In the middle of the 19th century a printing press was set up on the island of Rarotonga. At some point, it was taken over by the local people who produced a series of Pepa.
In the middle of 19th century a printing press was set up on the island of Rarotonga, the main island of the group that came to be known as the Cook Islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It was brought to the island by a missionary named Aaron Buzacot and was used to print a variety of educational materials. During this period Rarotonga, partly due to the work of the press, had one of the highest literacy rates of anywhere in the world.
Buzacot was also active in training local people to operate the press, and in 1849, while Buzacot was back in England working on a translation of the Bible, it was used to print posters they called Pepa that could be used to pin up and make interesting topics cheaply and widely available for people to discuss.
Buzacot makes no mention of the Pepa in his memoirs, even though he describes other items produced on the press in some detail. This has led some library historians to suggest that the Pepa were produced by local people for local people on topics they thought interesting.
One of these, Pepa 9, introduces the indigenous Sami people of northern Scandinavia to the indigenous people of Rarotonga. It describes the Sami’s distinctive culture: how the position of sun would change through the seasons (something hard to comprehend for people who lived near the equator) leaving them in darkness at some times of the year and all-day light in others; and the nature of snow – KIONA – which translates as water-stone. It goes on to explain the extraordinary: that snow is a white substance that falls from high in the sky in a form similar to feathers of a chicken. This made it so cold that the Sami men and women (pictured) had to wear clothing made from animal skins!
It depicted another Indigenous culture, one that like theirs was managing their lives in accordance with the conditions of their land, and one quite other from the French and British people the Rarotongans had encountered living removed from their land. It shows a curiosity for how different people, similarly adapted their cultures in clever ways to suit their conditions. In ways not better or worse than theirs’, just different. And, to any human, fascinating.
Video: The Pepa Trail - Printing in Rarotonga, 13:39
Podcast: Learning About Lapland in Rarotonga, 18:54
