Spirit of Aloha | Features | September/October 2004

Tiny Tourist Tales from Pago Pago
By: TOM CHAPMAN

Exotic beauty, sacred sites, an ancient culture and the ghost of Sadie Thompson. It�s too bad so many Pacific travelers skip American Samoa

A BIG MAN
My dinner companion on this calm, illusory night in American Samoa is such a Big Man, he might not want his name set down here, but if truth be told, he is the FBI, the CIA and Interpol rolled into one, the toughest, smartest criminal intelligence chief in the South Pacific. “He knows everybody and everything,” say my contacts, “and everybody knows him.” We are at Sook’s Sushi Restaurant on the waterfront of Pago Pago, tucking into a $40 platter of tuna sashimi that would have cost $500 in Tokyo, and he is educating me about American Samoa. “You’ve got to go with the flow,” he says, digging a fork into the platter and waving a piece of raw fish around in the air. “You’ve got to sit back and listen. Let everyone else make some noise first. It’s no use trying to know too much. People won’t like it. You’ve got to go underground.” He pauses. “Now why do you want to talk to the governor?”

“I want to know why I’m the only tourist in American Samoa.”

“The governor’s like my brother,” he says, chomping on fish, hunching his broad shoulders. “I’ll put in a good word for you.”

A week later, I sit down with the governor.

“A Big Man sent me,” I say.

He nods, knowingly.

POGO POGO

Pago Pago—everybody always reminds you to pronounce it “PAHNG-oh PAHNG-oh” to rhyme, more or less, with “bongo bongo”—is one of geography’s most memorable tongue-clicking names, a place with a wonderfully delectable history. To my complete amazement, I am told time and again that the name has no meaning. Pago Pago: the complete mystery village.

“Long ago, we didn’t have a written language, so today we have no records of things like that,” says the governor’s press officer, mildly amused that I am interested. Quickly, he adds, “If this country ever becomes independent, we should name it Pago Pago.”

A visiting anthropologist, who has burrowed deep into Samoan myths and legends, doesn’t know anything about the meaning either, but she, quite cleverly I think, changes the subject and wonders if I am aware that the name Samoa means “forbidden chicken.” Is she pulling my leg?

What is it about places that people love so much they name them twice? Walla Walla. Bora Bora. Baden-Baden. No pattern emerges, but essential facts exist. Walla Walla, Wash., once the sister city of Pago Pago, comes to mind with its Nez Perce Indian name referring to “a place of many waters” (although it rains much less in Walla Walla than in Pago Pago). Bora Bora in Tahiti means “first born”; there is, however, no “b” sound in the local Tahitian language, so the name is actually pronounced “Pora Pora.”

When U.S. Vice President Dan Quayle arrived in American Samoa on April 25, 1989, he made history of a kind by telling the crowd that came to greet him, “You all look like happy campers to me … and as far as I’m concerned, happy campers you will always be.” He then called Pago Pago “Pogo Pogo,” got back on his plane and flew away.

A local guide tells me one day: “We’ve been insulted a lot over the years. People like to pick on us.”

HOT SPOT

Mystery name aside, Pago Pago is just another small, quirky Samoan village, with quiet streets, a few shops, an auto parts store, churches and a legendary hotel named after a blowzy and now legendary Honolulu hooker by the name of Sadie Thompson (everybody knows Sadie). It is wedged among steep mountains nestled near other small villages with pleasant-sounding names such as Fagatogo, Si‘ufaga‘a, Lalopua and Autapini. You find these simple places on the island of Tutuila, which, 2,500 miles south of Honolulu, is either an active or extinct volcano, depending on which volcanologist you believe. It extends two miles below the sea surface, and is the largest of the seven American Samoa islands. It also sits above what geologists call a hot spot of thermal activity in the Earth’s core, and in the words of one scientist, it is “a volcano just waiting to happen.” Nobody seems to worry much about this. There’s a great deal of nonchalance in American Samoa.

