Chapter 23

Around the world, during the post-colonial era, theologies and practices of indigenous cultures have been re-emerging from the darker shadows of colonisation. A Samoan indigenous religious culture, as put forward in “Whispers and Vanities”, has developed over the ages a legacy that continues to be passed down in the oral tradition. Unfortunately, some of the more severe, shame-ridden aspects of religious colonisation have tended to render the telling into whispers. The clarity of voice that emerges in this daring paper offers a valuable and important window into Samoan indigenous life. Prayerfully brought into the light of awareness, into the realm of intelligent and loving dialogue, the legacy becomes available to current and future generations. The stories told here demonstrate reverence for the sacredness of life and all life forms; elucidate the interwoven nature of religious life with daily life and healing traditions; bring forth again the vitality of Samoan humour; and reveal respect for the sacred, joyful and celebratory nature of human sexuality with its ability to procreate. The voice given here to the Samoan indigenous tradition of sexuality offers its people revitalisation and restoration to dignity, specific insight on tapu traditions, and a potential renaissance of aspects of Samoa’s cultural birthright.

My work lies in the field of psychology, not theology, but given the richness of human religious traditions, I know and have learnt that divine mystery and loving presence manifest themselves in many ways. As a practitioner associated with Narrative Therapy and Just Therapy communities, who meet with families and groups facing life’s difficulties, I listen with an orientation to what is life- and love-affirming. I listen for strength, inspiration and resourcefulness rather than for pathology; for a narrative that not only reflects experience but actively shapes it. The act both of telling and of listening affects our perceptions and choices, shapes our sense of things, and brings forth meanings to live by.238

As with any communication, in whispered communications we find whisperers as custodians and whisperees as nainai, and both take an active role in the whispering. The cultural information conveyed by a custodian of great mana is received with an attitude of reverence and awe for that which is tapu or sacred. I appreciate the vivid imagery that suggests how the passing down took place. In narrative analysis, the act of telling and listening shapes our sense of things, it brings forth meanings to live by. For me, these tala tu’umumusu are deeply life- and love-affirming and offer not only a reflection on the past, but the potential to shape the future.

Samoan culture has been a focus of academic controversy in the western world, without much Samoan commentary being privileged in that domain. There is much to be learned from “Whispers and Vanities” for those who are prepared to enter it from a Samoan frame or through Samoan lenses. I have often heard it said that Christianity was readily accepted in Samoa in the 19th century due to the high level of consistency in its teachings with indigenous religion and practices. It does not stand to reason, nor is it respectful of the dignity of ancestral life, to assume that true spiritual experience, a knowing of the divine, arrived in Samoa in the 19th century: are we really to suppose that God arrived with the missionaries?

The missionaries brought the teachings of the Bible, but in those previous 3000 years or so, it is inconceivable indeed that a loving God would not have been in connection with the Samoan people. As Albert Wendt has said in an interview with Tupuola Terry Tavita:

There is hesitancy to speak of our pre-Christian history, especially our pre-Christian gods and worship. We cannot deny our children the right to know about that history. Young Samoans overseas are thirsting for that historical knowledge … And, we were a godly people before Christianity arrived. We’ve always had priests. The missionaries did not teach us to love. We’ve always had love, long before the missionaries arrived.239

In order to evaluate what is of current relevance, what it is that is being evaluated must be revealed. A whisper, while conveying vital information, may still need clarification. I celebrate that Tui Atua is voicing these whispers with a clear voice so that intelligent dialogue can take place. Choices are made on the basis of information, and such information cannot be clouded.

It is clear to me that given the richness of human religious traditions, divine mystery must have many ways of manifesting. People are inclined to think that the religion or denomination they affiliate with is the right and only one. Human history shows the tragedy of hubris, where one group fails to realise that, varied as these manifestations may be, others can also be guided by divine mystery. The clumsy arrogance inherent in colonisation, including the colonisation of spirituality, has had awful effects on indigenous cultures. Globalisation now brings a cross-fertilisation of cultural knowledge, ethics and religious practices.

It is time that cultures bring to light whatever knowledge and practices have been repressed, to take a fresh look at their resonance and relevance. Spirituality predated the missionaries, along with much vital cultural knowledge borne of lived experience. The rich knowledge that flowed through oral channels in Samoa was carefully authenticated and passed down, and continues to inform and guide society. Fortunately, albeit through whispers, some of this treasure of knowledge has not been lost.

