Whispers and Vanities: Samoan Indigenous Knowledge and Religion

By Tui Atua Tupua Tamasese Ta'isi Tupuola Tufuga Efi, Albert Wendt, Vitolia Mo'a and Jenny Plane Te Paa Daniel

This collection of essays and selected poetry responds to an address on Samoan religious culture given by Samoa's Head of State, His Highness Tui Atua Tupua Tamasese Ta'isi Tupuola Tufuga Efi, to the 2009 Parliament of the World's Religions. The address challenges some fundamental aspects of and assumptions in modern Samoan indigenous religious culture. The essays and poetry form a carefully woven critique, from within and outside Samoa, of aspects of Samoa's religious and cultural values.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Huia Publishers
• Release date: Nov 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781775501831

Book preview

Introduction

Tamasailau M Suaalii-Sauni, Vitolia Mo’a, Naomi Fuamatu, Maualaivao

Albert Wendt, Reina Whaitiri, Upolu Luma Va’ai, Stephen L Filipo

Within indigenous languages, the ‘old’ languages, we can glimpse another world – a world that, for Samoans, is almost forgotten. In the stories told and words used, in the way those words are arranged or spoken, in the images and sentiments they express, we find a fundamentally different sense of what is material, spiritual or religious. Ancient proverbial sayings offer windows into this world, as do myths and legends. Each is a system for recording knowledge, culture, values, beliefs, habits, dreams and realities. And each contains whispers – the kind Samoans describe as tala tu’umumusu and tala taumusumusu – that reflect the basic human yearning to know: Who am I? Why do I, or why ought I, do the things I do?

In this book we are concerned with the meeting of ‘old’ and ‘new’ knowledges – specifically old and new indigenous, spiritual, religious and cultural knowledges. We are concerned with the way these knowledges criss-cross. Sometimes, while they touch each other, live in each other’s spaces, they just can’t seem to connect ‘heart unto heart’.¹ At the meeting points of ‘old’ and ‘new’ we find not only truths and certainties but also anxieties. We find instances of making real connections but also of talking past each other. These connections and disconnections permeate the whispers and vanities surrounding Samoan indigenous knowledge and religion.

It is common for Pacific scholars and orators to seek out an indigenous proverb (preferably an ancient one) to begin, illustrate, flavour or conclude a speech or support an argument. These proverbs can make the user seem poetic and profound. The practice is an exercise in vanity if the user does not know the proverb’s context, meanings and nuances. But knowing is not easy. Searching for meaning takes commitment and an openness to learn from and negotiate ‘old’ and ‘new’.

In 1906, German High Court Judge Dr E Schultz compiled a collection of traditional sayings. Proverbial Expressions of the Samoans was translated into English by Brother Herman in 1945 and published by the Journal of the Polynesian Society in 1950. It contained the proverb: E pala le ma’a, ‘ae le pala le ‘upu. / Stones decay but words last.² Samoan orators often use this proverb, yet its full repertoire of meanings is rarely unpacked.

This saying is described in Samoan as an alaga’upu (o le tala e ala ai le upu).³ Sometimes orators replace the word upu (word) with tala (story or phrase) (E pala le ma’a, ‘ae le pala le tala). The proverb is commonly interpreted as a caution against being loose with the tongue. Under close analysis, the proverb illustrates just how deep and complex ancient Samoan knowledge was, and is, and the very different way it conceived the relationship between the material and spiritual. Why did our ancestors juxtapose words with stones? Why stones and not rocks? Particularly standing rocks (papatū) as these were prevalent in Samoan creation myths and last longer geologically. Why did they use the term pala, which means rotting or decaying, to describe the erosion of stones? Were they equating stones with humans?

In fact, stones are significant in an ancient Samoan funeral chant, usually recited at the funeral of a high chief.⁴ In this chant, homage is paid to the nine levels of spiritual wisdom. These stages are called lagi (heavens). In the eighth heaven, stones are directly acknowledged and celebrated: Tulouna le lagi tuavalu! Tulouna le maa taanoa! / Salutations to the eighth heaven! Salutations to the [moving] stones!⁵ The tenth heaven is where the ancient Samoan God Tagaloa-a-le-lagi resides. So what is it about stones that the ancient Samoans so revered?

