Palagi (pronounced – singular ) or papalagi (plural) is a term in Samoan culture of uncertain etymology, sometimes used to describe foreigners.
is a word in the Samoan language describing non-Samoans, usually white foreigners of European or American descent. In Samoa the term is used to describe foreigners. The word is both a noun e.g. a Palagi (European person) or an adjective e.g. Palagi house (non-traditional Samoan house). The word is a cognate in other Polynesian languages and has gained widespread use throughout much of western Polynesia, including in Tokelau, Tuvalu, 'Uvea and Futuna.
Written or in Samoan, and or in Tongan, the term Pālagi is also used in Niuean.
Use, meaning and origin of term
The etymology of the term Palagi is disputed. An explanation that emerged in the 19th century is that word is derived from the Polynesian rootwords "pa" (meaning: gates) and "lagi" (meaning: sky or heaven), hence the standard translation "gates of heaven" It has been suggested that the compound word comes from the Polynesian's reaction to seeing for the first time, European missionaries enter the country. Their skin being a different color made them think they were men sent from the gates of heaven. Tcherkézoff (1999) argues that such an interpretation is a European projection to explain Polynesian cosmology. Tent and Geraghty (2001) comment that the origin of the Western Polynesian Papālagi~Pālagi and the Fijian remains a matter of speculation.
Jan Tent, a Macquarie University linguist, and Dr. Paul Geraghty, director of the Institute of Fijian Language and Culture in Suva, suggest that the word may have its origins in the travels of the Polynesians themselves. They believe that the Polynesian islanders may have encountered Malay travellers prior to contact with Europeans, and adopted the Malay word barang (meaning: imported cloth). These researchers also suggest another possible etymology – the Malay word for European, as used in the 17th and 18th centuries, was faranggi. However, they discount this possibility as the word palangi seems to have originally referred to cloth; only later was the word transferred to the people.
Recorded use
Captain Cook noted the expression "ko e vaka no papalangi" (the boats of Papalangi) in Tonga, with Cook's transcription being "Towacka no papalangie" and his translation as "cloth ships".
The specific origin of this term remains uncertain. The term has gained widespread use throughout much of western Polynesia including Tokelau, Tuvalu, 'Uvea and Futuna, etc., with the expansion of use of the term being though to have occurred in the 18th century when Tongans, and to lesser extent Samoans, regularly interacted with white sailors, beachcombers, convicts, missionaries, and whalers who clearly delineated ethnoracial boundaries between themselves (papalagi/papalangi) and the Polynesians they encountered.
The missionary John Williams, of the London Missionary Society, records a speech in Samoa, in 1830, referring to the great powers of the "papalangis".
Louis Becke after having worked and travelled in the Pacific from 1869 to 1885 uses papalagi to mean a white person in stories set in what is now Tuvalu, The Rangers of the Tia Kua, Kennedy the Boatsteerer in which appears "The last native girl who occupied the proud position of Te avaga te papalagi (the white man's wife) was a native of the island of Maraki"; Samoa, A Basket of Bread-Fruit, At a Kava-Drinking in which appears "alii papalagi (white gentleman)" and "this wandering papalagi tafea (beachcomber)", The Best Asset in a Fool’s Estate in which appears "the papalagi mativa (poor white)”; and the Tokelau, Challis the Doubter.
Modern usage
Largely because of the growing Pacific Islander culture in New Zealand, this word has been adopted by other Pacific cultures. Its usage in New Zealand's Pacific Islander media such as television and radio is common, and it is often used by the mainstream media to describe non-Samoans of European descent.