by Albert Wendt
From my welcome home feast he excluded
(against customary practice) his aristocracy calling
them effete sons of pigs too overfed for war
(and fucking) all military personnel because
he’d heard I was now a dove all lesbians
and transvestites because he was certain I was straight
And invited (against customary practice) all artists
(including commoners) because he wanted me to love
the arts all chefs he considered worthy — only three
and female and untitled but whose recipes he coveted
the clubfooted who his taulaaitu predicted
would rub sweet luck onto him that week
The Menu: fresh seaeggs sea from Toamua
brought freshly by fast spirit carrier
fist-small palusami and umu-baked Niue taro
wild pigeon stuffed with green papaya and coconut cream
octupus cubed and baked in its own ink
and coconut cream suckling pig rubbed with its
own bile and turned Tongan-style over
a charcoal fire wild pineapples from the volcanic
soil of Asau orange-flavoured banana poi
All to be washed down with cool green coconut
juice and Dad’s expert commentary about
true Samoan cuisine unpolluted by the foreign
As we feasted to Dad’s strict rule of no abandoned
gorging and gluttony taste and savour every flavour
slowly I pretended uninhibited enjoyment
but Tagatalua’s absence was a heavy tide
spilling out from my heart
In love I was double-personed
Even when Dad to everyone’s surprise whooped up
on his tail and conducted the impromptu choir
of artists and the clubfooted and the singing
and dancing began to ease the sated belly
of the night and my hands clapped and
my mouth sang loudly I was rooted in human pain
knowing that Tagatalua would die
abandoning me to an Atuahood without end
with my self who’d experienced in love what
the limits of joy are and can’t do without:
an endless thirst without quenching
You must dance for your father Mum prompted
She rubbed my body with scented oil
dressed me for the dance and on my head
placed our aiga’s tuiga of long blonde hair
scarlet segavao feathers and polished pearlshell —
nest for the La’s mana and blessing
As we joined the dancing I knew —
and my heart was an excited puppy — how to win
from Dad Tagatalua’s exemption
I danced onto the floor to the beat of
the fala paused bowed to my father and
then flowed into the taualuga
The feared Keeper of Pulotu had never danced
in public so when Dad tailed his happy way
from the choir to be the aiuli to
my taupou there was hushed bewilderment —
fear that a tapu was being broken
Sing go on sing! he commanded and they continued
Mum was weeping tanoafuls and all
of Pulotu was a wonderful celebration
to see the Eater-of-Darkness and his Heir
dancing until my reflection in his huge
glad eyes melted into tears
and his mouth exclaiming: My Beloved Daughter!
Admitting his love for me acknowledging
my gender for the first unforgettable time
that stripped away the shell of ruthless warrior
and I was simply girl daughter blubbering
in front of the motley choir of spirits blubbering
all of Pulotu blubbering flooding
More of that’ll ruin my reputation! he grunted
next morning They’ll always be scared of you I said
Sure? he asked I nodded and he inflated into
his usual scowling self and ripped into his
usual austere morning fare of taro papaya
and sundried shark’s liver and mountain water
For two weeks I waited played the ideal daughter
yet when I sensed he wanted
the warrior I outfought outeverythinged
his champions allowing him to brag:
My blood is best and a woman at that!
(The Way of the Weapons has no place for drag)
One evening while Mum hummed
to the cicadas’ trilling and he lay contemplating
the rafters I cast my line: Do many ask
to return to the world of humans?
Every day I’m asked for all sorts of reasons
he nibbled at the bait and stayed alert
Some plead premature death and to return to
fulfil interrupted plans Others admit to
immoral lives and want to relive more morally
Others want to rush back and extinguish
cooking fires and complete menial chores
One baldy wanted to retrieve his wig
Some leaders real and unreal still want to
save their villages countries peoples (Poor
buggers are hooked on the power cookery
Suffer from atua-complexes!) Some virgins
want to return to be relieved (pleasurably)
of their haunting innocence
One skinny beggar wanted one last lick
of his sadistic missus Another longed for
one more smell of his childhood A Tama’aiga
who shall remain nameless was homesick
for his pet turtles and lizards Yet another
to re-experience his expensive and lordly funeral
Pardon my un-Atualike language but I’ve never
fathomed these ungrateful fucked-up humans:
my Kingdom has an ideal standard of living and climate
no starvation no permanent dying no anarchy
no mosquitoes and diseases
and I’m a wise and benevolent ruler
yet some still prefer that pit of pain
ruled over by psychopathic crazies
Me included? I reminded him Of course
not — you’re my blood he swallowed my hook
Have you ever allowed people to return? I asked
Hell Tagaloa no It’s against the natural order
Humans die their spirits come to me
their bodies become rich manure We atua
can’t die — that’s our gift (and
curse) Tagaloa Himself can’t alter what’s in
that cycle encompassed by the Va
What about the half-atua/half-tagata? I asked
Who for instance? he countered Maui! I answered
That arrogant ratbag: Hine really crushed him!