Questions such as this ruffle the mind. We are forced to confront our ancestral spiritual world in which the sameness of stones and humans is considered fundamental truth, and in which the tangible – ma’a (stones) – and the intangible – upu / tala (words / stories) are comparable. This sameness rubs awkwardly against Christian beliefs about man’s special relationship with God, a single God, and about a world where humans and stones are radically separate. We are forced to contest the reality that God’s existence has nothing to do with us, and exists gloriously beyond our needs and interests.⁶

As Christian knowledge superseded indigenous knowledge in places like Samoa, old indigenous proverbs were replaced or modified by Christian proverbs. In this context, finding cultural custodians willing to openly share their ancient knowledge is near impossible. Custodians of indigenous knowledge in the Pacific have tended not to talk publicly about their knowledge. For them, such knowledge was and is tapu – divine, sacred and subject to the wrath of supernatural forces. This has usually meant that only a few have acquired such knowledge and that selection has usually been determined by equally sacred (that is, secretive and exclusionary) criteria.

This book breaks tapu. It adopts as its driving principle the view that while all knowledge is sacred and to be respected, it is also something to be shared and debated. It is, after all, our knowledge.

***

Whispers and Vanities (this edited collection) is a response to and a celebration of the wisdom and knowledge of His Highness Tui Atua Tupua Tamasese Ta’isi Tupuola Tufuga Efi (hereafter Tui Atua or His Highness). Tui Atua is Samoa’s current head of state. He is today also one of Samoa’s most respected cultural custodians. The renowned Samoan writer Maualaivao Albert Wendt states, "among his generation, Tui Atua is the most knowledgeable and passionate leader about ‘things Samoan’. He brings to the discussion a hard-earned wisdom acquired over his lifetime in politics at the international, national, nuu and aiga levels, a wisdom also derived from his study of, and deep knowledge of and experience in, trying to live out ‘the Samoan indigenous knowledge’, and restoring that to a central position in our lives and the ways we view reality".⁷ Tui Atua protects Samoan indigenous knowledge not just by recounting what he believes it to be, but also by allowing it – his representation of it – to be publicly explored, critiqued and evaluated. Such openness is not easy, especially for men of authority. Nevertheless such openness is critical to whether this knowledge can live, grow and flourish beyond the select few.

This book has its genesis in Tui Atua’s essay to the Fifth Parliament of the World’s Religions,⁸ titled Whispers and Vanities in Samoan Indigenous Religious Culture (reproduced in chapter one and hereafter abbreviated to Whispers and Vanities). The parliament was held 3–9 December 2009 in Melbourne, Australia. It was the first time in the parliament’s history that indigenous religious values and beliefs were publicly explored. ‘Indigenous peoples’ and ‘Oceania’ were made visible in many ways, including as a major theme for the conference and as a focus for papers by participants.

In the spirit of furthering a deeper interreligious and intercultural dialogue on the themes of the Fifth Parliament, and in particular on Tui Atua’s Whispers and Vanities paper, a weekend retreat was held in January 2010 in Samoa. On the morning of 15 January, a small group of about twenty people gathered in a marquee on the freshly mowed lawns of the head of state’s seaside Vailele residence. Most were church leaders, but some were also leaders within government, tertiary institutions and non-government organisations (see photograph of retreat participants in the opening pages of this book). The retreat, as Maualaivao Albert Wendt describes in the Afterword, emphasised the value of ānapogi (the ritual or practice of abstinence and meditation) and of the principle of sufiga (gentle persuasion). At the end of the retreat, participants felt strongly that there was a need to continue the dialogue in the form of a book, so that authors from other parts of the Pacific could be invited to participate. An editorial committee was formed and those who had presented papers at the retreat were invited to submit these for inclusion in the book.

The task of inviting and selecting contributors to a publication such as this can be delicate. As an editorial team, we not only wanted input from our wider Pacific family of scholars and religious leaders, we also wanted to ensure that we had male and female contributors and some intergenerational representation. Our final selection of thirty-eight authors reflects the editorial team’s desire to offer a range of perspectives that would enlarge, in meaningful ways, the debate Tui Atua was promoting. Given the religious focus of Whispers and Vanities, it was clear from the outset that input from religious scholars and leaders was important. As well, we were keen to invite well-known indigenous Pacific (which turned out to be mainly Polynesian) writers, who have over the years contributed to related debates on sexuality, colonialism, education, history, psychology and culture in the Pacific. We encouraged all contributors to engage with the issues in whatever way seemed most natural to them.

