Sometimes visiting family outside Samoa provokes upheaval. Parents insist on their children performing the Samoan protocols they were accustomed to while living in Samoa. Thus, their following instructions take a tone of reprimand:
'Sit on the floor!'
'Do not walk in front of our guests, say tulou (excuse me).'
'What foolish children!'
'Serve the tea in a teapot with a tray and bring a side table.'
'Be silent!'
'Go to the kitchen!'
These parents want to turn their metropolitan households into 'a little Samoa' within minutes. Unavoidably I get tossed by the blow and am forced to say:
'What you want is not possible and if you continue I will leave and not come back. You are turning me into a bogeyman. Every time I come, your children will say, “here comes the bogeyman”. I am not a bogeyman. I am the matai of the family and I want to talk to you the parents and to your children. I am aware that the household is not schooled in the ways of our people but this is no reason to turn me into a bogeyman. Nor is it reason to construct a barrier between you, them and me.'
Because faasamoa is founded on alofa, the message should be framed in a language and tone that is gentle and persuasive. Harsh words and unjustified reprimand will alienate and antagonise unnecessarily.
Resistance in the modern context is sometimes induced by the perception that performance of ritual and the observance of custom and culture are demeaning and irrelevant. Perception is influenced by society. Today, societal changes are heavily influenced by globalisation. In this context the equation is volatile and dynamic. Conventional wisdom (inclusive of culture and custom) is continuously under microscopic scrutiny. This scrutiny is illustrated by the following story. A matai of my family in Wellington rang up his sister and reminded her gently: 'The faalavelave is now over, I suppose you had forgotten about your contribution?' She responded: 'Look here, my dear brother, one of my principal prayers is: “Dear God, call us to heaven before our children spurn what we ask for because there are too many faalavelave!”' How do we make connections between the verities of faasamoa and contemporary practice?
The head orator is appointed by designation of his predecessor or by consensus of tulafale. By custom the tuua and his family present an annual talomua to the village. Talomua (literally, 'the first taro') begins with the tuua instructing his family to plant taro specifically for the talomua ritual. When the taro mature they are presented ritually to the village. Included in this ritual are presentations of fine mats, tapa and other artefacts. Talomua underlines two main concepts: reciprocity and service.
1. Reciprocity is reciprocation for the support and respect given to the tuua by the village.
2. Service, i.e., a reminder that the main qualification for leadership is service to the community.
The talomua was one of the principal fixtures in the annual calendar of the village. Sadly there is hardly any tuua or alii matua who performs the talomua nowadays.
One of the best remembered faatau, i.e., debate for the privilege of speaking, occurred in Mulinuu around the early 1930s between Pasia the tuua of Safotulafai and Lofipo the tuua of Saleaula.
Both broke protocol by referring to each other by their nicknames. Hence, Pasia was referred to by Lofipo as Sia and Lofipo was referred to by Pasia as Po. Lofipo would say: 'Sia, I concede to you the privilege of speaking.' And Pasia would respond: 'Po, I am old and sick; I prefer to concede to you.' Reciprocal courtesies and endearments were exchanged. Pasia, who was older, eventually spoke. This is a far cry from the abuse and strife that characterise the faatau nowadays.
Some years ago there was some strife between the chiefs and orators of Leauvaa about the origins of the village. The village community came close to physical violence. The main antagonists were the alii (chiefs) party led by Tuala Tulo and the tulafale (orator) party led by Tevaga Paletasala.
After four months of strife Tuala Tulo instructed taulele'a (untitled young men) to prepare an umu (food baked in an earth oven), make faausi (delicacy made from ground taro) and send an emissary to Tevaga Paletasala for the orators to come and make peace with the chiefs.
The strife that currently bedevils village administration for many years leads us to pine for the tofā faamagalo, i.e., wisdom founded on forgiveness.
In 1936, it was resolved in negotiation that the Mau and the Malo should meet and reconcile in a formal session. Venue was the contentious issue. The Mau met in Vaimoso. The Malo met in Mulinuu. Neither party was prepared to concede on the issue of venue.