In laughter his gullet opened and
my elusive hook dropped into his belly
But they can visit Pulotu and the heavens
barred to ordinary humans I said
But they die because of their human half
Mongrels they are but very hardy
and enterprising: comes from existing on the margins
and hungering to belong (No one believed Dad
was capable of theorising yet there he was
expounding a novel thesis called ‘marginality’)
Could someone who’s hermaphroditic be
a marginal? I played the line If majority
mores consider it normal then the person
will be accepted he reasoned but if not then
the poor bugger (or is it ‘buggeress’?) will be
rejected as a deviant
Is that your personal view? I played him further
You know I’m liberal and tolerant
and permit my subjects to be their true selves
No closet dev
iant here The hook was
truly embedded in his unsuspecting belly
So in my most daughterish tone I said
There is a person I love most dearly (Very
good! Mum interjected) And want to restrict
my life to that person (Nothing wrong in that
Mum interjected) I’ve had enough of philandering
(Your father’s always been faithful Mum interjected)
It’s true love at last! (Wonderful! Mum interjected)
Still contemplating the rafters Dad said Nothing
wrong or unusual in that but is his ancestry
untainted royalty? Is he master of the Way
of the Weapons? Can he sire outstanding heirs?
Love is not enough Nafa: not for your
husband who is to rule with you forever
Tagatalua qualifies on all counts I answered
(Wonderful! Mum interjected) But may have
a slight disadvantage (What’s that? Dad
interjected) Of being fully human (Not
a mixture? he interrupted Have you
triple-checked his ancestry?)
Not one cell of atua I replied
Still contemplating the rafters he said Nothing
wrong in that: ever since Lord Tagaloa created
everything we atua have cohabited freely with
humans siring handsome children sometimes
marginal but gifted and driven
But my children your only heirs will be
mortal I reminded him He was bolt upright
his eyes spearholes of fear
My line must not be tainted by death he whispered
No we mustn’t have that Mum interjected
We tried not to look at Dad’s frightened tail
Whenever Dad was deeply troubled he re-
treated into the sea his original element
into the dangerous whirlpools just off
the reefs of Pulotu There in the rich
turbulent womb of his conception he was
foetus again safe free tidefed
We waited and inside me Tagatalua
was ready for rebirth into Atuahood
or a oneway human dying
You’ve really hurt your father Mum kept
repeating Why not choose a nice atua?
(Like Dad and his constant philandering? I thought)
His strong sea-coral smell arrived first then
he slid into our fale for the evening meal
skin burnt ebony longhair bleached to fiery
yellow exuding the joy of an impish secret
Lucky we’d cooked his favourite night dish:
charcoal barbecued whole chicken and boiled bananas
He refused to look at us as he chuckled and ate
chuckled and ate and ate and ate
We slaughtered and cooked our flocks
the neighbours’ and others to feed his in-
satiable laughter until he just lay there
laughing and caressing his mountainous belly
Soon we had to flee to the neighbour’s
for he started farting continuous thunder
All night he thundered and Pulotu nearly choked
on the chicken-flavoured stench
All night he laughed and drummed his hands
on his belly (and Mum and I fumed!)