***

Whispers and Vanities opens with Tui Atua’s address, which forms the reference point and launching platform for the thirty-seven poetic and prose responses that follow. A poem begins and ends all the responses. Twelve poems in total weave themselves through and around twenty-five prose essays. There is symbolism in this. All twelve poets – Maualaivao Albert Wendt, Momoe Von Reiche, Serie Barford, Ruperake Petaia, Dan Taulapapa McMullin, Tafea Polamalu, Selina Tusitala Marsh, Caroline Sinavaiana Gabbard, Sia Figiel, Peseta Noumea Simi, Tusiata Avia and Victoria Nalani Kneubuhl – are of Samoan ancestry and have considerable standing in the contemporary Pacific literary community. Most of the essayists are similarly well-known in their respective fields. (See the biographical notes to learn more about all the authors).

In his chapter, Tui Atua argues and provokes responses to three main points. First, that the God of Christianity is also the God of Ancient Samoa. Second, that Samoans today (and by extension other indigenous Pacific peoples) have ‘hang-ups’ about their naked bodies that stem not from indigenous but from Christian, arguably Augustinian, ‘hang-ups’. And thirdly, that there is an equivalence between humans, animals, stones, rocks, earth, mountains and all other material and cosmic life.

Toeolesulusulu Damon Salesa, one of Samoa’s most well-known historians internationally, responds that one of the most interesting areas of study in Samoan history is the interface between Samoan ancestral spirituality and Samoan Christianity: where Samoans became Christian and Christianity became Samoan. He shows us in his chapter how the tools used for developing literacy and for translating between Samoan and Christian languages hid the fact that the Bible is not actually about monotheism, as many presume, but about monolatry. The problem for Christian missionaries, he says, was not that they believed ancient Samoans to have no gods (or no religion). It was that they believed them to have too many gods and of the wrong kind. Either way, any claim that indigenous Samoans did not know God, or that God did not know them, before the arrival of Christianity is, as Tui Atua says, an insult both to God and to Samoa’s ancient forebears.

But this assumes, as Anthony Kelly draws out in his chapter, that the God of Christianity is also the God of pre-Christian Samoa. There is tension in this assumption, which stems from the criss-crossing religious and philosophical schemes that cause what Jione Havea refers to in his chapter as schooners on the reef.

Guilt and shame surrounding nakedness and sexuality form one of the largest schooners on the Oceanian reef today. Tui Atua suggests that this (Augustinian) guilt is endemic to the Christian rather than the indigenous Pacific and is the source of many of our whispers and vanities. Raymond Pelly argues that naming and juxtaposing guilt in this way is unfair because it places undue emphasis on only one part of St Augustine’s writings (his Confessions)⁹. He pleads for a fuller reading of St Augustine. Karen Lupe examines the question by drawing out the relationship between Augustinian guilt, ideas of original sin and what she calls original sanctity. Karen Lupe and Tui Atua find analytical value in posing the western (Christian) against the indigenous as binary opposites. Yet Raymond Pelly along with Anthony Kelly and Paul Morris ask how, given the messiness of contact, the contemporary revival of the ‘indigenous reference’ is or ought to be named and seen. They articulate how in this naming and seeing we can gain insight into our cultures of whispers.

The discomfort in our whispering cultures intensifies when we examine more closely what Fonoti Lafitai I Fuata’i describes as x-rated cultural practices. When reading about the highly sexualised Samoan sa’ē dance for example, and how the dancers teased and tantalised their audiences by exposing themselves (their genitalia), Naomi Fuamatu, our youngest contributor asks, without actually asking, why it is that we might feel self-conscious? Why might we feel this same self-consciousness when we read of the origins of the Rotuman phrase Noa’ia e tau (an abbreviation, as Vilsoni Hereniko explains, of a longer phrase meaning: thank you for fucking [me])? Would we, as Raymond Pelly and Pamela Stephenson Connolly explore in their chapters, feel angry, disgusted and ashamed, or liberated, when we read the word ‘cunt’ in this book? And do we feel equally uncomfortable, or just a bit nervous and giggly, when we read of Karen Lupe’s present-day conversations with her long-deceased great-grandmother Tuame, and of how Tuame got angry and disgusted at the white man [who was watching the sa’ē] go red in the face after he saw the vulva of the naked women dancing? What kind of man is he, Tuame asks, if he has not seen or is embarrassed by seeing a vulva? When we read all this, how do we feel?

