In old Samoa, the gods lived here, amongst us

A Samoan story about deity and order.

In old Samoa the gods lived amongst the people. They grew the food and sent the fish, brought the rain, attended births, settled disputes and scores and brought blessings - and curses - to the people.

'Worship was part of the ordinary day.'

Not godless, actually

Early visitors to Samoa called us 'godless'. They were wrong. Our gods, aitu, were all around us, in the reef, the bush, the weather, animals, stones, shells…

Turner records the epithet and corrects it in the same sentence. '...by some of the early visitors the people were called "the godless Samoans."' [r1]

Turner's correction calls the gods 'imaginary' in the same breath. Yes, the correction and the condescension share a sentence.

Who were the aitu?

Highest were gods superior, like Tagaloa, god of the heavens, creator of lands. Below them, the war gods with their own districts and troops. But most aitu didn't live in the sky or on the battlefield. They lived here amongst the people and in the work of the day.

'Gods superior and inferior' is a phrase from the prayers themselves.

Turner calls Tagaloa 'this Samoan Jupiter'.

Turner's gods are village-specific. The same name did different work in different districts.

Gods for fishing

In a Savai'i village, Siuleo came from Tonga and could walk on the sea. They built him a fisherman's hut and he looked after one stretch of coast. Elsewhere, one temple stone drove fish into the nets. (The other grew the yams, the breadfruit and the coconuts.)

Turner: 'He was the fisherman's god.'

The two temple stones were unchiselled 'smooth stones of the stream', guarded with great care. Turner says they represented good gods, not death-causing ones.

Those stones have no names in Turner. He files them under one heading: 'Stones'.

Gods for the weather

Foge and Toafa were two more stone gods, said to be the parents of Sa'ato, who controlled the rain. Before a pigeon hunt, men laid cooked taro and fish on the stones and prayed for good weather. If you skipped your offering and the rain came, the ruined season was your fault.

The pigeon-catching trips lasted weeks.

A third stone was managed in both directions. Too much rain: the stone was laid by the fire and kept hot until fine weather came. Drought: the priest and his followers dressed in fine mats, walked in procession to the stream and dipped the stone.

Turner: 'the priest and his followers dressed up in fine mats, and went in procession to the stream, dipped the stone and prayed for rain.'

Gods for childbirth and illness

Ave i le Tala was sent for when a woman went into labour. In a Savai'i temple, Salevao's priest laid hands where the sickness was. Nonia lived in the pipi (cockles). Villagers walked about with bundles of pipi, praying through them for health.

Turner translates Ave i le Tala as 'Take to the end of the house'. The priest prayed for the safety of the patient.

Salevao was a war god in some villages and a healer in this one.

Anyone in Nonia's village who ate the cockle would grow a cockle on his nose. [r35]

May was the usual month for feasting and prayers to Nonia, for the removal of coughs.

Every village had its god

Everyone born in a village belonged to its aitu. This god had a house, a fale aitu. The spirit-house. Sometimes it was a building. Sometimes a tree.

'Fale-aitu' is Stair's term. He found one or more 'of some description' in nearly every village.

Where there was no temple, the village's great house served as one. Some settlements kept a sacred grove.

Inside the temple

A conch shell hung in a basket of sennit; the aitu itself blew it to call its people to war. Two stones. A coconut-shell cup, hanging from the roof. Those accused of theft would touch the cup and invite the aitu to destroy them if they lied. They rarely lied.

Turner: 'With my hand on this cup, may the god look upon me, and send swift destruction, if I took the thing which has been stolen.'

Turner adds that 'the truth was rarely concealed' before this ordeal.

On the day of worship, something like the head of a man, with white streamers flying, was raised on a pole at the temple door.

Family rituals: the evening 'ava

Before the evening meal, the head of the family took his cup of 'ava and poured a little on the ground. Then he prayed aloud: 'Here is 'ava for you, O gods! Look kindly towards this family… may there be abundance of food for us, your creatures.'

The prayer (reported by Turner): 'Here is 'ava for you, O gods! Look kindly towards this family; let it prosper and increase; and let us all be kept in health. Let our plantations be productive; let fruit grow; and may there be abundance of food for us, your creatures.'

The prayer went on to the war gods, then to the sailing gods: 'Here is 'ava for you, O sailing gods! Do not come on shore at this place; but be pleased to depart along the ocean to some other land.'

A rite with fire

Someone was called to blow the fire into a blaze. Silence. Then: 'This light is for you, O king, and gods superior and inferior.' Protection from sickness. Protection from the sailing gods - the gods who arrive in Tongan canoes and foreign ships.

This is a separate rite from the 'ava offering.

The person who prayed was 'a senior member of the family', not necessarily the father.

Aitu signs

Thunder meant Tagaloa had heard the prayer. A low rumble meant he refused it. If an offering for the stone gods was eaten in the night by dogs or rats, that meant the gods had chosen to live in those animals for a while.

The gods spoke in many other ways.

One of Turner's gods of the heavens was represented by a large shell, consulted in time of war. An unusual noise meant battle. A murmur that sounded like 'Go back, go back' meant no fighting that day.

Do these traditions survive today?

While Samoa is a very different place today, some of our traditions around gods and signs have survived our predominantly Christian identity.'

My great-grandmother's village was Falelima in Savai'i, home of the powerful aitu, Nifoloa. Ask any Falelima today what they know about Nifoloa.

Turner places the disease-making god O le Nifo Loa, 'the long tooth', on the south side of Savai'i, which matches my family's account of the region.

In my mother's village of Manunu, a certain kind of bird is still a reliable omen. If it flies over the village in a mountain-to-sea direction, someone is going to become ill enough for the hospital. If it crosses over the village from sea-towards-mountain, someone is on their deathbed. I'll let you know as soon as I remember the name of that bird.)

Who wrote these aitu stories down?

These beliefs and practices around Samoa's gods - aitu - were documented by early Christian missionaries. Most of the stories in these slides come from Reverend George Turner, who founded the Malua training college in 1844 and spent most of his working life - more than 40 years - in Samoa. Of all the records we have today, Turner kept probably the most prolific notes about Samoa's pre-Christian deity and religious practices.

Every source here is a missionary text, written about a religion its authors came to replace.

Turner called it 'zoolatry' and 'a hard service'. That is a missionary's judgement, not how our ancestors described their own beliefs.

Turner's picture is a composite across many villages, not any one village's practice.

This is a record of what our Samoans of the day practised and believed.

Finally

Which of these aitu, signs or rituals are you familiar with?

Please remember: These are the written records of an oral tradition documented by missionary observers; Samoan families and districts carry their own knowledge.