a Samoan funeral

Today I attended my first big American Samoan cultural event. Unfortunately, it was necessitated by the death of a great man. One of the Associate Judges at the High Court, Judge Sagapolutele, passed away a couple weeks ago. It was very unexpected and a great loss to the High Court. Not only was Sagapolutele a judge, he was also a matai and, I believe, a deacon in the Catholic Church.

As far as I can tell, Samoan funerals are a series of events. There may be something else that precedes it, but for me the first event was a type of gift-exchange. The family of the person who has passed away and a family (or, in our case, group) of the people who are coming to the funeral meet and give each other gifts. I don't know how many of these they have for every funeral, but I imagine that there are usually several because it is just a meeting of one family with another. Clif had already attended this portion of a Samoan funeral so I had heard about part of the customs and had some idea of what to expect. I didn't realize all the preparation that went into it though. The High Court employees had matching uniforms made: the women had puletasis (a Samoan-style shirt & skirt) made with a screen printed flower design and the men had shirts with a screen printed bamboo pattern.

It was held outside the family's fale. The fale was an amazingly beautiful traditional style fale, decorated with fine mats wrapped around the posts, twisted into rosettes on top of each post, and covering the floor. Outside the fale were some tents set up with chairs for us to sit in. When we were all seated, one of the Judges stood in front of our group holding a carved wooden staff. One of the men for the Sagapolutele family stood in front of their group with a similar staff. These men spoke for their respective groups during the presentation of gifts. It was all in Samoan so I didn't understand much, but the judge spoke for a minute and then the women (me included!) held onto a 40 yard length of fabric, each of us about 5 feet apart so the fabric draped between us, and carried it up to the fale. We had our 20-yard bolts of fabric and flowers in the other hand and left those gifts near the casket in the fale.

The rest of the event took place in front of the fale too, which is only interesting to me because when Clif went, the men went inside the fale for the presentation of other gifts. Judge Sagapolutele's family began by giving many trays with a large can of corned beef, a package of crackers, champagne with money tied to the top, and a bolt of fabric. Then they presented many fine mats. The mats vary in size and they unfolded them to show the patterns. Sometimes it took up to five people to hold the mats open because they were so big. Then the Court presented mats and money to the family. While they were presenting these gifts, I noticed that while we were giving gifts, we were also being given gifts: two of the High Court's trucks being loaded up with cases of chicken, canned mackeral, and rolled mats. One truck was so full of mats that they were piled up as high as the cab of the truck. Then Judge Sagapolutele's family presented us with more mats and gifts. The amount of gifts being passed back and forth (and there was a lot of back and forth) was really incredible. From what I understand, each of the items given has cultural significance, but I'm not really sure what that is. Anyway, it was very interesting. I just wish I had been able to understand the things that were said.

The funeral service was later today. It was also entirely in Samoan so I didn't understand much. It seemed like a fairly traditional funeral mass (not that I'm uber-knowledgable about funeral masses) with a few Samoan twists, like when the family gave everyone leis. Needless to say, it was a very interesting Samoa day for me.

I've been told that the traditional Samoan portion of the funeral used to be very important as a way of showing kinship or friendship with the different families on the island. Now it's not as necessary because the families aren't constantly fighting with each other, and if they do have a dispute, they can resolve it in court.

Clif received these two fine mats from the funeral he went to.