Bioethics and the Samoan indigenous reference

Bioethical questions are of primary concern to science, religion and traditional or indigenous knowledge. What the indigenous reference can offer the world is a re‐appreciation of the rightful place of the spiritual, sacred and tapu (implicit in indigenous cultural rituals) in ethical debates. This article explores what might be the ethical in the Samoan indigenous reference. Two main indigenous Samoan concepts, tapu (the sacred) and tofa sa'ili (the search for wisdom), are considered and situated in contemporary Samoan experiences and understandings of the ethical. If ethics is about moral principles or values, these two Samoan concepts provide the basis for ethical research in a Samoan indigenous context. This article aims at providing a Samoan frame of reference to deliberate about universal codes for bioethical research and the nature of ethical research practice in the Pacific.