Our world is reaching a threshold; the negative impact of humans on the natural environment is reaching a crisis point. Pollution and global warming, the result of industrialisation and the mass consumption of resources, are rooted in pedagogies that hold certain humans as superior and that assume the right to consume all resources and to subjugate other living beings at will. Many indigenous or first nations peoples of the Americas, Australia and the Pacific have in common a reverence for living things, demonstrated by their practices during hunting or while taking trees, plants and other environmental resources. The welcoming of naiufi story or tala shows a communally based respect for other species. Tui Atua states: “While man can fish from the sea, he takes only what he needs to live, knowing that he, the sea and the fish need to respect each other …”.

This relationship between fishermen, the sea and the fish involves the small but powerful word ‘va’: a central and complex concept having to do with relationships, or the connections between. The va, according to Fanaafi Aiono Le Tagaloa, is:

… first of all the relationship between the Creator and the created. It governs all things and holds all things together. The Va [sic] did not cease with the arrival of Christianity. It continues to pervade Samoan life and living even today among all Samoans in Samoa or residing elsewhere … Va is relationship, connection, affiliation, boundaries, difference, separation, space, distance, responsibility, obligation, state of being, position, standing and so much more.240

Standing in sharp contrast to the tala o le naiufi (story of the shark) is the widespread practice around the globe of trawling for sharks, slicing off their fins, and tossing their live wounded bodies back into the ocean, mostly for the luxury of shark fin soup. According to the international ocean conservation organisation Oceana, over 73 million sharks are slaughtered each year to meet the demand of the international shark fin market.241 Marine scientists acknowledge that the exploitation of sharks could cause a major disruption to our ecosystem. According to marine scientist Julia Baum, “killing off top predators like sharks can also set off a cascading environmental collapse that is detrimental to the entire ecosystem – and to humans who wish to exploit its resources”.242

Ideologies that hold humans superior over other species justify the indiscriminate use of those other species for hunting, collecting and luxury consumption. Le tala o le naiufi also stands in contrast to current practices of factory farming and industrial fishing, which show callous disregard for the living creatures they harvest. Our impact on the natural environment, including on our climate, species’ habitat and natural resources, has led to an unprecedented crisis, where tipping elements have the potential to cause massive irreversible change.243 As the WWF warns: “Humanity’s demands exceed our planet’s capacity to sustain us … we ask for more than what we have”.244 They report that the “Ecological Footprint shows a doubling of our demands on the natural world since the 1960s, while the Living Planet Index tracks a fall of 30 per cent in the health of species that are the foundation of the ecosystem services on which we all depend”.245 Humankind is already responsible for the loss of multiple species, and we are faced with further losses if we do not rekindle alternative ways of relating to the environment.

An environmentally attuned communal experience is dilute in countries like the United States and Australia, both among the top ten over-consuming nations. Communities uprooted from ancestral land become re-oriented to systems of the individual acquisition of property. A lack of bonding to the environment and a lack of respect for other species, along with rampant materialism in so-called developed nations, threaten the survival of all. It is estimated that “the impact of an average North American is double that of a European, but seven times that of the average Asian or African”.246 It is important to acknowledge the history of colonial impact, disruption and dislocation for first nations or indigenous peoples, and the ongoing consequences and injustices of that impact on Pacific nations who despite consuming less, suffer the consequences of western greed and pollution.247

Tui Atua argues that by contrast: “Harmony in Samoan life recognises that all living things are equal. Human life is equivalent and complementary to cosmic, plant and animal life. In the balance of life, all living things share equal status and power”.248 The balance of life is undergoing change. According to Jackson, “We are entering an era of massive anthropogenic environmental changes that have [already] greatly altered marine communities and threaten entire marine ecosystems”.249 I believe that a consciousness of interdependency can counteract environmentally destructive ideologies. In Samoa, I have heard it said that people belong more to the land than the other way around.

While coming of age from late 1966 to 1969, I had the privilege of living in a pristine Samoan village, where life was connected with land and sea in the most direct way. This way of life – fishing and harvesting every day, repairing homes from local resources, entertaining ourselves by strolling arm in arm, talking, playing guitar and ukulele and singing together – was rooted in community and the beauty and bounty of the natural environment. This gave me a clear sense that happiness is not gained through possessions but through a healthy and wholesome life in harmony with nature. I worry about the influence of western values of consumption in modern Samoan life. This beautiful nest too is perhaps becoming soiled. Inspiration to change these trends is valuable.