At this point the faipule, Leaupepe, from Fasitoo, who also held the title Timu from Safotu stood up and addressed his colleagues: 'O ai o tatou te faatali i ai? Tatou ō i Vaimoso. O loo faatali mai le Atua faamagalo, o loo faatali mai o tatou uso.' (Who are we waiting for? Let us proceed to Vaimoso. The forgiving God awaits us. Our brothers await us).
The speech broke the stalemate and the Malo faipule proceeded from Mulinuu to Vaimoso where they made peace with the Mau.
There is nothing in Samoan culture and custom that promotes excessive discipline through word or deed. My Samoan reference on this is drawn from Samoan sayings and proverbs. For example:
1.O le au o matua fanau - the pinnacle of parents' affection are their children.
2.E leai se gaumata'u na o le gaualofa - what you do out of love endures, what you do out of fear will not. Samoan conventional wisdom says here that discipline taught through love nurtures the spirit within and so is more durable than discipline taught through fear and imposed from without. When teaching children, it is more beneficial for all to teach through love than through fear.
3.E iloa gofie fanau tuufau e i'uvale - children who are not given good discipline will end badly.
4.E iloa gofie fanau e ola i le faatonuga e amio pulea - you can always tell children who have been taught through loving discipline by the way they do right by others.
5.O fanau a tagata e fafaga i upu, a o fanau a manu e fafaga i fugalaau - lit. the young of birds are fed with the blossoms of trees, whereas the young of humans are fed with words. In the context of child discipline, this proverb says that raising children takes more than physical sustenance, they must also be nurtured on good thinking and good behaviour. It is this nurturing that provides them with the moral compass to being, feeling, knowing and doing what is right. Nurturing is a responsibility shared by parents, elders, matai and the village hierarchy. The principal function/purpose of this nurturing is to identify, teach and respect the boundaries between child and parent, child and elderly, child and matai, child and child, and child and village.
6.'Aua le limatētē ina ne'i ola palaai fanau - do not expose children to excessive physical punishment lest you break their spirit.
In these proverbs and sayings, the measure for whether or not the discipline is excessive seems to lie in the question of whether the disciplinary act can truthfully be said to be an act of love or loving; an act that does not break the spirit to live.
The classic case for me is the way Fau'olo Fuifatu and his wife Kise looked after their grandson Ieti, who was physically and mentally handicapped.
Bathing, dressing and feeding were onerous chores, because of Ieti's condition. Yet the caring by the family, especially Kise, reflects in the finest sense the Samoan saying: E pele i upu, pele i 'ai, pele i aga, pele i foliga, meaning 'fondly in word, in feeding, in gesture and in body language'.
Loving care redeemed and made light the most burdensome of tasks and transformed the physically grotesque into an object of unusual beauty.
Ieti's parents, who lived in Upolu - as Fau'olo and Kise lived in Savaii - proposed to the grandparents that they take him back. 'We sent him thinking he would be a help but his condition has deteriorated and he has become a burden on you both.' Fau'olo and Kise wept and said: 'We would rather die than part with Ieti.'
Ieti remained with Fau'olo and Kise until his death at age twenty-one. Shortly after Ieti died, Fau'olo died. It was generally believed that Fau'olo died from grief in losing Ieti.
I was told that during the Mau period the matai of Leulumoega took exception to the behaviour of taulele'a (untitled men).
The matai in formal council imposed a penalty whereby the taulele'a were instructed to prepare an umu and amo (carry on their backs) the food from Leulumoega to Vaimoso, a distance of 17 miles, in time for breakfast at 8 a.m. Carrying such a load for a long distance seemed excessive punishment. I asked Mai Liu, one of the elders of Leulumoega, why such a seemingly severe punishment was imposed? He replied that from the standpoint of his generation it was not a question of punishment but of survival. There was a belief that if you wanted your children to survive, they had to learn discipline. This was a particularly important lesson for people of his generation who had experienced the long civil strife (1800s-1900s). Aana was probably the most affected district in the civil war during this time and one of the main lessons learnt from this struggle was that the young men that were indulged and pampered did not survive the conflict.
