Mamalu, modesty and the modern Samoan woman

Most Samoan girls are brought up to dress modestly. I won't pretend that I was a paragon of  this particular virtue. In fact, I'll go all out and say I am really not a paragon of ANY particular virtue at all. When I was visiting my family for Uni holidays, my dad would say in a sad and concerned voice "Darling, don't you have enough money?.... we can help you out....  obviously you didn't have enough to buy the rest of that skirt ".  My brothers would  alternatively tease me about my vae ta'amu, or tell me to go change or I was not exiting the house. I was pretty dutiful then, I'd just throw the offending article on the floor in a huff fold them away quietly, plotting to put it straight back on the moment my scholarship took me back to FREEEEDDDOOM Auckland. I know it's shocking! I should wear a scarlet letter!

That said, even a rebel-without-a-pause, like 18-year-old me knew that one could not strut around the nu'u in short skirts or skimpy shorts, just as I knew you couldn't turn up to family lotu in the evening without covering your shoulders.  Dusk would be falling and we'd hear the dong, dong of a metal pipe hitting a hollowed out rusted old iron tube, that may or may not have once been a fire extinguisher, and we'd all start the mad scramble, looking for big button up shirts or lavalavas, to drape around our shoulders like scarfs, concealing our singlets or the boys' bare chests, before sitting down, crossing our legs and joining the pese (and yes even my pa'ulua voice would be raised in praise).

I can accept that there were, and are, expectations of modest dress in certain settings (whether or not you consider that those expectations to be traditional to Samoan culture is a seperate issue, and one which I have already addressed). Of course these expectations are not exclusive to Samoa. Whether backpacking around Europe, or sojourning in Central America, I've always made sure that I've either worn or carried a long skirt and a shawl in my day pack, so that I could enter churches and other holy places respectfully. Whether in Sydney, Suva or Sri Lanka, what I wear to work is conservative and in keeping with the country and culture I am in. So I don't think there is a need to skirt around the issue, rather than just saying directly that it seems that much of the recent furore around displaying the malu was, and is, actually about dressing modestly, and appropriate behaviour for a Samoan woman.

Unfortunately it also seems that this was an inconvenient truth. After all, if a malu doesn't make one any more Samoan (a point I completely agree with), then having a malu should not bring one's behaviour as a Samoan woman under any additional scrutiny.  We all know that"tausi le mamalu" isn't something we suddenly get taught when we come of age, or when we are about to go under the 'au, it is something intrinsic in every Samoan girl's upbringing. If you're going to dictate others' dress standards, or if you're set on telling others how to behave in what you consider to be a culturally appropriate manner, then there is a certain expectation that your own behaviour and manner of dress will withstand similar scrutiny.  Otherwise it's just "Hello Kettle, my name is Pot, and I have noticed that you are rather black". 

That is also probably why most people don't start lectures on cultural proprierty with "I was up in the club and...". It's not normally seen as the most traditional or cultural of activities for a young Samoan lady. Don't get me wrong I am all for going out, I am just not for going out, and then getting up on your high horse. It is so 1950s to try and control the way another women dresses, but cite culture and we're all ok. We'll just tidy that pesky feminism away, it really is so unbecoming.  Cite culture and noone is supposed to reflect on why some women seem so upset at seeing other's dressed in a way that emphasises they are at the height of their youth and beauty (or at the height of their foolishness). Either way it doesn't bother me. It's a long time since I was 18, and I'm self-aware enough to say that the only issue I have with hot pants, is that, despite the promising name, they do not in fact look hot on me! Oh the outrage! It's just so totally deceptive and misleading! I would threaten to sue (for the very first time ever in my life) except that I've heard that it may upset some insects! A similar amount of self-reflection for all those throwing stones would go a long way.

My Culture, My Malu- a reply

I have a malu. An 'au has bitten my skin and indelible black marks remain to tell the tale.  I don't hide this.  In fact, on any given day in Sydney, you can see a Samoan woman heading into work in a conservative grey suit, and you may not look twice or notice the vae'ali , which crawl down below the back of her knees, signifying her service, both past and future, her tautua, and symbolising that it is on this service of the untitled- the aualuma and the aumaga, that the matai rest.

