Word: tusitala
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...many of the 115,000 Samoans who live on the main island of Upolu, Robert Louis Stevenson is still very much alive. From his office on the sixth floor of the Central Bank of Samoa building, Deputy Prime Minister Misa Telefoni points out the window to Tusitala's mountain tomb: "See, it's up under those trees - right on top. That's an indication of how much the Samoans cared for him, because they had to hack the road up there and carry his heavy coffin." Telefoni's memory of Tusitala, or "Writer of Tales," as he was known locally...
...myth of Tusitala has also undergone a workout. But you'd expect nothing less from the story of how one of the world's tallest tale-tellers came to an island of natural yarn-spinners (fagogo is the Samoan word for their rich and digressive oral tradition). Setting out from San Francisco in 1888 with wife Fanny, 11 years his senior, Stevenson sought both material for his writing and warm weather for his ailing lungs. After stops along the way, Stevenson began to pine for "an island with a profile," and found it in the natural peaks and waterfalls...