Who fired the bullet that killed Tupua Tamasese?

Invincible Strangers 1 - Preface

When an eminent matai dies, their aiga or family gather around the body and pose for a photograph.

A Sunday morning in 1929 was an anxious time in Sāmoa. Papālagi or white people, fearful natives might rebel, were protected by a brittle, poorly trained and socially inferior armed police force. Among Sāmoans, revenge was spoken of. 

Tupua Tamasese Lealofi III, 28, father of three children was tama’āiga, holder of one of Sāmoa usually four paramount matai or chiefly titles. A reluctant leader of the Mau, a passive resistance organisation seeking self-government, he had accepted direction from his extended family, ‘āiga potopoto. Instead, New Zealand authorities did it for him, seizing and sending him to Auckland’s Mount Eden Gaol. Later, they killed him. His title meant his burial should be at a loa or mausoleum at Mulinu’ū, Sāmoa’s capital on a sandy peninsula forming the western boundary of Āpia harbour. Fear of police prevented that and instead a funeral was decided upon, two hours after he had died. His body was taken to the middle of a green grassy plot beside a London Missionary Society (LMS) church in Vaimoso, two and a half kilometres from the street where a police sniper had mortally wounded him a day before. His body, washed, oiled and dressed in a white suit, was placed on a bier. His upper body rested on a lavalava, purple with a white border, part of the uniform of the Mau movement. His hands clasped a small bouquet of flowers, while a boutonnieres over his heart signified a fragile life, lost. A second Mau lavalava covered his lower body, where a .303 bullet had done its work. ‘Old Tat’, meantime, set up his glass plate camera, undeterred by emotion and tension. As well as being Sāmoa’s only resident commercial photographer, the tall, immaculately dressed Alfred Tattersall, 63, was a photographer, journalist and a historian. Many wanted to be in his pictures, particularly this one. Tattersall was adept at setting up; ponderous technology created its own pace. It was around 10 a.m. and already well into the 30 plus degrees the day would provide. Tattersall’s image took in 73 people. Tattersall’s skill enabled him to capture, mostly in focus, their faces, their emotions. Thirteen, or so, were in the uniform of the Mau police of a white singlet and purple Mau lavalava, with a double white stripe. Some of them wore purple headwear, a turban that had for 30 years been a fashion in Sāmoa. Sixty of the men formed a u-shaped fence around the body. Linking them to a smaller group were two men. Tuimaleali‘ifano Fa‘aoloi‘i Si‘ua‘ana, a tama’āiga who had been beside Tupua Tamasese amidst the gunfire. He looked younger than his 76 years. His right arm is bandaged and in a sling, thanks to a New Zealand police bullet. Beside him was Mataia Europa Tamasese, the 17-year-old brother of the man they were entombing. His fierce gaze hints that appeals to keep the peace may have sat uneasily with him. His Latinized middle name recalled the timing of his birth. When Va’aiga was pregnant with him, his father, Tupua Tamasese Lealofi-o-A’ana, was in Europe, and as well as meeting Kaiser Wilhelm had become the first Sāmoan to fly. At the lower left, at the feet of the body with his head at the same level, was another tama’āiga, Mata’afa Faumuina Fiame Mulinu’ū (the only other tama’āiga, Malietoa Tanumafili, was absent. He sided with the New Zealand administration). Mata’afa, the new leader of the Mau, was a mountain of a man, muscled, without any fat. He had been leader of the Fetū (star), a scout type movement for Sāmoan boys created by a New Zealand army sergeant turned general who preferred military order. A pregnant woman’s death made Faumuina lose his faith in Wellington. There are two pālagi beside the body. Beside the body’s head was a cynical figure, 50-year-old Australian Alfred Smyth, who had lived in Sāmoa working for traders O.F. Nelson Ltd, owned by Taisi Olaf Nelson. In 1928 Ta’isi and Smyth were exiled from Sāmoa for their role in the creation of the Mau. Smyth, later to be described by New Zealand as an ass, was to prove that he was opposed to Sāmoan rule, right up until eventual independence. Smyth had been allowed back to Sāmoa, and had arrived in Āpia early the previous day, as police were shooting Tupua Tamasese and others. Alfred Hall Skelton had arrived with Smyth. An Auckland barrister, he had been acting for Ta’isi. With the massacre on Beach Road, he was one of only a few who tried to establish how so many people had been killed and wounded. Beside Smyth, at the head of the bier, was a distinguished grey haired woman, holding an ilitea or coconut fan. Not identified, she is likely Leafineali’i, grandmother of the dead ali’i. Most of the 73 people in the photo were unnamed; a melancholic note on the fate of much of 20th Century Sāmoan history. 

Tattersall, Alfred James, 1866-1951. The lying in state of Tupua Tamasese Lealofi III, Samoa. McKnight, P:Photographs of Robert Louis Stevenson and his valet, his gravestone, of Tupua Tamasese Lealofi III with Mau leaders and his lying in state. Ref: PAColl-0691-1. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/22865150 ..

Tattersall placed Alaisala Te Maota at the photo’s centre. From Tokelau, 500 kilometres to the north, she was wife, then widow, of Tupua Tamasese. In January 1929 she had become a public figure as she arrived in Auckland to support her husband then in Mount Eden Goal. A newspaper report noted she arrived with her two sons and daughter; ‘Bruises on her head and arm bear evidence of the struggle she made to retain her husband when he was handcuffed and taken away by the police.’ Eleven months later, with her husband’s body, Tattersall’s photo catches her face in part profile, as a photographer he saw her beauty and even in moments of extreme, he saw the need to capture her and her youth. She was oblivious to all but her dead husband.