Last of seven parts
Flying into Ta'u from the sister Manu'a Island of Ofu was a piece of cake. The plane needed only two-thirds of the runway, which was fenced, eliminating most causes for surprise. Our host was waiting for us in the parking area with a truck; we recognized him as a fellow passenger from our Saturday morning flight from Tutuila to Ofu.
We drove the length of the island, from Fiti'uta to Faleasao via Ta'u (the village), in about 30 minutes. More than half of the road is concrete, and the remainder was being surfaced. Our truckmates included the highway inspector for the American Samoan government and two power authority employees. All three were residents of Tutuila staying with our host – the chief of Faleasao.
As soon as we reached Chief Tuese's fale tali-malo, his home and guest quarters, his wife and sister plied us with breakfast – a custom we were used to by now. Bacon, pancakes, french toast, breadfruit, fried eggs and coffee supplemented our earlier equally filling breakfast with Anita's family in Olosega.
Chief Tuese had been highly recommended as a host by Tamara at the American Samoan National Park headquarters in Pago Pago, and we quickly learned why. Born in 1937, he graduated from the only Samoan high school, which was on Tutuila, served as a policeman for a year, became qualified as a Samoan teacher, and worked his way to a bachelor of arts at the Brigham Young University in Hawaii via extension courses and summer school. He retired from the school system after 32 years as teacher, vice principal, principal and superintendent.
Chief Tuese wanted to be sure that my wife and I immersed ourselves in the Samoan culture. Although he needed to go to Tutuila to pick up a new truck that had arrived there and bring it back to Ta'u on the supply boat, he put off his travel for two days to host us.
Our first event was a Kava ceremony. Tuese called together his extended family, invited another village chief, and broke out the ava root. The preparation team sat at a right angle to his right, the "speaker" sat at a right angle to his left, and my wife and I sat facing him. As he explained his family and "the Samoan way," the preparation team shaved the root, mixed it with a bit of water, and squeezed it all together with a fiber. The resultant nectar was strained through the fiber.
The position of "speaker," an important adjunct to the community high chief, is held by a person known for his ability to speak well on all occasions. As a sign of his position, he wears a string of large red beads. At the Kava ceremony, the speaker told of the Samoans' history and welcomed us to partake of their custom. Afterwards, it became my turn to tell about my family and my reasons for visiting Samoa. The ceremony was somewhat similar to the Virgin Islands custom of the participants in a feast saying words.
We quickly settled into the rhythm of life on Ta'u.
Every evening, around 5 p.m., someone would ring the village "bell" (typically an old propane tank suspended from a tree or tripod, stuck by a large engine valve). At the sound of the bell, the families would come together in the tali-malo for 30 minutes to an hour of prayer and singing. While I am generally rather shy singing solo for strangers, the setting simply seemed right and everyone participated. At once, we felt a particular bonding from our joy in our faith.
The next day Tuese woke us up at dawn. We were to take part in preparing the umu, an oven of hot stones and banana leaves. First, the stones had to be stacked along with pieces of wood, then the wood was set afire. While the wood burned and the stones heated, members of the family prepared the ingredients. Green coconut was husked, opened and drained, and the young meat was scraped into the water using a log with a piece of steel car spring affixed to the end. The mixture was worried together among a fiber mass called I>alava until it produced coconut milk, or vaisalo.
Breadfruit and taro roots were scraped with the sharp edge of a tuna can. Taro leaves were cleaned and cut into foot-square pieces; and green bananas were peeled. Finally, a suckling pig was chosen, strangled, dehaired by dragging it over the fire and scraping, then gutted with a hole under the neck and a larger hole into the abdomen.
When the fire was mostly consumed, the stones were spread out in a mound. A large, hot stone was forced into the hole in the pig's neck, and the cavity was stuffed with leaves. Next several hot stones were forced into the pig's abdomen and it, too, was stuffed with leaves. Finally, the pig was placed on the edge of the mound of hot stones. Breadfruit, taro root and Samoan spinach were placed on the hot stones, and the assemblage was covered with banana leaves.
(Samoan spinach is a cup made of a square of taro leaf filled with coconut milk and wrapped in another taro leaf, which is then wrapped in a breadfruit leaf square and, finally, in a banana leaf square. The wrapping is then tied with fiber, and the packet is placed directly on the hot rocks. When eaten, it is a slightly coconut-flavored mush of leaves. Yum!)
Continuing the feast preparations, green bananas were spread around in a ring and covered with more banana leaves. The center was filled with fish, eels, whelk (called alili), lobster, ocean crab (papata) and U'uu — a land crab with a gigantic claw used for ripping fallen coconuts open.
Within an hour and a half, the meal was declared done and the umu was taken apart. The elders sat down to eat the first choice of the food. The seniors, chiefs and visitors received the pig ribs as their due.
Although the pig supposedly cooks in the umu both from the inside out (hot rocks forced into the neck and abdomen) and from the outside in (hot rocks around the pig), it was a bit underdone for my taste. Although the seafood is cooked on the top of the umu, separated from the hot rocks by multiple layers of food and banana leaves, it was still overcooked for my taste, and tough. The breadfruit, taro, banana and Samoan spinach were just right. Matter of fact, the whole thing was absolutely good, given the time, love, companionship and custom that went into the preparation and the fellowship of the total event, including the eating.
Our third day on Ta'u, Tuese flew off to Pago Pago and the supply boat, and his daughter took us to Saua, which is thought to be the birthplace of the Polynesian people. It is a beautiful area within the American Samoan National Park that is totally left to nature. We wandered through breadfruit and giant taro groves, watched reef shark cruise the inner reef, observed the "flying foxes," or fruit bats, gliding through the air, and drank from fresh coconuts.
Our final day on Ta'u was Bingo day, and all the ladies were off to Faleasao to play. We got a ride to the airport with the road inspector from Tutuila and walked around the village of Fiti'uta. We took note that it had a rococo church that was huge, especially for a village of maybe a hundred residents. I spent some time talking with the lone Ta'u policeman. As there hasn't been a crime wave for too many years to remember, we talked about the beauty of subsistence living in nature's paradise. Not too shabby.
Just before our plane landed, the ladies and a truckload of kids arrived back from Faleasao. It appeared that Tuese's sister, who had done much of our cooking, was the big Bingo winner, and everyone was celebrating.
The Manu'a Islands today have much in common with what St. John must have been like more than 50 years ago. Very quiet, a couple vehicles, and everyone looking out for each other. Those interested in sampling the hospitality of the various islands of this U.S. territory in the South Pacific should check out the web page www.nps.gov/npsa/homestay<
/a> and contact the American Samoan National Park Service Visitor Center by e-mail to [email protected].
American Samoa was great to visit, but I don't think I could adjust to such laid-back living, where church and Bingo are the big events. After 30 years of life on St. Thomas, I need my potholes and government corruption. The potholes keep us awake while driving, and the government corruption gives us something to talk about.
VI Source Archive · 1998–2015