At first light I waded through an air
of liquid stench and found him
afloat (and snoring) in a pond of
his shit and yellow-luminous piss
Gently I took him outside wiped him clean
with chicken feathers and put him asleep into the sea
Buried the fale in feathers and burnt it down
Basically we’re all excrement and urine
some more so than others he said when he returned
I ignored him as I packed to leave You’re full of piss he said
You’ve used my love to try to get
what’s been refused to others always
(So it’s no? I interrupted ) It’s our Lord Tagaloa’s
to give and I went and saw Him he said
(And? I couldn’t suppress my greed) In his eyes
was a burning sadness He owes me a few
so He’s granted your wish! he whispered
I was out and running home
Wait! he called Tagaloa’s exact words were:
Tagatalua shall live forever and growing
Young and in love and in a hurry to tell
my beloved of her deification I didn’t hear
him call: Your mother and I will always
love you! Or recognise Tagaloa’s exemption as riddle
(1) The Riddle
In the House of Sorrow atua too can die for
a time for ever since our world was born
out of Tagaloaalagi’s loneliness
we atua were bred to fear solitude
and the long sad silence that roots
our reflections in Vanimonimo’s mysteries
Selfsnared in that splendid House I picked at
my wounds and sucked up their delicious
bleeding but even then my father’s ironic
laughter and farting would mock me and
I’d curse him for not warning me about
the exemption’s irreversible consequences
Tagatalua shall live forever and growing: And she
did live and grow but the growing was
her body aging which at first we didn’t notice
(in the selfcontained happiness of our
love) until the first grey hair fingered
its fear across her lush black head
You said I was to be immortal she whispered
when the first wrinkle was a bird footprint
under her right eye She’s not going to die —
that’s what I promised Tagaloa assured
me when I confronted Him
But her body’s aging! I insisted
Yes that’s the growing He explained in the brood-
ing honesty of His House Enraged I forgot
who He was and sobbed and stamped my feet
Nafa He consoled your religion preaches beauty
isn’t physical but emanates from the agaga
Learn to love her forever in her aging too
Love at first sight and forever without infidelity
or change or drift into killing boredom
is the privilege of the young (and the
very old who come late to know love) And
I was young so I returned to Tagatalua
convinced I’d love her always despite her growing
For the duration of many human lifetimes
we loved without change but with variety
(because of our double natures) to keep boredom away
Our taulaaitu disseminated new gospels about
ideal love and family life with us as model
Peace goodwill and prosperity reigned
Children complete the ideal aiga Auva’a hinted
and your subjects are asking for your completion
If that’s the gospel why not! we decided
(Our lives spin into crucial oscillations
on innocent decisions we later regret
and want unplaited from the rope of history)
I’d conveniently proclaimed my subjects
as my children — good for unity and loyalty
But to be truthful in hindsight being an only
child (and spoilt) I wasn’t fond of children:
they were snottynosed yaw-ridden bawling hungry
distractions from myself and life’s enjoyment
So we and our taulaaitu embarked on
‘the natural enterprise that justifies all life’ (Auva’a’s
description): being penisless I was to
be mother (though Tagatalua wanted
that honour) but I was secretly unhappy
about it —
I still felt more a man than woman
The sperm was Tagatalua’s but she was woman
in our marriage so I believed I’d impregnated
myself: Strange twists to our emotions
Strange too I felt pretending fussy feminine
mother to satisfy my subjects who arrived
in worshipping droves to pay tribute to my illness
And did my enterprising taulaaitu use
my swelling to benefit our religion: daily
reports on my blessed condition were spread
through pilgrims to our nation to keep
them believing in Atuahood and giving
generously to me and my taulaaituhood
Like you I believed maternal love was a sacred
and natural instinct so it was an earthquake
shock to discover when I started spewing
the mornings away that I wanted to eject
the parasite from inside me — maternal love’s
another sweet myth to enslave women
Keep them busy with annual childbearing
away from the possibilities of free loving
and the choices of infidelity (But
as Boss of society I wasn’t ever to go
public on that truthful heresy:
atua and other privileged classes don’t suicide)
I’d been wounded many times but that pain
was nothing compared to the parasite dragging
itself out in successive waves of wrenching-stopping
wrenching-stopping to turn me inside out
A true Samoan (and warrior) should swallow pain
but I couldn’t bear it and screamed and screamed
In case things went wrong and an edited version
of the birth had to be fed to the people
only Tagatalua Auva’a and the midwife attended —
again Auva’a’s immaculate planning For
a moment when I surfaced free at
last of the parasite I caught a frightened
disbelief in their eyes and glanced at the child
in the midwife’s arms: still coated with birthfluid