All cultures, as Raymond Pelly points out, have tala taumusumusu, based on shame and repression. Tui Atua’s point in forcing us to acknowledge this is not to make us uncomfortable but rather to plead for responsibility. To admit to the existence of a Samoan culture of whispers and vanities is to admit that in order for our ‘indigenous-ness’ or Samoan-ness to survive, even our most tapu knowledge – Christian and indigenous, old and new – needs to be open to scrutiny and evaluation, and re-evaluation. Several authors affirm this: Caroline Sinavaiana Gabbard in her poetic examination of Samoa’s myths and legends and the power of the feminine; Upolu Luma Va’ai in his metaphorical examination of the message of the Trinity in the Samoan concept of faaaloalo; Bradd Shore, Cluny Macpherson and Laavasa Macpherson in their explorations of the relationship between local, religious and global knowledge; Tui Rakuita in his intricate analysis of our Wittgensteinian language games; Reina Whaitiri in her passionate defence of mana wahine (the power of having strong female activists in indigenous movements); Konai Helu Thaman and Unaisi Nabobo-Baba in their respective summaries of why and how we must teach our indigenous Pacific knowledges in formal (classroom) and informal (village and home) educational settings; and Jennifer Freeman in her reflections as a practitioner of narrative and just therapies on the living legacies of growing up in Samoa as the daughter of Derek Freeman. Being open to publicly discussing our various cultures of taumusumusu demands, as Vitolia Mo’a points out in her chapter, an institutional, individual and societal culture of taking responsibility and being accountable.

One of the most depressing areas of social injustice today is our ambivalence towards male responsibility. In her chapter, Jenny Plane Te Paa Daniel forces us to address that question. She asks, for example, what kind of society do we have when we condemn our daughters for having babies out of wedlock but expect the fathers of these innocent babies to take no responsibility? Similarly, Stephen L Filipo implores the Christian community of Samoa to search within themselves and ask: what kind of Christian nation do we have when our sons are encouraged by their teachers to impose physical violence on their peers as a show of superiority and manliness?

Ambivalence towards responsibility is equally present when, as Pacific scholars, we might knowingly, ignorantly or naively privilege one source of knowledge over another. Teresia K Teaiwa, Anne-Marie Tupuola and Tracey McIntosh caution against this in their chapters. They press: what kind of scholastic tradition are we creating as indigenous scholars when we dismiss one source of knowledge over another without fair consideration of their merits?

All these questions and many more are asked in this book. All emerge from the heart of Tui Atua’s plea for an honest and open conversation about our whispers and vanities and how these affect our understanding of who we are and what we believe in.

***

Since its conception, it has taken four years for Whispers and Vanities to be born. There were times when as an editorial team and as contributing authors we were anxious it might never appear. In our moments of doubt, we consoled ourselves by saying that the book would be born when it was meant to be born, namely ‘in God’s time’. Given this book’s religious and spiritual focus, this saying seemed apt. Thankfully these moments passed and we are now able to celebrate the book’s birth. Needless to say, we are both relieved and excited that the work has finally come to life on these pages. It is our hope that Whispers and Vanities, a collection of short, thought-provoking poetic and prose essays, will impact strongly on the hearts and minds of all who choose to read it. We hope it will open up, in deep and inclusive ways, constructive, probing and loving dialogues that honour the best of our indigenous heritages.

We end these introductory comments by sharing two short texts, one a well-known poem titled He wishes for the cloths of heaven, by one of Tui Atua’s favourite poets, William Butler Yeats, and the second, a biblical text in Samoan and English by the crying prophet Jeremiah. Both sum up the many sources, themes, wishes, dilemmas and challenges that inspired this book.

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,

Enwrought with golden and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

Of night and light and the half-light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet:

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.¹⁰

O lo’o faapea ona fetalai mai o le Ali’i,

ia outou tutū i ala, ma va’ava’ai,

ma fesili i ala o le vavau,

po o i fea le ala lelei,

ma ia outou savavali ai,

ona maua lea e outou o le malologa mo outou agaga.

A ua latou fai mai, Matou te le savavali i ai.¹¹

Stand at the crossroads and look;

ask for the ancient paths,

ask where the good way is, and walk in it,

and you will find rest for your souls.

But you said, ‘We will not walk in it’.¹²

Let’s walk.

