Our Beautiful Culture

Thought I would share this great article with you girls...hope you like!

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My Culture My Malu

June 18, 2012 Sita Leota Arts & Culture, Samoa Independence, 0

We all know the story of how Samoan women were assigned the malu, and how the Samoan men got their pe’a, which is now immortalised in song – that originally two women swam from Fiji with the insistence that women, not men, were the ones to be tattooed the full pe’a until they arrived at Falealupo in Savaii where they made a mistake and said then that men should be tattooed instead of women.
Perhaps this is just as well. It’s the closest men will ever get to knowing the pain of childbirth that women have to go through.The full pe’a takes days, sometimes weeks. The malu takes about five hours.
Obviously those two women who swam the ocean centuries ago knew that women didn’t have the time nor the patience to be lying around incapacitated when the world was theirs to conquer – things to see, people to do.
Renowned Samoan author Albert Wendt defined the word malu as ‘to be shaded, to be protected, coolness, soft, soften.’ With regards to the tatau found on Samoan females, the definition of malu is therefore ‘to be protected.’
Echoing on this sentiment is Samoa’s first female fautasi skipper Zita Martel in one of her interviews who said that, “the symbolism depicted on a tatau or malu represents a covenant between a Samoan and his or her way of life. It is “O Mea Sina.” It is sacred.
I am very proud of my culture, very proud that I am Samoan. The traditional Samoan female tattoo – the malu – is the ultimate symbol of this pride on any Samoan female. So when I asked my mother if I could get one in 2008 when my sister was getting hers, she told me I’m better off with a dragon tattoo on my back than have the malu wasted on me. “Sika, alu e ka se ka-lako i lou papakua, e sili aku ga.”
It’s not something that’s taken lightly – it takes focus while one man tattoos you, one man wipes off the excess ink and blood and you are surrounded by people singing along to encourage you as you flay your legs about.
There is a huge burden on you to finish your tattoo because nobody wants the shame of a pe’a muku – the unfinished tattoo, and why there is a lot of relief when it is finally over and it is complete. I have seen a pe’a muku, and it was only because I saw it by accident. People who have it will never, ever show it nor tell anyone they have one.
I admire that the art of the Samoan tatau is being kept alive in initiatives like the Tatau Convention, the Malofie and it was one of the highlights of Samoa’s Independence when I saw the group of tattooed men and women proudly marching and dancing at Mulinu’u during Independence celebrations.
I wanted to be part of something that tied me visibly to my country. I see a malu, I see a pe’a on TV when I’m overseas and it brings me home. I have nothing but respect for the courage it takes to lie uncomfortably on a mat wincing and closing your eyes and trying to block out all the pain. I know that the critical moment comes when they reach the knees and you feel like they’re without skin and it feels that they are tattooing your bones directly and it is where most women say is the point where they want to give up.
I respect the mental preparation the tattooed have to go through because getting a traditional tattoo is not something done on the spur of the moment and you suddenly wake up and say, “I’m getting a malu done today.” I know that when a malu is done, you get your parents’ blessings before you make the ultimate commitment to your identity. That you are Samoan, that you are proud to be one.
Several years ago, a fa’afafine caused outrage when he went and got a malu. I support gay rights and I love my fa’afafine friends. However, a malu is for a woman. A pe’a is for a man. There is no grey area about it. A line was crossed when a man went to the tattooist that he wanted a malu, and for that tattoist to give it to him was against all the rules of the Samoan tatau.
Again, I repeat Zita Martel’s words: It is sacred. O le measina. All the fa’afafines I know (and trust me, it’s a lot of fa’afafines; I’m practically one myself!) are adamant, like the rest, that this should never have been tattooed in the first place. At a time when nothing else seems to hold any reverence, you don’t want your culture to be cheapened by acts such as this.
There is nothing more beautiful than the sight of a Samoan woman in a fine mat barely coming down her bottom to show off glistening legs that are tattooed with a malu. Or an old lady in her best puletasi hoisted up to show it while she’s doing the Samoan siva. I have nothing against the malu because it’s part of who I am. It’s what identifies a Samoan female when you see them before they’ve even spoken a word.
There is something particularly amazing when you see a malu by accident on the older folks that you didn’t even know had them. There are six tattooed people in my immediate family: my grandmother, my Dad, my brother, my sister, my cousin and my aunty and I take pride in all of them. I have several friends with malus who have gone to the length of changing their complete wardrobe so that nothing is showing at all when they are out. From hotpants to long dresses, from short shorts to knee-length tights.
They say goods often on display quickly lose their colour, which in turn makes them lose their appeal. In all honesty, some of the tattooed now use the malu as a fashion accessory more than out of any sense of belonging, of culture, of being Samoan. And I say this because 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. This is not what I saw during Independence.
Groups of girls in shorts parading their malu in town eating while walking – one of the seven deadly sins in Samoan culture. Girls in nightclubs dropping it low on the dance-floor in barely-there clothes pulled up even more to show off their malu.
To each their own, dance naked, wear your hotpants if you want to – my point (and I do have one) is that I personally don’t like seeing it when you have a malu, having it done with some knowledge beforehand of what it is, your obligations of being a tattoeed female, knowing what it represents and what it means and you are gyrating almost in the nude in public showing it off. Otherwise, don’t have it – save yourself the earache of having people saying that the malu is just another box to be ticked for you.
It brings back the words of my mentor when he told me this: “I’m very happy for my children’s achievements. I don’t, however, need to resort to the newspaper to announce all [their achievements] to the whole world. O le aga a le Samoa, e le fa’avi’ivi’i i saga fagau.” And I use this here because, like the malu, you show it when it needs to be shown.
E le’o se mea e kau fa’aalialia. It used to be that the malu was respected because it was rarely seen and nobody ever showed it. Don’t take that away. Don’t belittle your pain. There is a particular lady that I admire from Savaii whose malu doesn’t see the light of day until that Samoan taualuga song comes on and then she whips up her lavalava for the world to see. A sight to behold. Like a virgin about to be touched for the very first time. And that’s why it brings me back to Wendt’s definition of malu. Protect it. Shade it. Cover it. As for me, I’ll stick with the dragon tattoo for now.
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* The malu referred to in the title is not only (obviously) the traditional Samoan female tattoo but more or less, the protection offered by your culture, your family. O lau aganu’u, o lou aiga e te malu ai.