FAIR TRADE

Although Pago Pago has the famous name and reputation, the village of Fagatogo, which sits next door, is the most historic part of American Samoa. The raising of the American flag took place here on April 17, 1900, now a national holiday, on a knoll called Muaga o Ali‘i, where the governor’s mansion is still located. By acquiring their only territory south of the equator, the Americans got a perfect natural harbor, a naval station and a devoted, patriotic Polynesian population. For their deed of cession, the Samoans, as things were to happen, received considerable annual U.S. financial aid, military rule and white-skinned governors for a century, freedom of entry to the United States and, now, 32 channels of cable TV, including MTV, ESPN and California weather reports.

TUNA SASHIMI AND FLYING FOXES

The fact is, American Samoa’s islands are beautiful and there are some wonderful things to see: rare plants and animals, coral reefs, secluded beaches of coral sand, splendid marine life, steep ridgelines for hiking. Snorkeling and surfing are excellent. One evening I witnessed a miraculous moment of light in the western sky, all shades of subtle colors, blue and a red glaze, that was so intoxicating it seemed to be an accident. Where did that come from? I wondered. Were the air and clouds allowed to break all the rules? It disappeared in a moment.

Some of the rarest birds in the world are found in Samoa, a fact recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records. There is a magnificent national park, which preserves the only mixed-species paleotropical rain forest in the United States. The ancient Samoan culture, traced back to the beginning of the first millennium B.C., is rich and vibrant. American Samoa has ancient sites, sacred sites, exotic beauty, tall mountains, stunning, panoramic views, a friendly, English-speaking populace, good roads, a colorful, efficient, islandwide transportation system (buses named “Iraqi Freedom” and “Massacre Bay Express”) and an abundance of fresh, tasty food..

Yet, almost no tourists: me and a few others, wandering around, taking in the sights.

How does such a disarming place, with all manner of natural beauty and resources and customs normally attractive to travelers, including huge platters of inexpensive, fresh sashimi, cheap booze, flying foxes, red-glaze skies and fire-knife dancers, manage to keep tourists at arm’s length?

I vow to find out.

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Tisa Fa�amuli, blithe spirit, unconventional owner of Tisa�s Barefoot Bar, which looks like a place out of Gilligan�s Island, located as it is down at attractive Alega Beach, believes she has the secret of attracting more tourists. She says: �We should take a page out of the past. Think back a hundred years, when my grandmother and her girlfriends used to go down to watch the naval ships arrive in the harbor�all of them looking lovely and topless.�

Tisa remembers when tourists used to come to American Samoa. They would hop off the big cruise ships that regularly docked at Pago Pago and wander around for a day, buying beautiful woven tapa mats and other souvenirs. Visiting foreigners planted a bug with Tisa. In the �70s, she left for the United States to make a life of her own. In California she married a foreigner and had two sons. When she returned to Samoa in 1980, her father tried to banish her from their village, of which her grandfather was the head chief. She wound up in local court defending herself against her father, a Samoan legal first. �My father said, you�re a strong woman and you destroy men,� she recalls, with a trace of sadness.

When a form of peace resumed, Tisa opened her little bar in 1989. A secluded place, away from prying eyes, it became a hot party spot for locals and expatriates. In 2000, she became the first woman to run for governor of American Samoa. She lost. It wasn�t even close. �As it turned out, the Samoan women were my worst enemies,� she says. �But I did lay the foundation for other women to run for office. Let me say, it�s a great thing to have the American Way behind you.�

FOOD ON THE ROCKS

Near the traditional fale where I am destined to spend the night, Tisa’s companion, a transplanted New Zealander who goes by the name of the Candyman, is preparing what he calls “a five-bucket umu.” A five-bucket umu refers to the number of buckets of rocks that are required to make an effective Samoan earth oven, the traditional way of cooking for centuries, into which would be stuffed and then steamed enough food to feed a large marching band. It is fiafia night, another occasion to party. The umu still plays a role in Samoan feast days, although it seems now to be what locals use when their George Foreman Lean Mean Grilling Machines won’t light.