1 In the manner described by Cardinal John Newman.

2 Schultz, E. (1950). Proverbial expressions of the Samoans. Journal of the Polynesian Society, 59 (2), 112–134. Retrieved from http://www.jps.auckland.ac.nz/document/Volume_58_1949/Volume_58___No._4/Proverbial_expressions_of_the_Samoans___by_E._Schultz___p_139–184?action=null.

3 Ibid, p.139.

4 Tui Atua, T.T.T.E. (2009). Samoan jurisprudence and the Samoan Lands and Titles Court: The perspective of a litigant. 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. 153–172). Le Papaigalagala, Samoa: The Centre for Samoan Studies, National University of Samoa.

5 Ibid, p.155.

6 Owens, J.F. (2007). Animals, ontology and Rorty’s giraffe, Colloquium, 39 (2), 170–184, p.184.

7 Wendt, A. (2009). Foreword. 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. ix–x, p.x). Le Papaigalagala, Samoa: The Centre for Samoan Studies, National University of Samoa. Italics in original.

8 The Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions is a non-profit organisation. The council was founded in 1893 and oversees the activities of the parliament. A Parliament of the World’s Religions has been held every five years in a different country since 1993. The inaugural parliament opened in Chicago in 1893. The next parliament could not be held until a century later in 1993, again in Chicago. At that centennial parliament, a resolution was passed to hold subsequent parliaments every five years in a different city. Thus the Third Parliament was held in Cape Town in 1999, the Fourth Parliament was held in Barcelona in 2004, and then the Fifth Parliament was held in Melbourne in 2009. Brussels will host the 2014 parliament. See https://www.parliamentofreligions.org/

9 Saint Augustine. (1992). Confessions (H. Chadwick, Trans.). New York, U.S.A.: Oxford University Press.

10 Retrieved from http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/he-wishes-for-the-cloths-of-heaven/

11 Ieremia 6:16. The Bible Society. (1981). O le Tusi Paia o le Feagaiga Tuai ma le Feagaiga Fou. Suva, Fiji: The Bible Society of the South Pacific.

12 Jeremiah 6: 16. Retrieved from https://www.bible.com/bible/111/jer.6.16.niv.

ONE

Whispers and Vanities in Samoan Indigenous

Religious Culture

Tui Atua Tupua Tamasese Ta’isi Efi

This paper is a gentle prayer, a fa'anōnōmanū, to the gods of Samoa who protect the religious knowledges of my forebears. In daring to speak in print about these knowledges I gently seek their indulgence and blessings.

There is within Samoa a culture of whispers surrounding our Samoan indigenous religion. I remember as a boy thinking why my mentors, the revered custodians of my indigenous religious culture, whispered in fear and with guilt when speaking about it to me. Now as a man I am increasingly haunted, especially at this late stage in my life, by the persistence of this fear and guilt. In fact, despite my fervent belief in the core precepts of my indigenous religious culture, I too am guilty of whispering in the same vein when repeating what they told me.

In preparing for this paper I have been wondering how many others share a similar experience. As a Samoan I have been worried about this culture of whispers for many years. It still worries. In reflecting on why, I have to admit that it is perhaps because I am, by nature it seems, an impatient person, and as more and more years pass I fear that I have left my contribution to an address of it too little too late. In thinking about this I have had to take stock of my impatience and reflect seriously on the challenges of speaking openly and in detail about such a topic, about what it is that I am promoting, and exactly what I hope to achieve in doing so.

The short answer is I don’t know exactly. But, generally speaking, I do know that this paper is a continuation of a search, one that began many years ago. What I hope to generate here, as before, is an openness to dialogue about the good and bad of our indigenous knowledges. I hope to reaffirm the need for forums for open and constructive sharing; forums powerful enough to impel a desire among teachers and scholars to speak and write with clarity, rigour, passion and pride about the poetry, logic and nuances – the beauty – of our Samoan indigenous religious culture; forums where the not-so-beautiful aspects can also be probed and debated. Through these forums I hope to generate a culture of informed pride about our indigenous religious beliefs, whereby contemporary custodians can impart to those eager to learn the best of what our forefathers had to offer.

Before I delve into the basic tenets of our Samoan indigenous religious culture, let me explain what I mean here by the culture of whispers.

