Untold Pacific History

The story of how groups of Samoans were taken to Germany at the turn of the century to be exhibited alongside the animals. The descendants of these families, Samoan historians and a museologist in Germany give their views on this little known part of Samoa’s history as a German colony.

Watch the video version of the documentary series on the RNZ website or on YouTube

Produced by Tikilounge Productions and made with the support of NZ On Air

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

The island sold for a bottle of gin, the iconic music of Te Vaka, and the lost ancestors of a New Zealand territory in the Pacific, all intertwine in the extraordinary story of Olohega Island. Won by an American whaler during a contentious card game, the Pacific Island that has never been returned to its people sits in the middle of a New Zealand territory in the Pacific.

Watch the video version of the documentary series on the RNZ website or on YouTube

Produced by Tikilounge Productions and made with the support of NZ On Air

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

This is the remarkable true story of six boys who ran away from their strict boarding school in Tonga in 1965, taking a boat for what they thought would be a short adventure. A violent storm damaged their vessel, leaving them adrift at sea without food or water for eight days.

Watch the video version of the documentary series on the RNZ website or on YouTube

Produced by Tikilounge Productions and made with the support of NZ On Air

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Back with three remarkable yet little-known events that have shaped Pacific lives and legacies, Untold Pacific History returns for season 3. Spanning Samoans displayed in a German zoo, teenagers who survived 15 months on a deserted island, and a Tokelauan island sold for a bottle of gin, this season will explore these extraordinary stories in Pacific history. These stories reveal how Pacific people have navigated isolation, colonial authority, and extraordinary adversity.

Watch the video version of the documentary series on the RNZ website or on YouTube

Produced by Tikilounge Productions and made with the support of NZ On Air

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Papa Tom, an extraordinary Cook Islander who smashed new frontiers in space and the ocean in a life that spanned many fields of work.

Watch the video version of the episode here.

Papa Tom's quest for truth, history, and culture has taken him around the world and even out to space, but it was in Aotearoa and the Cook Islands that it all began...

The extraordinary Cook Islander, the first person from New Zealand and the Pacific to work for NASA, was one of the grandfathers of traditional vaka sailing in the Pacific, and who revolutionised economic reform in the Cook Islands. He is still little-known to generations of young Pacific people and to the New Zealand public in general.

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

The life story of I'iga Pisa, an independence activist who sailed hundreds of kilometers in a small canoe to escape exile from Samoa.

*This story was updated on 9/5/2024 to clarify details regarding I'iga Pisa's life.

Watch the video version of the episode here.

In 1909, Samoan independence activist I'iga Pisa was condemned to exile in Saipan by the German colonisers of Western Samoa.

In an extraordinary feat, he escaped from exile by borrowing a small outrigger canoe from a friend and paddling from Saipan to Guam. This was a distance of more than 150 km over a period of several days in which he navigated using the stars.

He had learned German during his exile, but just before his escape from Saipan, he learned that New Zealand had taken over as the new colonial rulers of Samoa.

I'iga lived in Guam for several years, during which time he learned to speak English. He then travelled by boat from Guam to Hawai'i, another US territory, in 1918. In Hawai'i, he worked in a printing firm and improved his English with the aim of returning to his homeland of Samoa. He finally arrived home in 1919.

I'iga worked for the Department of Samoan Affairs, under the New Zealand Administration, until 1942. Some Samoans labeled him a "judas" or traitor for working alongside the New Zealand regime, but historians and family members argue he was trying to change the system from within.

I'iga was the only one of the exiled Samoan revolutionaries who survived to see Samoa win back its freedom from New Zealand in 1962.

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

This is the little known story of The Forgotten Soldiers of Niue: 150 men plucked from their island paradise and sent 17,000 kms away to the cold frontlines of France during World War I. The Niuean soldiers never made it to the frontline, however. They instead died en route with the introduction of diseases they had never been exposed to.

Watch the video version of the episode here.

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Told in three separate stories, season two of Untold Pacific History shines a light on key events in the Niue, Samoa and Rarotonga that have been little told in Aotearoa.

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

This episode examines how and why Indian populations were brought to Fiji, and how the inequities under the colonial government's Girmit system, created a society of instability and countless coups.

Watch the video version of the episode here.

Delving into the legacy of the colonial history that underpins much of the racial disharmony in modern day Fiji, this episode examines some of the fraught factors that have led to the migration of Indo-Fijian and indigenous Fijian communities to Aotearoa.

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

This is a story of indigenous land rights gone awry, a makutu from an aggrieved family and the failed business ventures of an infamous 'haunted hotel' in Rarotonga.

Watch the video version of the episode here.

In pre-colonial times, it was the scene of bloody battles between rival tribes, and ancient spirits are said to patrol the area. It is also the subject of a bitter ownership dispute that dates back more than a century and which gave rise to the curse that is still said to hang over the area.

This is the 'cursed' Sheraton hotel complex in Rarotonga, a long-abandoned luxury resort that has lain derelict for a quarter of a century. The stories of Italian Mafia connections, failed government business dealings, and indigenous land rights come together in this episode of Untold Pacific History.

*We apologise for any offence caused by Pa Ariki's incorrect statement in this piece that 'the More family are all dead' in context of the historic family involved in this land dispute. We acknowledge that there are descendants of this family alive today, and that this context was unclear in Pa's statement in this video.

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details