Preserving Stories Of Sāmoa For Future Generations
TĀLOFA!
The Digital Fāgogo Collective is a compilation of Samoan tales, fables, and history re-told in the English language. Our mission is to preserve and share fāgogo with the Samoan diaspora.
We recognize that as a result of Sāmoa’s rich oral history, multiple versions of the stories featured in this site exist. As such, we do not claim that the stories featured in this site are authoritative. As a collective we encourage variations of stories to be shared so that we might be able to have a deeper and broader understanding of our history and culture.
We invite you to read, subscribe to our newsletter for the latest additions, and contribute your own family stories to the collective.
Photo: University of Oregon Museum of Natural & Cultural History Catalog #7-441 Tapa Cloth Detail, American Samoa
Featured Fāgogo
Fāgogo Projects
This section features other fāgogo-related projects and resources.
Fāgogo. Fables from Samoa
Translated by Richard Moyle, checked by Galumalemana Alfred Hunkin
A website featuring nine fāgogo that were recorded in the 1960’s by Richard Moyle. The site contains narrations of each fāgogo in Samoan and the English translation. Users can read each story on screen with both Samoan and English text while listening to the audio recordings.
Experiencing Samoa through Stories: Myths and Legends of a People and Place
by Samantha Lichtenberg
A research paper exploring oral tradition, indigenous beliefs prior to Christianity, and the significance of place through the study of Samoan myths and legends.
Fāgogo: “Ua Molimea Manusina”
by Su’eala Kolone-Collins
A thesis/study the explores fāgogo as a source of pedagogy. It argues that ideas useful to inform practices that could transform and improve the teaching and learning by Samoan children can be obtained from deep and critical understanding of Samoan language, values, and cultural practices.
Fāgogo- An Extra-ordinary Story, Aue!
by Jody Jackson-Becerra
Jackson-Becerra gives a wonderful Ted Talk weaving her magic using Fāgogo, a traditional Pacific Island technique of storytelling.
Tales of Taonga
by Coconet TV
Taonga refers to treasured things that range from adornments to concepts, people, and special places. This video series looks at the stories behind some of the taonga in the pacific and how the tales carry through the generations.
Samoan Mythology
by Unknown Author
A website designed to restore, preserve, and especially share the illustrations drawn in the early 1980’s by Dorothy Kneubuhl.
Kapaemahu
by Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu
This animated film from our Native Hawaiian ‘aiga tells the story of four extraordinary individuals of dual male and female spirit that brought the healing arts from Tahiti to Hawai’i.
The author states, “Our survival as indigenous people depends on our ability to know and practice our cultural traditions, to speak and understand our language, and to feel an authentic connection to our own history.
That is why I wanted to make a film about Kapaemahu, and to write and narrate it in Olelo Niihau – the only form of Hawaiian that has been continuously spoken since prior to the arrival of foreigners. It is not enough to study our language in an American classroom, nor to read about our history in an English language textbook. We need to be active participants in telling our own stories in our own way”.
Telling the stories that bring recognition to and honor our indigenous third-gender identities is important as they are an integral part of our history and community.
Contribute Fāgogo to the Collective
When you share your stories, it becomes a part of our history that lives on for younger generations to learn, enjoy, and discover.
One day the butterflyfish saw Ti’otala flying overhead and yelled out from the water, “Hey little bird, you may be blue like the sea, but you’ll never rule the whole ocean like me.”