I. A culture of whispers

A culture of whispers can include those whispers that are life-affirming, love-affirming and faith-affirming, such as a mother talking in loving whispers to her unborn child or an audience whispering in awe at the majesty of the Sistine chapel. The elements of love and awe that motivate and define these whispers are implicit in tala tu’umumusu, that is, in the culture of whispers engaged by Samoan custodians when passing on sacred knowledge. The culture of whispers I wish to dwell on in this paper suggests a continuum where tala tu’umumusu lies at one end and a more disturbing kind of whisper, that of tala taumusumusu, lies at the other. Unlike tala tu’umumusu, tala taumusumusu are comments usually motivated by arrogance, jealousy or spite.

Sister Vitolia Mo’a draws a useful distinction between tala tu’umumusu and tala taumusumusu.¹³ She suggests that one is sacred and profound and the other dismissive and pejorative. Tala tu’umumusu imbues in the whisper a reverence for the knowledge imparted and its tapu or sacred qualities. Tala taumusumusu is by definition irreverent. The word tau in taumusumusu refers not to the imparting of knowledge through a process that bespeaks awe (as implied in the term tuu, meaning to give lovingly), but to the making of pejorative throwaway comments that are meant to pass on prejudice and dislike. Sister Vitolia expresses the difference like so: Tala tu’umumusu clearly exposes [tala] taumusumusu as a murky, half-light activity, more childish than mature, less informed, insecure and suffering from entrenched hypocrisy.¹⁴

The culture of whispers surrounding the Samoan indigenous religion today sits between tala tu’umumusu and tala taumusumusu and involves a sliding scale of whispers whereby tala tu’umumusu are the ideal and tala taumusumusu are the least ideal. Whether the act of whispering is more tala tu’umumusu than tala taumusumusu or vice versa depends on (a) the nature of the knowledge or information passed on, (b) the motivation for passing it on, and (c) the degree of guilt or shame felt when passing it on. For example, it is not uncommon in today’s context for a family custodian of indigenous knowledge also to be a staunch leader of a Christian church. When passing on his knowledge about the origins of his chiefly titles and lands to a designated receiver or nainai, it is possible that he would do so with minimal or no guilt. This is because one can talk about which titles and lands belong to who, and why, in quite a perfunctory manner. However, when this custodian begins to talk of or is probed further for the meanings and nuances of his chiefly titles, the names and origins of his residences or for the meanings and nuances implicit in the languaging of family chants or songs, this Christian custodian might more often than not become uncomfortable. His whispers would start to expose the influence of his Christian hang-ups. In this situation, the custodian’s whispered talk would move from being an exercise in true tala tu’umumusu to one involving elements of taumusumusu.

Although the guilt and shame endemic within this culture of whispers can be traced back to the monocultural biases of early Christian missionaries, these biases have become, as in other places, ‘indigenised’. Samoans now refuse, on what we perceive to be our own terms, to entertain the thought that in their ancient religious beliefs and practices maybe our forebears had something useful and profound for our modern religious lives. While the full impact of early missionary bias has begun to weaken as Samoans search and learn more about their indigenous history, we have yet to find a way to move beyond our Augustinian guilt so that we speak of our ancient religious beliefs without fear of reprimand.

To delve just a little further into the complexity of this culture of whispers, it might also be instructive to point out that whispering in and of itself engenders exclusivity. The act of tu’umumusu, while an act of reverence, is deliberately exclusive. For those not chosen to receive such knowledge there can be envy and ill-feeling, and this can give rise to taumusumusu. During ancient times, passing on in-depth religious and cultural knowledge associated with family genealogies, place names, historical figures, ceremonial rites, honorifics, and even everyday practices, fell to a select few. Such knowledge gave power and status to those custodians and especially to those respected as custodians of district or national histories. The knowledge of this inner circle of custodians was generally uncontested.

The process for authenticating the knowledges of custodians included participation in rigorous debate. Custodians would meet to share and argue about different historical events, facts or theories. Each custodian would be obliged to prove their arguments or facts by triangulated references to known nomenclature, genealogies, historical time periods, existing place names, and so on. Each argument or claim of fact had to hold up against commonsense rules of logic and evidence. But implicit in both the detail and the telling of these custodial knowledges was an overriding belief that they were God-given; that the origin of all knowledges, power and status, of all that is successful and good, is God-derived and God-oriented.