Environmentalist Paul Hawken proffers that it is difficult to count the number of dedicated groups and organisations working on the salient social issues of our times, including indigenous rights and climate change.250 Paul Ojibway, writing from a Native American perspective, says: “We as human beings are not the centre of creation’s attention nor do we control the world – rather, it is we who enter into the vitalities and rhythms of life and learn our wisdom there”.251 Let’s hope that all who can, will wake up to the situation, employ such wisdom and join in the work. Let the tale of the naiufi, the mānaia of the sea, inspire practices that foster balance. And, may this grow from a whisper to a call for action!

The stories of taulasea illustrate the integral role of prayer and belief in the treatment of physical problems such as laoa. These tales speak to the power of the healer–patient relationship in the context of traditional religious and spiritual practices. The psychology of a person in Samoa has been situated as relational: one interwoven with the psychology of the collective, including ancestors, faith, family–village and land–environment.252 This relational psychology would enhance powerfully a healing relationship such as that between taulasea and patient, whose treatments call on land and nature (the wind and sea), spiritual ancestors in familial Gods, and collective ancestral places of great spiritual significance (Uafato). It is moving to imagine the positive expectation that a patient would likely have for the medical rituals of the taulasea (traditional healer), with all the spiritual and relational resources this healer could call on, that were also well known to the patient in their village and regional context.

Prayer can be said, in narrative analysis, to be a performative activity. In the medical ritual of relieving laoa, the activity of prayerful chanting appears to be performative of religious faith. The narrative is set in mutual faith in the taulasea’s capacity to mediate between the worlds of body and spirit and is performative also of the trust and hope held firm by both taulasea and patient in their healing relationship.

There is increasing interest these days in the power of the mind for healing in the interpersonal context. Pioneer of interpersonal neurobiology, Dr Daniel Siegel’s working definition is that, “the human mind is a relational and embodied process that regulates the flow of energy and information”.253 In this light, the patient struggling with laoa could be working with the power of prayer and the intention to find a way for their own brain and body to regulate fear, stress and pain; perhaps to relax and to find a way to heal themselves. Is the patient’s mind, through the experience of being held in prayer and in the healing relationship, more readily interactive with matter during the dislodging of the bone?

The ‘mind over matter’ effect shown also in placebo research reveals the brain’s capacity to respond with tangible results to the rituals of medicine or healing in the context of the patient–healer relationship. This shift away from naming the effect as ‘fake medicine’ is exemplified in the work of Ted Kaptchuk, director of the Program in Placebo Studies and the Therapeutic Encounter at Harvard Medical School, who feels that positive expectation plays a role in patient attitude and healing.254 The Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center at Harvard Medical School Teaching Hospital is actively studying how these potentials can be harnessed for healing. To quote a summary statement on their welcome page:

Only recently have researchers redefined [the placebo effect] as the key to understanding the healing that arises from medical ritual, the context of treatment, the patient–provider relationship and the power of imagination, trust and hope.

Although our biomedical health care system often considers these humanistic dimensions of care as secondary to the administration of pharmaceuticals and procedures, the emerging field of placebo studies is producing scientific evidence that these more intangible elements of medicine may fundamentally contribute to the improvement of patient outcomes.255

Is mainstream science catching up, noticing, becoming curious about and researching some of the rituals and elements of healing that healers have intuitively known and practised in indigenous cultures across time? Similar to the taulasea’s prayer invoking the winds, First Nations peoples in the United States speak also of sacred information being carried by the winds.256 The suppression of traditional healing practices and their interrelationships with indigenous religion is a great loss for world cultures and knowledge of them may benefit the more individualistic cultures of the west. Now we may have an opportunity in Samoa to bring some of this knowledge back for her own people. I certainly hope more of these stories will come to light. It is also highly relevant that traditional knowledge about delicate matters such as sexuality and sex come forward in these challenging, changing times.

The more repressive strains of Victorian culture, along with Christianity, rendered this central part of human existence taboo, obscuring what was tapu. How refreshing to read in “Whispers and Vanities” the words: “according to Samoan indigenous traditions, the reproductive and sexual organs of the body underline human divinity and spirituality”. The Augustinian strains of guilt and shame that appear to have contributed to Christian whispers about the sexual body may perhaps have brought the “murky half-light” monocultural bias carried by the missionaries. These have been and are being re-evaluated and transcended in the west. There is no good reason that the indigenised versions of these biases should not also be updated.

Through “Whispers and Vanities”, we learn from these tala tuumusumusu about pre-missionary practices like sex education for girls in the safety of the aualuma (which included not just the facts about ‘the birds and the bees’ but information about pleasure and successful lovemaking). These stories give an idea of the whole body as a celebration of life; an exquisite, joyful manifestation of the gift of creation. The merriment and humour inherent in the rituals of the sa’ē courtship dance come with this understanding. The social ease and acceptance of this dimension of human life are refreshing to hear about.