When the rocks are red hot, the Candyman loads the umu with enormous slabs of marinated pork stuffed with garlic, a whole turkey, several plump chickens, seasoned pieces of New Zealand prime lamb, some cooking bananas, pumpkin, taro and shrimp. Twenty coconuts are then cut to make fresh coconut cream, and this delicious concoction is later used to flavor the leaves of young taro, creating a traditional Samoan delicacy called palusami. Nobody goes hungry in American Samoa. A group has gathered for dinner, and we amuse ourselves by quaffing bottles of Vailima, the local beer, as fast as we can while the umu, topped with a mound of hot rocks and banana leaves, creates a steaming cauldron of spices and delicious smells. The night is a dark blur, boozy and lighthearted, but especially boozy. We wait five hours for the dinner, piling up empty bottles of Vailima, but it is worth it. The food, the beer, the follies of a sultry night. Sometime before the sun comes up, I conk out on my fale bed beneath a mosquito net, dreaming of many Samoan meals to come.

A NATIONAL HOLIDAY

Tourism is a pressing issue for the government of American Samoa, although not too much neurotic suffering is wasted on the thought of it, and almost nobody is united on common goals. There are strong forces at work within the small, private tourism sector now clamoring for progress. But others see it as a witless business, which can only lead to undesirable results. The amiable man into whose lap many of the requests and complaints are ultimately deposited is Ali‘imau Scanlan Jr., director of the Department of Commerce, a politician, musician, high chief and, above all, a realist. “Right now, tourism is small and that’s the way we want it. Our visitors are warmly welcomed, but not wholly embraced. Five years ago, if a tourist showed up in American Samoa, we’d declare a national holiday. We wanted to hoist him on our shoulders and take him around. Things are once again changing. But you must remember that most American Samoans are ambivalent about tourism. They can see what unrestrained growth can do to a culture. Samoans are very proud of their culture. They see what’s happened in Hawai‘i. Growth like that gives all of us pause for thought, for we can see our culture unraveling. There are lots of things we see as Samoans that the Hawaiians have already lost, but that we don’t want to lose. We don’t want our culture ravaged. We have a memory.”

�Does tourism have a future here?� I ask

Yes, it does, but all this talk about unrestrained growth in tourism makes us anxious.�

KEEPING THINGS NICE

Samoans feel different from other South Pacific islanders, and American Samoans feel different from other Samoans. �The Samoans believe they come from nowhere,� wrote James Siers in 1970. �They were there from the beginning of the world.�

One afternoon at the Turtle and Shark Lodge, where I am the guest at a barbecue, I notice that the subject of Samoaness�fa�a Samoa, the Samoan Way�is on everyone�s lips. It seems to reflect both a strong pride of place and tradition, mixed in with large doses of a �where do we go from here� anxiety. �Development and tourism, health problems and language, television and youth excess, population growth, public sanitation and a changing environment, these are the things that make us anxious,� says one of the guests, waving his hands. �This clash of cultures, this degradation of cultural values, a considerable resistance to change. There are moments of confusion. We wonder what�s next.�

To the casual visitor the Samoan anxiety shouldn�t exist, but it does. American Samoa is, by the comfort index of the rest of the world, a tranquil and relatively well-off place. Life for the most part is pleasant, a celebration of possibilities. The standard of living is high, United States help is right around the corner and always reassuring, there is a strong sense of family and tradition. Food is in abundance, although probably there is too much of the wrong things, and diabetes among the populace is now a vexing challenge. The people are polite, proud and agreeable. So what do they have to be anxious about?

