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