Tala tu’umumusu were and are family treasures. They defined family roles and responsibilities within the village, district or national scene. They determined political hierarchies (the boundaries and rules for claiming authority over lands and chiefly titles). They dictated the relevance of social conventions and prescribed moral standards and religious norms. These knowledges and their custodians gave ancient Samoan society measures for religious and moral life.

It is not surprising that Samoan families, villages and districts fought over the authenticity and legitimacy of their tala tu’umumusu and were wary of tala taumusumusu. Negotiating the boundaries between Christian and indigenous values has meant for many Samoans a duality in the way we live our everyday lives. The culture of whispers of taumusumusu identifies the impact of European colonisation on our Samoan religious sensibilities. Forty years ago Samoan novelist Albert Wendt wrote of the impact of this culture of whispers in Samoa. He said:

The missionaries (and all other puritans) brought pornography by instilling in us the bourgeois morality of Europe, making us ashamed of the very stories and situations which made us laugh. The puritan would have us believe that one does not exist below the navel. According to a poet friend, The missionaries came with a Bible in one hand, and a chisel in the other. True Samoan humour went underground and remains there in those circles we call respectable. Occasionally it emerges in print … verbally our youth reveal it among themselves on more public occasions; the more madly daring of our orators glorify it in the face of the sanctimonious; on the radio, some of our choirs – especially the older male choirs – sing of it with great gusto; in our more traditional faleaitu [comedies] actors display it with gleeful abandonment. And it is good. For our true humour is still alive and may someday – when we have purged ourselves of the guilt we acquired during our colonial experience – surface again in novel, poem, song and play. Perhaps by then the Victorians among us would have passed away and we will see no need of censorship, of the figleaf and the chisel.¹⁵

In 2009 the censorship Albert Wendt spoke of still lingers, if not by direct action then by omission. The Samoan indigenous religion is not to be ashamed of, and especially not by Samoans. It is core to our identity as Samoans. Without it the traditional foundations of Samoan culture become untenable and easily replaced.

I turn now to provide a brief outline of some of the basic precepts of my indigenous religious culture.

II. Samoan indigenous religious culture

The Samoan indigenous religion posits a thesis that places God as ancestor. It promotes that this God, God Tagaloaalelagi,¹⁶ was progenitor of all living things on earth (humans, animals, plant, cosmos, sea, land, etc.) and that as such all relationships between these living things are governed by the imperatives of being kin. That is, in the Samoan version of creation, God is progenitor of man. Man is God-descended and there are genealogical links between man, the sun, the moon, the seas, the rocks and the earth.

In the Samoan version of Creation, there is no Adam and Eve. There is no Eden or tempting snake. There is no forbidden apple and no camouflage of fig leaves. In the Tagaloa mythology, earth and all living organisms, including humans, originated from a ‘big bang’, the tumultuous separation of Lagi (heaven) and Papa (rock). This thesis is closer to the scientific explanation for the origins of the planet than to Christian biblical text. Following the separation of Lagi and Papa, God Tagaloa sent his messenger Tuli (plover) to Papa to help create plants and trees. Tuli is also attributed with discovering and germinating the lands of Samoa, Tonga and Fiji. Tuli, on Tagaloa’s instructions, then designated the human form from ilo (bacteria that become maggots). Samoans named the ankle tuli vae and the elbow tuli lima in recognition of the work of Tuli.¹⁷

Across Samoan indigenous religious traditions only God Tagaloa, who presides in the tenth and ultimate heaven, is the principal god. The boundary between man and all other living things is tapu or sacred because of their shared divinity with God Tagaloa. This belief underlined Samoan religious thought and practice and permeated every aspect of ancient Samoan life – how they worked the land, fished the sea, built their houses, engaged with each other, structured their society, celebrated life events (births, deaths and marriages), joked with each other, flaunted their bodies and their sexuality, and treated their ill. The religious underpinnings of fagogo¹⁸ (ancient creation stories, songs), and tini¹⁹ (marriage), ‘auala²⁰ (funeral) and/or medicinal chants and their authors’ views on sexuality and the human body are usefully revealed and promoted through both tala tu’umumusu and tala taumusumusu.

