Thank you for watching. Here's the link for Lupe Faalele: the documentary.
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About Search for Tagaloa
A response to a call for an "intercultural and inter-religious" dialogue by Samoa's Head of State, Tui Atua Tupua Tamasese. From 1838 to 1845, The Rev. John B. Stair lived in Samoa. In his "Old Samoa, or Flotsam and Jetsam from the Pacific Ocean" he wrote of the difficulty of arriving at "anything like a clear and connected account" of Samoan mythology as "native statements are often vague and conflicting." In a chapter titled "Mythology and Spirit-Lore", the Rev. noted: "The Samoans had several divinities and a host of inferior ones, 'lords many and gods many,' and they were also accustomed to deify the spirits of deceased chiefs. In addition to the homage paid to these, petitions were offered and libations of ava (sic) were poured out at the graves of deceased relatives; whilst the war clubs of renowned warriors were regarded with much superstitious reverence, if not actually worshipped, under the name of Anava." He went on to say: "The embalmed bodies of some chiefs were also worshipped under the significant name of Le faa-Atua-lala-ina, or made into a sun-dried god, as were also certain objects into which they were supposed to have been changed, which were called Tupua, and held to personate them."

Anthropologist Felix Keesing wrote: “Where, in other areas, notably Hawaii, the crumbling of the religious system shook to its foundations the existing social organisation and prepared the way for sweeping changes in the whole cultural setting of the native life, in Samoa the chiefs and orators merely rejected the one set of interpretations and functions and took over the other without any vital blow being struck at the fundamentals of the existing order. The taula aitu (priest) was replaced by the white missionary and the faife’au, the old theology by the new” (Modern Samoa, p.400).

In the beginning of the doc. I quoted the late, atheist-turned-Christian, C. S. Lewis. Here's more from the same passage FYI:

“My argument against God was the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got the idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such violent reaction against it?
…Thus in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist—in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless—I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality—namely my idea of justice—was full of sense. Consequently, atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.”

Note: This documentary is available free to Samoan high schools (or churches) in DVD format. Because some of the clips are utilized under Fair Use, it is intended for educational purposes only—not to be sold or resold. Please share but don't sell it in any way or chop it up for another video. Thank you so much for watching!

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