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Clear and
separate roles and activities are sharply divided between men
and women the old and young. While men go fishing at the reef,
women gather shellfish at the shore. Men plant taro, but women
often do the weeding. Men make the rock ovens and do the
cooking in them; women do the lighter cooking that involves
boiling. Men may gather pandanus leaves, but the women are the
ones who sit for hours, trimming and splitting the pandanus,
then weaving floor mats, finer sleeping mats, and the very
fine ie toga, used in ceremonial presentations and exchanges.
Women take care of the youngest infants, though soon these
children are placed in the care of older female children. You
often see nine- and 10-year-olds toting kids aged one or two
years around the house and through the village. |
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becomes a chief when a titleholder dies and the title becomes vacant.
Then the entire aiga meets and discusses who should fill the vacancy.
The wrangling can get quite heated, with grown men crying. The past
and abilities of every potential candidate is publicly dissected, with
no unflattering details omitted. Who, the family must decide, is best
qualified to guide the aiga in the future? More and more, education
plays an important part in the decision.
Women as well as men can be tulafale or
ali'i, though this is the exception rather than the rule. The
political hierarchy of the entire nation consists of a network of
chieftainships of varying degrees of importance. At any given time,
the various titles have different statuses, some more weighty and
important than others. However, depending on the character of the men
assuming different titles in a village, these rankings may shift bit
by bit. At the top of this status structure are the four royal titles
of Samoa, the Malietoa and Mata'afa titles being the best-known to
outsiders.
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Women's Committees and Village Work in Samoa
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Women play an
important and fundamental role in Samoan society.
The photo above is of a
member of the Village Women's Committee, a group of women who meet
regularly and have among their duties the supervision of cleanliness
and health in the village's households. Early German administrators
and their New Zealand counterparts who later administered Western
Samoa on a mandate from the League of Nations found that if they
wanted certain kinds of progressive change in a village, especially
in the area of health, the best way to accomplish this was to enlist
the aid the women's committee.
While in Samoa men
generally possess more power and authority than do women, the dictum
common in Western societies that "Behind every successful man there
is a good woman" holds true there just as here. A chief or untitled
man may appear to make decisions independently, but at night, when a
husband and wife share the same sleeping mat, many a Samoan wife
gives her husband sound and valuable advice.
Older people have greater
status than younger people. This old woman had her own small
fale. Her relatives brought her meals, cleaned her house, and
escorted her wherever she wanted to venture. Most of the time, one
or two young girls stayed with her so that she would never be alone.
Although the elderly have high status in Samoan culture, not all of
the older people were as fortunate.
We gratefully acknowledge
Richard A. Goodman's
work and
his kind approval to use his commentary. For more from Richard
A. Goodman please see
Samoa Village Life,
Men's Work
and
Samoan Tattoo and Samoan Traditions and Church life.
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Though outside the family structure,
ministers also have very high status, for they are the agents of God
and are to be treated with the utmost dignity and respect. When a
family finishes cooking a meal, the best portion is often taken over
to the minister's house. Many an ambitious and intelligent young
untitled man, seeing no other way to achieve the prestige he covets,
attends theological seminary.
Relative status becomes obvious when
food is involved for, in the Samoan cosmos, food is a form of
respect. When fish are cooked, the best are normally delivered to
the minister and one or more chiefs. Adults in the family eat first
and receive the best fish or meat. Then the teenagers will be fed.
Finally, when the children are fed, there may be no fish left.
They'll have to be satisfied with rice, gravy, taro, and cooked
green bananas. In 1968, many children had stomachs distended from
protein deficiency, the result of being last in importance when
fish, meat, and poultry were served. Since status lines like this
tend to be resistant to change, the situation is probably similar
now, especially out in the villages. |
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Within an aiga (extended family), definite
cultural principles govern status and importance. Every aiga has a
paramount chief who makes final decisions in consultation with the
extended family's other chiefs (matai) and whose orders must be obeyed.
Matai are the family's highest status individuals. Their status derives
not from themselves as individuals, but from the status of each matai
title itself. The title is the property of the aiga and is passed down
through the family for generations. Men are generally considered more
important and have greater authority than women—most of the time, anyhow.
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