoa. The book details the sexual life of teenagers in Samoan society in the early 20th century, and theorizes that culture has a leading influence on psychosexual development.
Pierre Clastres was a French anthropologist, ethnographer, and ethnologist. He is best known for his contributions to the field of political anthropology, with his fieldwork among the Guayaki in Paraguay and his theory of stateless societies. An anarchist seeking an alternative to the hierarchized Western societies, he mostly researched Indigenous peoples of the Americas in which the power was not considered coercive and chieftains were powerless.
Palagi or papalagi (plural) is a term in Samoan culture of uncertain etymology, sometimes used to describe foreigners.
The Tuʻi Tonga Empire, or Tongan Empire, are descriptions sometimes given to Tongan expansionism and projected hegemony in Oceania which began around 950 CE, reaching its peak during the period 1200–1500.
John Derek Freeman was a New Zealand anthropologist known for his criticism of Margaret Mead's work on Samoan society, as described in her 1928 ethnography Coming of Age in Samoa. His attack "ignited controversy of a scale, visibility, and ferocity never before seen in anthropology."
Napoleon A. Tuiteleleapaga (II) was a prominent figure of both Western and American Samoa. He was a lawyer, author, amateur poet and musician from Leone, Tutuila, American Samoa. He is best known for composing the American Samoan anthem, "Amerika Samoa".
War Before Civilization: the Myth of the Peaceful Savage is a book by Lawrence H. Keeley, a professor of archaeology at the University of Illinois at Chicago who specialized in prehistoric Europe. The book deals with warfare conducted throughout human history by societies with little technology. In the book, Keeley aims to stop the apparent trend in seeing modern civilization as bad, by setting out to prove that prehistoric societies were often violent and engaged in frequent warfare that was highly destructive to the cultures involved.
George Pratt was a missionary with the London Missionary Society who lived in Samoa for forty years from 1839 to 1879, mostly on the island of Savai'i. Pratt was from Portsea, Portsmouth in England. He also served in Niue, the Loyalty Islands and New Guinea. In Samoa, Pratt lived at a mission station in Avao Matautu on the north coast of Savai'i island.
The Congregational Christian Church Samoa (CCCS) is an international evangelical Christian Church originally established in Samoa by missionaries of the London Missionary Society.
Kent Monkman is a Canadian First Nations artist of Cree ancestry. He is a member of the Fisher River band situated in Manitoba's Interlake Region. Monkman lives and works in Toronto, Ontario.
Today the term South Seas, or South Sea, most commonly refers to the portion of the Pacific Ocean south of the equator. The term South Sea may also be used synonymously for Oceania, or even more narrowly for Polynesia or the Polynesian Triangle, an area bounded by the Hawaiian Islands, New Zealand and Easter Island. Pacific Islanders are commonly referred to as South Sea Islanders, particularly in Australia.
