"We are like someone completely dead and lack a father, Your Excellency:" Bandsmen Sucking Up and Blowing Out in German Samoa

Abstract

For more than a century, the brass band has been a highly desirable acquisition among Samoan villages, who value it as much for its projection of superior status as a statement of communal musical taste. The first Samoan bands appeared during the period of German administration 1900-1914, and this chapter presents a chronicle of the Alamagoto Brass Band in Apia 1904-1914, based on the considerable correspondence to and from the Governor’s Office. At that official level, it is an account of oleaginy, rivalry, racial discrimination, misuse of official funds, theft and rebellion. It is also an account of determination, inventiveness and musical voracity.