Why alagaupu (Samoan proverbs) are so important and how to learn them

A little while ago, I posted a list of 12 alagaupu (Samoan proverbs) that I’d found in my grandfather’s notebook, with explanations I got from my mother and her tulafale (orator chief) brother. I had no idea how popular that post would get – or how big an appetite our community has for Samoan proverbs, but I do understand why.

Why are alagaupu (Samoan proverbs) so important?

The Samoan culture is built around our language and our orators are rewarded for their eloquence… as in, the more you can impress your audience with your clever thoughts and words, the more money and other spoils (like ie toga, food and prestige) will flow in your direction.

So what makes a good lauga (speech)? That’s a big topic for another post, but for today, just know that Samoans are impressed by alagaupu. If you know Samoan proverbs well and you can use them masterfully in your speeches, well… get ready for some serious respect.

How to learn alagaupu

The ‘Traditional’ Way

Samoan is an oratorical culture, which means we highly value the skill of giving great speeches… but before the Europeans arrived, we were also an oral culture, which means we didn’t have a system for writing.  All of our knowledge and wisdom was passed from generation to generation verbally, so the ‘traditional’ way to learn Samoan proverbs is through quality time with our elders, particularly the matai in our families.

My uncle loved his childhood memories of following his father (my grandfather) into the ma’umaga – the plantation. My grandfather was always muttering to himself … and then, as he laboured to plant taro and harvest cocoa pods, the old man would suddenly break into loud, dramatic prose. My grandfather was practicing his lauga, preparing – always preparing – for his next verbal spar with another worthy matai… and my uncle would listen and make note of the phrases that he didn’t quite understand… the ones that seemed to come from a long ago story… and later in the day, while my uncle served dinner to his father, he would ask about those phrases and my grandfather would teach him those alagaupu.

The Book Smart Way

We who don’t have the privilege of learning from our elders can all be grateful for the foreign missionaries and scholars who learned and documented our language and culture. Dr. E Schultz was a High Court Judge in Apia during the German colonial period in 1906. He collected hundreds of alagaupu and compiled them – with their meanings – in his Proverbial Expressions of the Samoans   <– free to read online!

This is an invaluable source of alagaupu (and muagagana, or idioms/figures of speech) because Dr. Schultz not only mined the work of previous European scholars – like Steuble and Kramer – but he also consulted with at least 30 Samoan ‘natives’ to collect these alagaupu and explain how they are commonly used. It is still very rare to find the meanings of alagaupu documented anywhere else. 

The (very few) problems with learning alagaupu from history books

You’d think that if alagaupu are so crucial to a successful lauga, all our tulafale would be studying and memorizing Dr. Schultz’s collection of Samoan proverbs, right? As important as it is, however, I don’t know a lot of skilled orator chiefs who walk around with this book in their back pocket.

I think we have to consider a few things before we let history books guide how we practice our culture in real life: 

1. Dr. Schultz collected alagaupu from Samoans, wrote about them in German and then his book was translated into English. What might we have lost in translation?
2. As an oral culture, our language was…well, who’s going to fact-check your stories if nothing was ever written down? It’s wonderful to have a reference that tells us what alagaupu mean, but imposing that kind of authority on something tends to stifle creativity – the creativity, for example, that could win a talking chief the honours of the day.

Let me give you an example for this second point. Dr. Schultz’s book quotes this alagaupu:

Ua sili mea le seuga

The literal translation for this line is: The hunting implements are hung up….referring to when hunters return from their hunt and they hang up all their hunting gears. 

As a proverb, Dr. Schultz says this alagaupu refers to the conclusion of a speech or a fono. This suggests that an orator would use this line when he’s wrapping up a speech or indicating that the meeting is done. 

The ‘sili’ part in this alagaupu means ‘high up’ (as in on a shelf). But what if another orator decides that ‘sili’, instead, means ‘better’, which is another translation of the word? This orator might use this alagupu, then, to talk about carefully choosing solutions to a problem, because ‘the hunters implements are better’.

Okay, that example is a little bit weak, but you get what I mean, yeah? If we’re all learning alagupu from a book, someone might listen to this second orator and think, nah… he’s wrong. That’s not the correct meaning of that alagaupu.

…to which someone else might reply, why not? Just because someone wrote this alagaupu’s meaning down in a book doesn’t make it the ONLY interpretation that is correct.

More importantly… did the second orator make his meaning of this alagaupu work? Did his wordplay stay on message and impress us at the same time? If yes, then who cares that he took creative licence on an alagaupu? The most skilled of our wordsmiths will and do.

Which brings me to my last point in this spiel:

The BEST way to learn alagaupu

…is to listen to lauga (oratorical speeches). Listen to Samoans – to matai – speaking. Listen a lot.

• Identify the most senior and skilled matai in your family and get close to them by offering your service, because (and let’s say it together):

Le ala i le pule o le tautua | The path to leadership is service

• Follow your matai around and listen…especially when they prepare for and attend family gatherings or meetings with other matai
• Listen to Samoan language radio stations – Radio Samoa is almost always on in our house; the hosts might talk really fast, but they will usually use beautiful, matai-level Samoan
• Go to church and really listen to the sermons

And what are you listening for?

Listen out for those extra poetic statements that conjure up imagery, especially of old Samoan. You’ll hear them, even if you don’t fully understand them. Pay attention to how these statements are used in context, and think about what life lesson the speaker might be trying to convey.

I’m a chronic note taker, so I would probably write those alagaupu down as I hear them…and I would scribble my own notes about how I might interpret the saying, based on how the matai used it. And then, of course, I would talk to the matai or other people later, to see if our interpretations line up. If they don’t, great! I’d make note of alternative meanings.

As I continue to listen and study these alagaupu I hear, chances are, I’ll discover a variety of different takes on the same statements. . .and this will help me build confidence in how I choose to interpret the alagupu myself.