So while I was not in Samoa for the recent 50th Independence celebrations, when I recently read a well written article by Sita Leota, in the Samoa Observer, 17 June 2012, which shared her opinion about when, and how, one should display the malu, I felt compelled to reply.

Albert Wendt writes beautifully and I love his line "There are no 'true interpreters' or 'sacred guardians' of any culture. We are all entitled to our truths, insights, intuitions into and interpretations of our cultures."  I don't deny Sita, nor any of the other Samoans who are/were in furious agreement, the right to interpret our culture.  I do however, take serious issue with the imposition of that interpretation on others.

The article sets out "when you are tattooed as a female, the first rule has always been that you don't display your malu in public unless you are in full traditional Samoan wear about to dance the siva Samoa or in a ta'alolo." Is that really what the first rule has always been?

The truth is that the art of tatau was almost lost to colonisation and to Christianity.  The missionaries were not overly fond of tatau. Whether it was because they literally interpreted Leviticus,  because they saw this cultural practice as possible pagan competition, or simply because they saw it as "the mark of the savage", tattooing was so successfully discouraged throughout the Pacific, that of all our Polynesian brothers and sisters, only Samoa managed to maintain this "mea sina".  Even today there are calls for the churches to be more accepting of tatau.

Not so coincidentally, colonisation and Christianity also had a major impact on our clothing or lack thereof.  Now I like the mu'umu'u as much as the next woman, who has experienced the sauna that Samoa can be, they're lovely and cool, and they cover a multitude of sins and possibility for sinning, which, of course, was the idea. That said, they are a reflection of just how the church viewed women and their bodies (or more accurately, how they didn't want people to view women's bodies).

Sita quotes Albert Wendt when entreating and exhorting those of us who have malu to "protect it, shade it, cover it".  Somewhat ironically, it is the eminent Professor Wendt who sets out in the same article that "Being clothed (lavalava) had little to do with clothes or laei. In pre-Papalagi times, to wear nothing above the navel was not considered 'nakedness.' To 'clothe' one's arse and genitals was enough."

Isn't it likely that the church's traditional position on tattooing, on women, and on covering up, has something to do with the compulsion to (or more accurately in the case of this article), to tell others to cover the malu? It may be that traditionally women covered to below the knee before they went under the 'au, and indeed, many contend that was the reason for the malu - to clothe. The fact that women show malu when they are "in full traditional Samoan wear about to dance the siva Samoa or in a ta'alolo", i.e. in our most traditional of activities, reflects that women traditionally showed their malu, that "the malu for women ...[was]  considered  'clothing,' the most desired and highest-status clothing anyone could wear." (Tatauing the post-colonial body; Albert Wendt)

I'm proud of the fact that our culture is a living, breathing culture. I accept it adapts and adopts. Obviously Christianity is an important part of our culture - Fa'avae i le Atua Samoa. So I can accept an argument that our culture changed with Christianity to incorporate covering the malu. In a living and breathing culture, things change.  But if it did change then, can't it change now? Can't Samoan women display their malu now, as their ancestors did, without being subject to an opinion piece?

Sita takes umbridge with what she considers is using the malu as a "fashion accessory". Again Wendt insightfully says, "much of what has been considered 'decoration' or 'adornment' by outsiders is to do with identity (individual/aiga/group), status, age, religious beliefs, relationships to other art forms and the community, and not to do with prettying yourself." It may be that one does not agree with displaying the malu, it is another thing altogether to say that just because one displays the malu, they don't do it out of "any sense of belonging, of culture, of being Samoan" as Sita asserts.

Sita writes that the definition of malu is ‘to be protected'.  But it can also mean "to protect".  As Zita Sefo-Martel puts it "The woman is therefore seen in Samoan culture as the protector of the children, the family, and the village. She is the giver of bloodlines." I am a strong Samoan woman. I have a malu and I can protect what is mine - my malu, and my culture. I do not need an article in the Samoa Observer to guide me, to tell me when and how, I can display my malu, and I very much doubt, any other Samoan woman does either.

O le malu o le laei o tamaitai Samoa.