Once upon a time it was a common feature in the social life of Samoa that the 'aumaga (the untitled young men's guild) visited other villages where they were hosted by the aualuma (the unmarried young women's guild). The objective was social intercourse and the search for potential spouses.
In the case where the marriage proposal was declined, the 'aumaga would chant derisively:
Ina sau ia oe le maula
Sau ia le maula
Ina fili mai sau gata'ula
Ae se'i taatia ia lou 'ai 'aiaga gafulula
Se'i fai atu o si a'u tala
Ae fili maia o sou gafa
Si'aula e, ta te 'ata
I si ou 'ai 'aiaga
A o ou vae ea e lilipi lalapa - ISA!
Isa! Le puaa 'ailalafa!
O come forth you girlie
Come forth you girlie
Chose from the gata'ula [meaning red snake, the honorific for the Asau young men's guild]
And leave your outrageous flirty ways
I will tell you a story
While you assess genealogy
Girlie, I chuckle that you are so choosy
Yet your legs are spindly - CURSE!!
Curse! The pig is ringed with ringworm
The language sounds crass and gauche but perhaps less offensive if understood that it is intended as a non-violent means for saving face in situations of rejection.
In this connection I want to tell a celebrated story of Tafā. Tafā was my greatgrand-uncle. He lived in the village of Asau. One day he said to the 'aumaga: 'O taeao o le ou alu e fai la'u faamalamalamaga i le afafine o le Faifeau.' (Tomorrow I want to press my suit with the Pastor's daughter.)
As is custom the 'aumaga prepared a meal to await Tafā's return after pressing his suit. In response to Tafā's offer of marriage the Pastor said: 'E le faia e ma'ua le tonu, a o lea o le a fe'au le teine e sau, ona e saunoa sa'o lea i ai.' (It is not for us to make the decision. We will send for the girl and you can ask her yourself.)
The girl came and Tafā made his offer of marriage. The girl politely refused. Tafā pursued his suit from ten o'clock in the morning until about three o'clock in the afternoon. The girl was adamant that she did not want to marry. Tafā was in a dilemma. He thought: 'Pe faaauau pe solomuli ma le masiasi'? (Shall I continue or retreat in humiliation to the house of the 'aumaga?)
Either way he would lose face. To redeem himself he opted for an unusual course of action. As he left he saw a rock fence surrounding the Pastor's house. He strolled across the lawn, climbed the fence and perched himself on the top, turned his back on the pastor and his family, bowed in the opposite direction, raised his lavalava and called out: 'Se'i vaai mai po ua ta se fia?' (Hey, take a look and tell me what time it is?) When he reached the house of the 'aumaga and sat himself down, the leader of the 'aumaga asked: 'How did you fare?' Tafā responded: 'Pagā lea ua teea la'u faamalamalamaga.' (Pity me, the girl turned down my offer of marriage.) The leader of the 'aumaga said, 'Let us chant to celebrate your being spared an awful fate,' so they chanted:
Ua leaga, ua malaia!
Ua taea, ua leaga!
Faamoe ia o le toa,
Soia le toe malaga!
It is bad, it is cursed!
It is shit, it is bad!
Put the cock to sleep,
Let it not travel again!
The words on the face of it are crass and gauche. But in the least it is better to chant in derisive humour than to resort to a reaction that may be violent and self-harming.
Perhaps the most informative about faasamoa and self-determination are the Mau (independence movement) songs and rituals.
Song
The Solosolo Mau song:
O Tavita oe o le toa o Isaraelu
Fea Koliata sa faatauemu?
