Palangi

Palagi (pronounced paalangi - singular) or papaalagi (plural) is a term in Samoan culture of uncertain meaning, sometimes used to describe foreigners. Tent and Geraghty (2001) comment that the origin of the Western Polynesian Papāalagi~Pālagi and the Fijian Vāvālagi~Pāpālagi remains a matter of speculation.

Papāalagi~Pālagi is a word in the Samoan language describing non-Samoans especially European westerners or Caucasians. In Samoa the term is used to describe foreigners. The word is both a noun e.g. a Palagi (European person) or an adjective e.g. Palagi house (non-traditional Samoan house). The word is a cognate in other Polynesian languages and has gained widespread use throughout much of western Polynesia, including in Tokelau, Tuvalu, 'Uvea and Futuna.

Written Pālagi or Papālagi in Samoan, and Papālangi or Pālangi in Tongan, the term Pālagi is also used in Niuean.

The etymology of the term Palagi is disputed. An explanation that emerged in the 19th century is that word is derived from the Polynesian rootwords "pa" (meaning: gates) and "lagi" (meaning: sky or heaven), hence the standard translation "gates of heaven" It has been suggested that the compound word comes from the Polynesian's reaction to seeing for the first time, European missionaries enter the country. Their skin being a different color made them think they were men sent from the gates of heaven. Tcherkézoff (1999) argues that such an interpretation is a European projection to explain Polynesian cosmology.

The explanation of Niuean word "Palagi", is that "pa" means bang such as that of a gun and "lagi" means sky, literally means bangs into the sky. In "Papa-lagi" "papa" means more than one bang or many bangs, and "lagi" means sky. In the olden days, Europeans who landed on Niue carried guns and often fired the guns into the sky, when they landed on the reef, to scare away potential trouble-making natives.

...
Wikipedia