Land, history and the contradictions of custom: A tribute to Rusiate Nayacakalou

Abstract

Meleisea Leasiolagi Professor Malama Meleisea is the esteemed recipient of the 2025 Nayacakalou Medal, given for outstanding contribution to Pacific research and named after the late Dr Rusiate Nayacakalou (1927–1972). Meleisea is an emeritus professor of Samoan studies at the National University of Samoa and has had an groundbreaking career as a historian with books such as The Making of Modern Samoa: Traditional Authority and Colonial Administration in the History of Western Samoa (University of the South Pacific, 1987) and Lagaga: A Short History of Western Samoa (University of the South Pacific, 1987). Meleisea is recognised as one of the foremost historians of Sāmoa and part of the first wave of Pacific historians to take up the mantle of telling their own Indigenous histories of the Pacific. As such, his impact on the development of Pacific history has been, and continues to be, significant. This is a version of the talk that Meleisea gave at the medal ceremony on 25 September 2025 at Waipapa Taumata Rau | The University of Auckland. It takes inspiration from Nayacakalou’s work on customary rights and land tenure, analysing the continuing challenges of land tenure rights in Sāmoa and the wider Pacific.