To relay how the messages of ancient stories, songs, chants, dances and/or medicinal incantations were passed on between generations, I want you to imagine eavesdropping on conversations held between Samoan custodians and their nainai (designated receivers). Each custodian holds great mana in their family, villages, district and nation. They are of senior age and reputation. The sharing takes place in a faleo’o or Samoan hut outside the village compound near the sea, where the salty scent of the ocean mixes with the sweet-smelling fragrances of mosooi²¹ and lagaali.²² Manutagi²³ and lupe²⁴ chirp noisily in nearby trees, and the bushes are all green with life and seem to be smiling at you. At dusk the sky turns an orange-red as the sun moves towards his resting place for the night. In this magical setting the voices of the custodians fill your senses. Your mind is fed and challenged. And, in their voices you catch a glimpse of the pride, reverence, mischievousness, and at times reticence, in their sharing. First is the fagogo or story of the mating of the sun with a human woman.

The sun and the woman

This story is one of our stories of creation. In this story the sun sees a beautiful human woman and desires her. He then chases her, trying to win her favour. The woman is however coy and avoids his advances. Samoans use the word aloalo to mean ‘resisting overtures’; in this case the overtures of the sun. A number of Samoan girls today have as their first or birth name Aloalolela in remembrance of this story.

The story continues that after some time the woman becomes attracted to the Sun and decides to have him. She sets out for the horizon to try to catch him. As the sun is setting for the day the woman catches his attention and manages to successfully net him. The action of netting something is expressed in the Samoan term seu, and in this story is used to allude to the capturing of the sun, i.e. seula (seu meaning to net; la referring to the sun).

The image of netting the sun is premised on the image of attempting to catch or net seabirds or gogo. Here people would go out to rock extensions in the sea and where small fish tended to congregate in large numbers. These places were generally well known as the favourite fishing ground for gogo. The gogo were sought after because their feathers were considered the best fishing lure. The terms seula and seugogo make useful metaphors for orators wishing to convey the image of capturing something difficult to catch.

To net the sun, the woman has to wait until the sun gets to a certain point on the horizon. After successfully netting him, the woman then gives herself to him. As they mate the setting of the sun is delayed. This delay is commemorated in the term tolola, literally meaning to delay the setting of the sun (tolo meaning delay, la meaning sun), which is today still the name of a chiefly title in the village of Safune. A child was born to the woman from her union with the sun. He was called Tagaloaui. According to the fagogo of the custodian, this child became one of the original forefathers of Samoa.

In telling this story the custodian imparts two key things: first, narrative affirmation and respect for the familial relationship between humans and the cosmos; second, a moral narrative about male and female relations and the rituals of courting.²⁵ After this fagogo the conversation moves to a discussion on the sacred relationship between man and animals.

Welcoming the naiufi

Pupu Luki, a head fisherman in Fagafau, is remembered in this tala tu’umumusu. One of the custodian’s whispers is that when Pupu went fishing for naiufi (shark)²⁶ the village would get excited at the prospect of a good catch. Prayer vigils would be held by his family during the night to ask the gods for protection over Pupu and his companion. Fishing was not perceived as an exercise in luring, trapping and killing mercilessly, but of inviting the fish to honour the village chief’s mana by being an equal adversary and then ultimately by gifting himself to the chief to help bolster or sustain the chief’s status. It is believed that the naiufi are a special gift, a direct endowment from Tagaloa. This is evidenced in the honorific term for sacred fish, which is tamasoaalii (tama soa meaning aide to; ali’i meaning chief): God Tagaloa’s gift was for these sacred fish to become aide to the chief. These sacred fish enjoy special status and are entitled to the rituals of respect befitting a person of paramount importance. When fishermen speak to the naiufi in chiefly language, their special status as tamasoaalii is acknowledged. The naiufi are thus considered more than just food.

The custodian explains that when Pupu Luki and his companion went out to fish for naiufi they would leave late at night, about 11 p.m., and proceed to the reef, then out to the deep ocean. They would use a shark rattle (an ensemble of coconut shells tied to an orange tree stick) to let the shark know where they were. After paddling for about an hour in deep ocean waters, Pupu Luki would put the rattle into the water and twist it around to make a sound like a moving bonito. And while rattling he would chant:

Afio maia oe le mānaia

Welcome to you the mānaia – the head of the untitled men’s guild

Afio maia oe le tausala

Welcome to you the tausala – the belle of the ladies’ guild

Afio maia oe le tamasoaalii

Welcome to you the tamasoaalii

O loo ou faatali atu

I await your coming

Pupu Luki believed that the shark was his equal. He believed that they shared a common descent and destiny and that the shark understood this. This belief is captured in the way that he spoke and acted towards the fish. The fish was welcomed as a mānaia or