John Erskine, the Captain who met Jackson in 1850 and who, struck by what he heard from him, asked him to write down his story, had himself called at Samoa in 1848. That date is already outside the historical frame of this study. By the mid-1840s, the missionary influence was beginning to be quite noticeable. Although these historical processes are continuous, a useful endpoint can be placed at 1844, the year that saw the opening of the Malua theological college, which produced all the Samoan ‘teachers’ (and later the ‘pastors’). We have already noted that 1844 was also the year that, for the first time, glass beads were no longer mentioned in the description of exchanges with a European ship.

But one of Erskine’s observations undoubtedly reveals an aspect of the pre-Christian era and should be noted. Erskine narrates that, after anchoring, he saw ‘several young ladies of the district’ coming towards him and his crew. One of these young ladies seemed to be about fifteen years old and was presented as the daughter of a High Chief. She wore around her waist a ceremonial white mat made of hibiscus fibres. There can be no doubt that this was the ’ie sina, which could be worn only by a girl who was a virgin who was presented as a bride-to-be—for this ceremonial mat was supposed to receive the stain of the blood from her deflowering.^[11] Indeed, Erskine notes that ‘her hair was cut short, which, our informant told us, intimated she was ready for a husband’. Erskine goes on, apparently summarising what his ‘informant’ (not named or detailed) explained to him:

The narrative then switches to another topic.

We find here the word tama’ita’i, which is a confirmation of the high status and the virginity of the girl (probably, the full expression given to Erskine had been: sa’o tama’ita’i). Clearly, this ‘great lady under the special care of the Chief’ is what subsequent literature will call a ‘taupou’. It is interesting to note that this word ‘taupou’ has not appeared yet; at least it is not the first word used to define such a girl, since Erskine did not note it but only heard ‘tama’ita’i’. It confirms an hypothesis suggested to me in the early 1980s by Professor Aiono Dr Fanaafi Le Tagaloa (personal communication) who said that, in the European literature and, to some extent, in Samoan discourse, ‘taupou’ possibly came to designate the village ceremonial virgins only in the last third of the 19^th century. ‘Before that, the word was augafa’apae’, she added, without further explanation. It seems to me that the explanation for this linguistic change relates to significant social change: the end of the 19^th century was the time when a certain levelling of the hierarchies of titles and ranks began throughout Samoa (Tcherkézoff 2000a, 2000b). This levelling had as a consequence that the status of ceremonial virgin which was formerly restricted to certain high-ranking names, the sa’otama’ita’i, became diluted, now expressing the general idea of ‘virgin daughter’; consequently, the specialised terms such as augafa’apae and sa’otama’ita nearly disappeared and the word taupou which was formerly used as the general ‘polite’ term (formal vocabulary) for ‘virgin’^[12] now began to be applied to the specialised status of village ceremonial virgin as well. Soon its meaning became restricted to this status, and the only general term for ‘virgin’ which remained was the non-formal expression (teine muli).

No other part of Erskine’s narrative contains any allusion to an upbringing and environment that permitted or encouraged a generalised free expression in pre-marital sexual behaviour.