Photo book marks 125 years of friendship [1]
Tuesday, September 25, 2001 - 10:00. Updated on Thursday, February 18, 2016 - 18:50.
From Matangi Tonga Magazine, Vol. 16, no. 2, September 2001.
A book of old photographs, titled, Early Photography, Tonga and Samoa 1855—1900 went on sale in Nuku‘alofa in July.
This collection of photographs focuses on the life of German traders, their trading posts, and their coconut plantations in Samoa and Tonga.
It is the third compilation of photographs by Kurt During who has acquired most of the photos from a number of private collections of German descendants in both Tonga and Samoa.
Kurt said that the book was published to mark 125 years of the Treaty of Friendship between Tonga and Germany, which was signed on 1 November 1876. “This book is focused more on Samoa. The first one, Pathway to the Tongan Present, featured mainly photographs on Tonga, and the second one was South Seas Reminiscence, Mrs Schover 1902 to 1921.”
The new book depicts the colonial life style of the late 1800s, featuring the Germans, mostly men in their European dress of long trousers, jacket and Panama hat, while their Polynesian counterparts were either bare-breasted or wearing nothing but a smile and a tattoo.
The book was published by Kurt and the Lupelahi Foundation.
Kurt said that part of the 125 years’ treaty celebration was the establishment of an exchange relationship in literature and culture between the University of the South Pacific and the University of Hanover.