My father Derek Freeman was formally ‘adopted’ into an āiga (traditional extended family) in Sa’anapu in the 1940s, and bestowed the chiefly title of Logona-i-Taga. When we accompanied him to live in the village during his research in the 1960s, my mother, sister and I were absorbed and adopted wholeheartedly into this āiga. Following my father’s title, I was given the honour of a tāupou position and title Afega-i-Tino-Oti, which I still hold. During our years in Sa’anapu, deeply immersed in community life, I experienced the happiest, cleanest and greenest life I have known. My experience and connections in Samoa have been a primary influence in shaping in many ways my values and worldview.

Although Margaret Mead missed the high value placed on virginity in Samoa, representing Samoa to the west as an easy, ‘free love’ culture, this did not necessarily mean that Samoa had a sexually repressed culture in pre-missionary times.257 As “Whispers and Vanities” points out, traditional Samoan values of the sexual are neither repressive nor pornographic, but openly celebratory. Ironically enough, Mead’s assertions about Samoa partially kicked off the sexual revolution of the 1960s in America. While this development may have brought about aspects of liberation and pleasure, especially for women, it has also been accompanied by the spread of disease, confusion and much hurt, particularly for young women. Before this time, sex was considered sacred, and that sanctity was respected by undergoing a formal marriage ceremony.

The reverence, humour and playfulness revealed in these tales and chants about sexual life in traditional Samoa appear in the context of a ritually based culture of the sacred, with social structures that contain and make joyful expression possible. It appears to me that the highly developed Samoan cultural context of ritual creates safety and respect for the rights of others within which the body – all of the body, its sexuality and procreative aspects – can be celebrated. If we can accept these indigenous sexuality references as being a vital part of creation and the journey through life, then their appearance in tapu rituals such as the funeral ritual is no surprise.

As articulated by Albert Wendt and affirmed here, a negative effect of missionary colonisation and the resultant culture of whispers was to drive ancient Samoan humour underground. What a pity that was! Humour is important and unique in any culture and is vital too for Samoa. I hope that its years underground have only strengthened its vitality. May it continue to re-emerge and be renewed. I venture to say that I experienced signs of this in meetings with villagers after the 2009 Samoa tsunami; this was commented on freely by Samoan co-workers. Even in the aftermath of disaster and tragedy a healthy, vital sense of humour and laughter – openly including sexual themes – often emerged as a core part of recovery. Death here is indeed defied by life and its sexual, procreative elements.

On a more personal note, beyond giving insight into Samoan life and history, “Whispers and Vanities” is a very moving, elucidating paper. Considering what is brought to light through this paper, I humbly affirm that it presents a living trove of wisdom which reveals through poetry, song, chant and story, the depths of lived experience; a trove passed on with grace, dignity, vitality and humour, despite historic oppression and the necessity for whispers. This cultural resource represents an inheritance from and for countless generations, all of whom deserve the utmost respect. I celebrate that this is being brought, with a clear and resonant voice, into the realm of intelligent and loving dialogue. Considering the forces at play, it has taken much soul-searching and courage to begin to bring this legacy of sacred texts to light. May it be received with the respect and care worthy of the ancestors; may it inform, inspire and give health within Samoa and beyond; may it be guided by Samoans; and may it counteract some of the more unfortunate aspects of colonisation!

238 White, M. & Epston, D. (1990). Narrative means to therapeutic ends. New York: W.W. Norton; Freeman, J., Epston, D., and Lobovits, D. (1997). Playful approaches to serious problems: Narrative therapy with children and their families. New York, U.S.A.: Norton.

239 Tavita, T.T. (2010, April 6). Profile: Chatting with Albert Wendt. Pacific.Scoop. Retrieved from http://www.pacific.scoop.co.nz/2010/04/profile-chatting-with-albert-wendt/.

240 Aiono-Le Tagaloa, F. (2003). Tapua’i: Samoan worship. Apia, Samoa: Malua Printing Press, p.8.

241 Oceana website at http://www.environmental-watch.com/profiles/oceana/. See also Clarke, S.C., McAllister, M.K., Milner-Gulland, E.J., Kirkwood, G.P., Michielsens, C.G., Agnew, D.J., Pikitch, E.K., Nakano, H., and Shivji, M.S. (2006). Global estimates of shark catches using trade records from commercial markets. Ecology Letters, 9 (10), 1115–1126.

