How to Greet a Samoan Matai (Chief)
The heartbeat of Samoan culture is love and respect, or fa’aaloalo. How we greet people is a very public demonstration of this respect. Like a lot of languages, we have informal greetings for our peers and friends and then formal greetings for people we don’t know as well, or for those in authority over us […]
Why you shouldn’t become a Samoan matai (and also why you should)
While a Samoan matai does not wield the kind of supreme authority you might expect of royalty in other cultures, our fa’amatai – our system of government, our network of chiefs – is still fundamental to the Samoan way of life. For this reason, the bestowing of a matai title should not be taken lightly […]
Matai – How to become a Samoan Chief [Part 2]
In the first article of this series, we looked at what it means to be a matai and how you could begin the process of becoming a Samoan chief. So now, let’s say your family has finished deliberating and you are the chosen one… then let’s say you did some soul-searching and ultimately decided that, Yes. You will accept the […]
Matai – How to Become a Samoan Chief [Part 1]
How does one become a matai, or Samoan chief? The process is a fascinating mix of inheritance and election. You have to be an heir to a title – but all Samoans are heirs to at least one matai title – and then your family has to elect you to the role. That’s generally how […]
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 […]