tagatavāsā

Ua fuifui fa‘atasi ae sa vao ‘ese‘ese is an enduring Sāmoan expression that signifies that we have gathered together from different parts of the forest. ‘O Sā. Our clans. ‘O ‘āiga. Our families. ‘O tupuga. Our ancestors. ‘O tapuafanua. Our guardian spirits. ‘O suli – descendants. ‘O atua ma āitu. Our kin animals and birds and plants. ‘O mauga. Our mountains. ‘O vaitafe. Our rivers. ‘O ma‘umaga. Our food gardens. ‘O matafaga. Our beaches. ‘O fale sā. Our temples. Our lands and waters shared amongst clans for the use of all, disputes and all. All this in the ancestral time of the lupe pigeon’s heyday before plantation and missionary colonial rule in the 1800s destroyed lupe pigeon numbers and our own with hunting, abduction into forced labour and blackbirding