�What we can�t figure out is, once you bring the tourists here, what should we do with them?� asks a man at the barbecue, smiling bleakly, helping himself to a shrimp. �We feel that�s something to be anxious about.�

�Seventy percent of our people now speak English, rather than Samoan,� says another guest. �We express ourselves better in English, because the vocabulary is bigger. But with this trend, what will happen to our own language?�

�Samoan culture is the art of keeping things nice, keeping a smile on our face,� says Fa�aalu Iuli, a social worker. �It�s a system where the chiefs talk and the people listen, so many feelings are submerged. From childhood, your choices are made for you by others. So people here grow up really, really happy, or really, really angry.�

IMPERIALISTIC NOSTALGIA

In truth, visitors who come to American Samoa seeking poet Rupert Brooke�s �loveliest people in the world, moving and dancing like gods and goddesses,� or perhaps the perpetual enchantment of a Michenerlike Pacific paradise, might leave with considerable misgivings. �We may still carry our bananas on sticks and do some fire-stick dancing, but we certainly do love our SUVs,� says a Samoan acquaintance.

Amanda Birdsell, a doctoral candidate in anthropology at McMaster University in Toronto, now completing a year of dissertation research on cultural tourism in the Samoas, reminds me that �tourists always want imperialistic nostalgia, but what we want to see is no longer possible.� She adds that �we all want to come to post-colonial nations looking for the past, but actually we want to judge it through the lens of the present.�

Although her considerable research indicates that tourism strengthens community ties and traditions, and even helps to rejuvenate aspects of culture that have been long abandoned, many of the older matai (chiefs) in both Samoas are opposed to tourism, because they feel it will abuse the ancient culture. �What tourists want to see is traditional Samoan culture,� says Birdsell, �and, of course, the biggest natural resource here, and in Western Samoa, is the culture and the people. This happens to be a major transitional period for both Samoas. They are now discovering that tourism is very compatible with ancient island cultures.�

A GRAND PARK

One afternoon I go with Doug Neighbor, a transplanted Texan who is superintendent of the National Park of American Samoa, to see what is probably the most unusual of America�s grand parks. We drive on a good winding road to the steep ridgeline above Pago Pago, and from there to the north-central part of the island, where the park is located on 10,500 acres leased for 50 years from native villages and the American Samoan government for an annual payment of $436,000, which is divided in a complex system of land-tenure procedures among the villagers.

(The perfect companion to a park visit is the interestingly written Natural History Guide to American Samoa, a compilation of essays for the informed layman, edited by scientist Peter Craig and available on the Internet at www.nps.gov/npsa/book/)

With Neighbor as a thoughtful guide, we drive up through Afono Pass, between famed Rainmaker Mountain and Mauagaloa Ridge, zigzagging through scenic overlooks. Then we continue through beautiful rain forest to the village of Vatia, where we can view spectacular, uninhabited Poly Island, home of boobies, noddy terns and other seabirds. We drive beyond Vatia, where the park service has a home-stay program, passing a church and some scattered Western-style houses, and then deep into the rain forest until the road becomes impassable and we have to stop. Down to the ocean we walk, the steady roar growing louder and louder, a picture-perfect sight in late afternoon light. With the crazy rock formations jutting out of the sea, and the water thundering and the green of the forest, it is a magical spot. Neighbor points out fruit bats with huge wingspans and rare birds, and he tells me that American Samoa has more different fish and more coral than Hawai�i, but we never see the famed flying fox (Pteropus ssamoensis) for which Samoa is famous.

In a cheerful, contemplative mood, staring out to sea, Neighbor sighs just a little. �Not many people know how much beauty there is here,� he says. �If they knew, they would come.�

ROOM AT THE INN

Later in the day, I get dropped off at the Rainmaker Hotel, the once-lavish symbol of American Samoan hospitality, now a squalid eyesore that casts a pall over the country�s tourism future. When it opened in December 1965, it was the classiest place in town by far, an Intercontinental Hotel with a perfect view, where up-on-their-luck tourists came to frolic after they disembarked from their Pan Am 747s. In the lobby stood a gleaming handcrafted fountain, with water cascading over a statue, and people still reminisce about the parties that went on next to the colossal oval swimming pool and the individual hospitality fales, now tattered and torn, and in great need of redemption.

