Samoan "Flends", Pango Pango (sic)

Informal outdoor group portrait of male passengers from the Wairarapa paired up with local Samoan women. 'Flends' was the name given to Islanders who paired themselves off with a visitor and acted as a guide and performed tasks for a small fee. Included in the photograph is Faaolatana (front row, second from right) and the Englishman Mr W T Still (front row, first from right), with his head in Faaolatana's lap.

Burton described the situation depicted in this photograph as being 'evident that the sensuous influence of the climate and the other surroundings was beginning to tell upon the impressible visitors. There was a perceptible relaxation of the moral fibre. "Very suggestive of Solomon's song, ain't it?" whispered an irreverant fellow passenger in the photographer's ear. Noticing that the remark was received with a disapproving frown, he hastened to add, "Of course I mean without the orthodox head-lines!" No one, indeed, could be starched and square-toed among the children of nature who frolicked around.'