Samoan Woman Dies At 102

From Our Own Correspondent THOUGH the Samoan people are a strong and virile race, they are not renowned for longevity. Therefore, the case of a Samoan woman, Fau Patu, of the Apia village of Vaiala, who recently died at the reputed age of 102, attracted considerable interest in the Territory.

Fau Patu was a daughter of Patu Lauta, one of the High Chiefs of Vaiala, Vai mauga in Tuamasaga South District. She lived during the time of the last Samoan King, Malietoa Laupepa, and remembered clearly the hurricane in 1889 which wrecked the Adler on the reef off Apia.

At that time her only son, the present Patu Va’afuti, Messenger Police Corporal attached to the Samoan Affairs Depart ment, was already born. This son is now 67 years old. Pau married very late in life. In 1928 Fau Patu celebrated her eightieth birthday and was therefore at the time of her death, a few weeks ago, 102 years old. She was born in or about the year 1848.

Very few centenarians have been known in Samoa, and all such claims must be regarded with some suspicion, as they cannot be authenticated, no official re cords having been kept until the latter part of the 19th century. There have been no centenarians amongst the Euro pean population, though some nona genarians have been recorded in the past.

Professor A. Guillaumin, one of France’s leading botanists from the Paris Museum of Natural History, is visiting New Caledonia to study the local flora. He has, in 40 years, formed in Paris the world’s finest collection of New Cale donian plants. He is author of the book “Flore Analytique et Synoptique de la Nouvelle Caledonie” published in Paris a couple of years ago.