The Rainmaker�s assistant manager, Elisa Tuisamatatele, one of only 11 employees still working, has sweet, forlorn memories. �It was something grand, that�s for sure. I guess that�s why I stay here,� she says. �It�s very sad to see it now, but at the same time I still have hopes that someone will care enough to do something. This is a place for Samoan people. When you walked in you used to feel like you were in Samoa, not San Francisco or New York. Oh, sure, it�s easy to get a reservation now, but to tell the truth, I�m not taking reservations right now. We�ve closed the dining room. We�ve closed the pool. There�s no room service. Oh, but I forgot, there�s room service from the maids, if you want.�

I think it unwise to ask her to clarify this.

Clearly it is time to move on.

LOOKING FOR SADIE

The darkly confused story of Sadie Thompson, now forever tied to the romance and lore of American Samoa, lives on in the lust-filled hearts of romantic tourists. So does the mystery of this voluptuous Honolulu streetwalker who, in Somerset Maugham�s famed short story, and in the big money-making plays and films of the story that followed, makes a preacher quiver with desire and sin, but who then in real life seemed to quietly disappear, leaving only vague and conflicting evidence of an audacious life rather badly but authentically lived. Nevertheless, to the visitor, the legend seems to grind happily on, a few people on the island continue to keep alive Sadie�s irresistible mystique, and as I rest comfortably in the Rev. Davidson Suite of the Sadie Thompson Inn in Pago Pago piling up clues and questions, I can acknowledge that the strangeness of her elemental life is as puzzling as ever.

Among the many stories, we know that Sadie sailed from Honolulu on Dec. 4, 1916, on the S.S. Sonoma, in the company of Maugham, his companion and a few other passengers, arriving in Pago Pago on Dec. 15. Sadie stayed on; Maugham left after a few rainy days. His short story, first titled Miss Thompson and written in 1920, was turned down by many magazines, before it was accepted by H.L. Mencken and published as Rain in the April 1921 issue of Smart Set magazine. The successful play starring Jeanne Eagels opened in November 1922, for a long run. This was followed by three movie versions of Rain, the first with Gloria Swanson in 1928; the next with Joan Crawford in 1932 and the last with Rita Hayworth in 1953. None were filmed in American Samoa.

Meanwhile, Sadie plied her dubious trade in Pago Pago for several years. What happened to her is the Samoan version of a whodunit. Tom Drabble, a New Zealander residing in American Samoa for 40 years, has now, with his wife, Ta�aloga, turned what is thought to be the original building where Sadie worked at night into the island�s most agreeable hotel, where the rooms are named after the characters in the short story and the actors in the films. Drabble has also investigated many of the rumors and he tells me that there are no deportation records for Sadie in Pago Pago. She is, however, mentioned in a letter to Samoan Information as �running a House of Prostitution� catering to U.S. sailors. There is also evidence that she named her place of business the Sadie Thompson Inn. One favorite ending, as reported in various books and guidebooks, has her falling down drunk one night in Fagatogo, and then placed by police unconscious on a steamer bound for Australia. Another widely rumored story has her falling in love with a Samoan man, and then being deported, probably back to Honolulu. According to Drabble, it is believed Sadie returned to Honolulu aboard the steamship Ventura after her romance with a Samoan man was discouraged. And she was never heard from again. Or was she? We will never know.

To see Sadie more clearly, I seek the opinion of John Enright, a state historic preservation officer in American Samoa for 23 years. He believes Sadie�s forced expulsion from the island was a fictional invention, since no evidence has ever been discovered of the naval governor taking such action, nor, given the minor nature of the infractions, would he have ever done such a thing. �My bet,� suggests Enright, �is she went on to Apia, in Western Samoa, which still had a reputation as South Seas Sin City, even then, under the Kiwis,� although he has no particular evidence of that. The general consensus among expatriates, who tend to keep up with these things, is that Sadie returned to Honolulu, where she changed her name and lived out her life in obscurity.