O lena ua sola ua tutū lona selu
O Mose lava oe o le ta'ita'iala
O Isaraelu lenei ua malaga
E ui na mamao ma tele tausaga
Ae faamoemoe pea lava i folafolaga
O le tatou tofi o le nuu o Kanana
You are David, the champion of Israel
Where is Goliath who sneered
He has passed on without a head
You are indeed Moses the leader
Israel undertakes a journey
Though the road is long and will take many years
We have faith in the promise
That our heritage is the land of Canaan
When Palauli district traveled from Savaii to Upolu to make their talomua presentation during the Mau period, their fleet would dock at the tip of the Mulinuu peninsula. From there they organised their parade, known as taalolo, from Mulinuu to Vaimoso. The designated taupou (a ranking unmarried lady) and manaia (the chief or his son) dress in their finery, i.e., tuiga (head dress) whale-tooth necklace, fine mat, lavalava perfumed with scented coconut oil; the chiefs are garbed in fine mats and the orators in tapa cloth. The untitled wear skirts of ti leaves with flower leis which are the emblem of the Laifoni guild. Small cannons, remnants of earlier wars, precede the parade, firing powder gun salutes. An awesome sight. The men and women in tuiga lead the procession, wielding nifo oti (ceremonial long knife with a hook in the end) sometimes menacingly, sometimes in an expressive, elegant movement. The matais amble with a grace that Rupert Brook admired. The young men flaunt supple, muscular physiques accentuated by the design and motif of the Samoan tatau. Movement is orchestrated by chant.
A lead voice clear and sonorous begins the chant: Le Laifoni e, sola i lalō! - to which the rest of the party respond in chorus, Ai si tefe le malo! (Translation: Laifoni [the honorific reference to the 'aumaga of Palauli] withdraw below! Eat semen from circumcising the malo!)
This is Samoa theatre at its best. There is colour, panoply, pageant, drama. Innocent onlookers are charmed, unaware that it is theatre promoting a powerful cultural message. Richardson, as malo, may posture and puff up himself in uniform and flaunt his power but by their measure, he is a mere nubile boy they would circumcise and whose semen they would eat.
In the circumcision of young boys, a piece of wood is inserted between the soft flesh and the hard flesh. There is masturbation in order to harden the penis, facilitating cutting with a bamboo knife. If in the process of masturbation, the penis spurts semen, the circumcisors eat the semen, because semen symbolises the essence and pinnacle of life.
I quote from Fao Isaia's song about Tamasese Lealofi III, the Mau leader who was assassinated by the New Zealand military forces on 28 December 1929:
Tagi e ma faavauvau
Ua mafatia le loto ma le mafaufau
Ina ua goto le la
Le Tui Atua ma le Tui Aana
Ua liliu nei o le masina, 'o 'o
O la'u lupe sa taulima
Talofa, talofa!A ! A!
Talofa, talofa, talofa! A! A! Talofa!
E faanoanoa ai le Aiga o Mavaega
Po o fea o i ai?
Le agamalu ma le aga vaivai
Lealofi ua alu i le ala
E le toe fo'i mai ai
We weep in sorrow
The heart and mind grieve
Because the sun has set
For the Tui Atua and Tui Aana
The moon has turned, 'O 'O!
For the pigeon which perched on my hand
Oh grief, grief! A! A!
Oh grief, grief! A! A! grief
So much sadness for the Aiga o Mavaega
Where are you?
The humble and sweet natured
Lealofi walks the path of no return.
If Lealofi will not return, who will carry the torch? The legacy endures through remembering.
Humour and derision can offer culturally appropriate ways of handling rejection. Cultural rituals and rites are usually not there for their own sake. They serve multiple purposes.
Violence by our people can be a response to a lack of appropriate ways for dealing with rejection. Our young and old, our disabled and abled, tuua and taulele'a, citizens and governors, parents and children, should all be able to seek solace, meaning, identity and belonging in our faasamoa. A faasamoa that cannot speak to the heart and soul is a faasamoa that will die.
The many different paths taken to make my points about faasamoa highlight that it can speak from many different places, in many different ways. For me it says that we should not force children into strict etiquette and protocol because a culture forced is a culture waiting to be discarded.
Faasamoa can only be sustained by alofa and reciprocity transported across generations. Be gentle in teaching the young as too much harshness will break their spirit, for it is to them that we rely to carry the torch of Lealofi.
Soifua.
1This is an edited version of the original keynote address delivered in Auckland (2000) to the Pasifika Medical Association.