ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with two parts. First, the author portrays the interaction of Lifuans with foreigners, mainly missionaries, and the different modalities of evangelization of the Catholic and Protestant missions, primarily in relation to language of evangelization. The author reading of Lifuans' interaction with the outside world focuses on Kanak as active agents in this process, although the author argues that there were gender/sex, generational, and social differences. In the nineteenth century the Protestant Church in Lifu was British and not French, and the French Marists remained a minority whereas the Catholic Church had the monopoly on the main island. As the London Missionary Society 'teachers' were from Polynesia, in Marist texts Samoa or hmi Samoa became synonymous with Protestant Lifuans, whereas hmi oui-oui came to be used by Lifuans to mean Catholicism. A friend told the author she remembered when at Wanaham women would identify other women as coming from Hnathalo, a nearby Catholic village, by their hair style.