Several years ago, Enright played the role of Rev. Davidson in a reading script performance of Rain put on by the Island Community Theatre, where he discovered that for most of the audience the tale of the wayward hooker was of minor and humorous irrelevance, and only of interest because it was set in Pago Pago. �It is obvious,� he says, �that no one really cares about Sadie here. She is not, and, as far as I can tell, never has been, a person of any interest locally. Maybe we should institute an annual Sadie Thompson Day, to once again stir up literary interest.�

To my surprise and delight, I meet a woman one night in Sadie�s Bar and Lounge who has definite links with the Sadie legend. Her name is Adeline Pritchard, and her mother, Mary, was the greatest of tapa makers and her grandfather was the controversial missionary and consul, George Pritchard.

�My mother would talk about Sadie now and then,� says Pritchard, �although she was someone you didn�t want to talk about much. She would see her in the streets here all the time.�

�Well, my mother said, above all, she was pretty ugly and she was pretty fat.�

WITH THE GOVERNOR

In the outer chambers of the governor�s office, I can count 31 photos of previous American Samoan governors, many of them U.S. naval officers whose terms didn�t last very long. There are several bowling trophies and a faded plaque with a picture of the space shuttle Endeavour. The governor�s secretary has an opened package of Arnott�s Biscuits on her desk. I sit and wait next to a foreign lawyer who dresses in traditional lavalava and reads a copy of the Disneyland magazine. He looks at me and says, �I�ve never seen a person in here wearing socks and loafers.�

Gov. Togiola Tulafono, a handsome, thoughtful, articulate man of 57, was first a policeman, then a lawyer for 20 years, then a judge, senator and lieutenant governor until he was sworn in as governor following the sudden death of Tauese Sunia in 2003. The late governor, a much-admired man, was frequently on record for opposing tourism. �We don�t want tourists,� he once said. The new governor, now running for reelection, believes otherwise, but he also takes a cautious stance

He tells me: �Tourism is an industry that we know deserves development, but we do not want to rush into it. In our small, fragile environment, we need to look at that development carefully. It must be sustainable from a cultural perspective. We tried once before, unsuccessfully, because American Samoa is not in the mainstream of transportation, and thus we have a disadvantage. We do have strong advantages: the beauty of the islands and a vibrant culture.

�You must realize, a lot of promises about the benefits of tourism were made once before. The villagers were told that tourists would come, and that they would make money. A little of that happened, and a few tourists came, but then they went away. There were false promises made of wealth that would come their way, but the promises went unfulfilled. Now the villagers are suspicious and rightfully so. Now we want to bring back some form of tourism, but without the promises.�

PULL HARD

The second week of May is declared Tourism Week in American Samoa. The governor announces that �the travel-and-tourism industry is vital to our Pacific Territory�s cultural and social well-being. Travel is one of our most fundamental freedoms. Every citizen benefits from travel and tourism.�

Vince Halleck, whose father, Max, emigrated to American Samoa from Germany in 1914 and started a little business trading fishhooks for coconuts, opened the $10 million Tradewinds Hotel near the airport. The three-way clock on the Samoa News Building still has three different times: 8:30, 7:15 and 6 o�clock

The big sign above the Post Office in Fagatogo says, �God Bless America and American Samoa.� Yellow �support our troops� ribbons are everywhere. My acquaintance, the Big Man, a good friend to the end, reminds me to �think ahead, be proactive�these are the things that are important.�

In June, the government, after considerable debate and discussion, agrees to lease the west portion of the Rainmaker Hotel, which is known as the Beach Wing, to Tom and Ta�aloga Drabble. The Drabbles intend to create a beautiful 64-room hotel with a gorgeous view. They�re thinking of calling it �Sadie�s by the Bay.�

Tisa Fa�amuli still has a dream. �Just imagine it: The gleaming cruise ships sail in and anchor. The passengers leave the ship and go to have coffee at beautiful little harborfront restaurants and caf�s. Ahhhh � that�s the way it should be here someday.�

I study a Samoan proverb: La tutu foe o le savili. �Pull hard so that we may overcome the wind.�

TOM CHAPMAN is the editor of SPIRIT OF ALOHA.

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