242 Baum, J.K. and Worm, B. (2009). Cascading top-down effects of changing oceanic predator abundances. Journal of Animal Ecology, 78 (4), 699–714. Retrieved from http://www.fmap.ca/ramweb/papers-total/Baum_Worm_2009.pdf. They state: “Anthropogenic changes have greatly altered the abundance of oceanic species, especially large predators at high tropic levels” (p.699). Regarding sharks, I’d like to express my appreciation to Brendan Grether, a shark enthusiast and eighth grader in 2010 at the Berkeley School, Berkeley, California, for raising my awareness with a class research project on sharks. See also, Estabrook, B. (n.d.) Sharks are disappearing from the world’s oceans one bowl of soup at a time. Retrieved from http://www.politicsoftheplate.com/?p=470.

243 Foley, J., Daily, G.C., Howarth, R., Vaccari, D.A., Morris, A.C., Lambin, E.F., Doney, S.C., Gleick, P.H., and Fahey, D.W. (2010, April). Boundaries for a healthy planet. Scientific American, 302 (4), 54–57. Retrieved from http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/boundaries-for-a-healthy-planet/; see also Hansen, J. (2008). Global warming 20 years later: Tipping points near. Address to the National Press Club and at a Briefing to the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, Washington D.C. Address retrieved from http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2008/TwentyYearsLater_20080623.pdf; and Hawken, P. (2007). Blessed unrest: how the largest movement in the world came into being and why no one saw it coming. New York, U.S.A.: Penguin Books.

244 World Wildlife Fund. (circa 2012). Living Planet Report. Retrieved from http://www.panda.org/about_our_earth/all_publications/living_planet_report/.

245 World Wildlife Fund. (2010). Living Planet Report 2010: Biodiversity, biocapacity, biodevelopment. Retrieved from http://www.footprintnetwork.org/press/LPR2010.pdf, p.4.

246 See Fowler, J. (2004, October 21). Consumption of resources outstripping planet’s ability to cope. Common dreams: Building progressive community. Associated Press. Retrieved from http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1021-02.htm.

247 Paul Hawken reports that, “In 1991, Sunita Narain, the director of the Center for Science and the Environment in New Delhi called global warming environmental colonialism and was one of the first to question whether environmental management should be based on human rights rather than legal convention”. See Hawken, P. (2007). Blessed unrest: How the largest movement in the world came into being and why no one saw it coming. New York, U.S.A.: Viking Press, p.6.

248 Tui Atua, T.T.T.E. (2009). In search of harmony: Peace in the Samoan indigenous religioin. In T. Suaalii-Sauni, I. Tuagalu, N. Kirifi-Alai, N. Fuamatu (Eds.), Su’esu’e Manogi: In search of fragrance: Tui Atua Tupua Tamasese Ta’isi and the Samoan indigenous reference (pp.104–114). Le Papaigalagala, Samoa: The Centre for Samoan Studies, National University of Samoa, p.104.

249 Jackson, J.B.C. (2010). The Future of the Ocean’s past. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society Biological Science, 365, 3765–3778, p.3765.

250 Hawken, P. (2007).

251 Ojibway, P. (2007). The great healing: Reflections on the spirituality and ceremonies of peace in Native America. In Tui Atua, T.T.T.E., Suaalii-Sauni, T.M., Martin, B., Henare, M., Te Paa, J.P., and Tamasese, T.K. (Eds.), Pacific indigenous dialogue on faith, peace, reconciliation and good governance (pp.27–42, 34). Apia, Samoa: Alafua Campus Continuing and Community Education Programme, The University of the South Pacific.

252 Tamasese K, Peteru K, Waldergrave C, Bush A. (2005). Ole Taeao Afua, The new morning: A qualitative investigation into Samoan perspectives of mental health and culturally appropriate services. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 39 (4), 300–309.

253 Siegel, D. J. (2010). Mindsight: The new science of personal transformation. New York: Bantam Books, p.52.

254 Program in Placebo Studies and Therapeutic Encounter (PiPS), Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School. See http://www.programinplacebostudies.org/publications/.

255 Seehttp://www.programinplacebostudies.org/.

256 See Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine. About the Center: Mission. (n.d.). Retrieved from, http://www.integrativemedicine.arizona.edu/about/index.html.

257 Freeman, D. (1983) Margaret Mead and Samoa: the making and unmaking of an anthropological myth. Cambridge, Massachusetts (MA), U.S.A.: Harvard University Press.