How to Serve Tea to a Samoan Chief – and Why it Matters
12 Alagaupu (Samoan Proverbs) about Family
Last Word These are only 12 …well, 11 (plus 1 extra)… out of over 400 alagaupu that my grandfather recorded in his notebook. I’ll work on sharing more of them with you in upcoming posts – but yes, I may have to save my most favourites for myself and the lauga that I will put […]
20 Most Asked Questions About Samoa – Answered by Samoans
We’ve all seen it. You’re Googling something to do with Samoa and you see from the search results that others have been asking questions about Samoan people, too – but they’re really basic questions that you thought everybody knew the answers to by now. Surely! But then you realize the world is a big place […]
How Samoans treat their elders
In general, the Samoan attitude towards aging is pretty similar to other cultures. To us, old age is wisdom and accomplishment. It’s a time to sit back and enjoy the spoils of life. But how do younger Samoans treat our elders? Samoan culture emphasizes alofa (love) and fa’aaloalo (respect). We believe that our elders are […]
The Lord’s Prayer in Samoan (with video)
After all we’ve been through these past few weeks… it feels right that we should return to our One Samoana program with a prayer, a ea? Let’s say it together: Lo matou Tamā e o i le lagi, ia pa’ia lou suafa.Ia o’o mai lou mālō. Ia faia lou finagalo i le lalolagi, e pei […]
How do you like your… povi masima?
I grew up in Hawaii, and like a lot of us raised outside of Samoa, my siblings and I were exposed to a wide variety of culinary delights (which sadly included big macs and pop tarts) and we never fully developed a taste for Samoan food. I say ‘never fully‘ because I am familiar with […]
Fa’alupega and the Samoan lauga
Ie Sina – a lost Samoan art
Ever heard of an ie sina? Quick Samoan language lesson: Ie means sheet or a piece of fabric, like a mat. Sina, can either be short for sinasinā, which is a respectful way to refer to something white, for example: “Ua sinasinā le ulu a le lo’omatua” …means, “The old lady’s hair is now white.” […]
How the German bun got its name
I was hanging out with some new friends today over at the Auckland museum (they were celebrating the end of Samoan Language Week in New Zealand) when someone heated up a plate of mmmmmmm German buns. In case you don’t know what they are, German buns are a deep fried, crispy on the outside, round […]
Matai: A Complicated System of Chiefs
Matai is the Samoan word for leader, or chief, or even (in the poetic sense) father. Samoan society is organized by family, and each family has its own matai titles, which are connected to certain districts, villages and plots of family land. And that was the short version of this story. In reality, Samoa’s matai […]