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Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 23.2 (2002) 19-21


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On Being Samoan, On Being Woman
(E au pea le Ina'ilau a Tama'ita'i) 1

Luafata Simanu-klutz

In the drizzle of a weekend dawn
while nocturnal nuts turned sprinklers
into a brewery and time into a drunken sleep,
hybrids along the evolution track
mused over the power of the
Samoan woman.
She was young with the confidence of youth;
I, not so young, feeling the ebb of time;
the obligation to pass on the legacy of being
Samoan and
Woman!
Whose eyes shall we look through, sistah?
The woman's libber... the bra burner,
Or the mother with droopy tits and snotty-nosed kids
In a beeline to the beach looking for pipi? 2
Or the chief's wife with siapo 3 for her ma'I, 4
climbing and thatching and securing the
Ina'ilau a Tama'ita'i, the woodwork for being
Samoan and
Woman!
LISTEN... [End Page 19]
Long before time was invented,
'tis said in the battle of the genders,
behold, the virgin power!
The roof, the roof—thatch, thatch!
With ake 5 and instinct, we won the challenge
of being first—
a Samoan
a Woman.
And so we did and so we deflated
the muscle of men!
We, the Tamaitai 6 —
We, the taualuga
Have perched our breasts at the rooftops
Basked in the sun; the leaves around our waists
rustle in the breeze.
We shout: Our Tautua, our Pule!
Our Service, our Power of being
Samoan, of being
Woman!
Not a bra burner; not a lone star
A Woman rethatching; a morning dew
settling the dust of the men's shame
Let not it drown it, but nourish it with
the Ina'ilau—the match, the thatch. [End Page 20]
A remembrance of the feagaiga 7
Of being Samoan,
and being Woman.

'O ou mama na. 8


 

Luafata Simanu-Klutz is a doctoral candidate in Pacific history at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Prior to this, she worked as an elementary teacher and curriculum specialist with experience in middle school curriculum and the language arts. Simanu-Klutz has a diploma in children's literature from the Institute of Children's Writing in Connecticut. She launched into poetry writing (and readings) in the recent decade as a way to deflect the stress of urban living. She has published in Mana, a literary journal at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji, as well as in a student anthology published by the Samoan Fealofani student club at the University of Hawaii. She is working on a collection of poems about Pacific cultures.

Notes

1. The Samoan woman's place is guaranteed; she will always achieve her goals.

2. Edible mollusk; also slang for a woman's vagina.

3. Samoan for tapa cloth.

4. Monthly period, menstruation; also connotes the resilience of Samoan women in sustaining Samoan culture.

5. Slang for guts or courage.

6. Village women; also singular for female or lady; also means the roof; also the final dance in Samoan performances.

7. Sacred pact between brother and sister often forgotten when they become wives and husbands.

8. Good luck.

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