My Samoan chief
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
My Samoan chief
(Pacific classics, 2)
University of Hawaii Press, 1971, c1962
[Pacific classics ed.]
Related Bibliography 1 items
Available at 4 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Description and Table of Contents
Description
This is an engaging autobiographical account of a young American woman's life in her Samoan husband's native home. Fay Calkins, a descendant of Puritan settlers, met Vai Ala'ilima, a descendant of Samoan chiefs, while working on her doctoral dissertation in the Library of Congress. After an unconventional courtship and a typical American wedding, they set out for Western Samoa, where Fay was to find a way of life totally new and charming, if at times frustrating and confusing.
Soon after her arrival in the islands, the bride of a few months found herself with a family of seven boys in a wide range of ages, sent by relatives to live with the new couple. She was stymied by the economics of trying to support numerous guests, relatives, and a growing family, and still contribute to the lavish feasts that were given on any pretext--feasts, where the guests brought baskets in which to take home as much of the largesse as they could carry.
Fay tried to introduce American institutions: a credit union, a co-op, a work schedule, and hourly wages on the banana plantation begun by her and her husband. In each instance, she quickly learned that Samoans were unwilling or unable to grasp her Western ideas of input equaling output, of personal property, or of payment received for work done. Despite these frustrations and disappointments, however, life among the people of her Samoan chief was for Fay happy and productive.
by "Nielsen BookData"