Abstract
Under the leadership of New Zealand, nearly twenty percent of the population of Sāmoans living in Western Samoa died from the influenza epidemic of 1918. According to the Sāmoan Epidemic Commission report, New Zealand failed in their leadership role to protect the island population. As an infectious disease, the influenza could have easily spread throughout Upolu and Savai’i by mere contact with the infected. In early November, the LMS was engaged in its monthly collection or taulaga. As John McLane describes the events, “Leaving Apia several days after the arrival of the influenza, London Missionary Society (LMS) ministers worked their way sixty miles west to Mulifanua, gathering funds and likely spreading illness in their wake” (McLane 2013: 187). The same traveling party (malaga) was going on in other districts at around this time. Without putting the blame on the Sāmoan Church (LMS), this paper looks at the possible role of the Church in the rapid spread of the disease due to the financial offering (taulaga), and examines the terrible impact of the epidemic on the leadership of both the government (malō) and Sāmoan Church (LMS) at that time.
Keywords: Influenza, Sāmoan Church, London Missionary Society, taulaga, New Zealand
