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Over the past 40-plus years I’ve seen Maori at the Polynesian Cultural Center welcome many visiting groups of their countrymen with traditional greeting ceremonies, but I think the wero or challenge-and-acceptance protocol the PCC and Maori from the surrounding communities put on for Te Panekiretanga O Te Reo Maori on July 27, 2010, was one of the most exciting ever…

…partially because members are carefully accepted into the Napier, New Zealand-based group to study and perfect Maori language and cultural skills: Where in past groups maybe one or two of the manuhiri or visitors would respond to the challenge and karanga chants, nearly all Te Panekiretanga O Te Reo Maori members joined these thrilling moments as they entered the Maori marae at the Polynesian Cultural Center:

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I first became aware of cockroaches when I was in elementary school in Salt Lake City, Utah, and we learned to do the Mexican hat dance to the music of La Cucaracha for a May Day program. Since then,  and even though I now know they are found in many places throughout the world, I don’t remember actually seeing one until I moved to warm, tropical Samoa as a Mormon missionary in 1965.

SIDEBAR: The Samoan word for cockroach is mogamoga, while the word for Mormon is Mamona; and since colloquial Samoan often switches the sounds associated with the letters ‘n’ and ‘g’ — or mona vs. moga can be pronounced the same way – cheeky people would sometimes derisively call us mamoga.

I saw way too many mogamoga back in the day, but since moving from Samoa to perennially semi-tropical Hawaii, I’ve also spent too much effort trying to keep away from the creepy crawlers. For some enigmatic reason, I thought some of you might be interested in a few of my more insightful cockroach tales, and perhaps even add a few of your own in the comments window below:

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Just a few days ago I experienced a brief moment of cultural serendipity when a number of Fijian and Tongan women performed a Fijian coming-of-age ceremony for several young women before they performed in nearby Kahuku High’s “May Night” program. The young women came on stage wrapped in traditional masi or bark cloth, which their older relatives unwrapped, before the girls danced a Fijian meke with their classmates.

If your web browser doesn’t show a video window above, go to:

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I was picking a couple of ‘ulu [breadfruit] the other day from my neighbor’s tree that hangs over into our yard . . . and it got me thinking about the bright green little ‘ulu tree that President Eric Shumway and a number of others planted during the Church College of Hawaii/Brigham Young University–Hawaii  jubilee celebration in 2005 near the cafeteria entrance and the sidewalk leading back to the dorms. As members of the Jubilee steering committee, we all felt the symbolism of the ‘ulu carrying into the next 50 years was perfect: An ancient Polynesian staple, beautiful tree, long-lived, prolific, multiple uses of all parts of the tree, etc.

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In the wake of news from the September 29, 2009, earthquake and tsunami damage in Samoa, I was recently reading some Samoa history, and the following few factoids caught my interest enough to share them: (more…)

Ya gotta’ love Samoan semantics: Not too long ago a Samoan friend asked me, ua vali ea lou ulu? which more literally translated means, “do you paint your head?” The Samoan word, vali, however, can also mean makeup or dye — as in hair dye — so in a kinda’ Samoan way she was really asking me if I dyed my hair.

I have to admit, her question made me think of those cheesy TV commercials where the guy spray-paints a balding head to make it look like a “fuller, thicker head of hair.”

Granted, these days my hair is pretty much gray around the temples, and if someone were to really dig through it they would find a lot more silver up there…but mostly my hair appears brown — EXCEPT when I put some mousse or gel on it, in which case it pretty much appears dark brunette. And the kind of mousse I use keeps it that way most of the time. Hence the question, I guess.

But turn-around is fair play, so I answered her: Leai, na’o le ga’o lava. “No it’s really only ga’o,” the number-one definition of the last Samoan word meaning “lard” or “fat”…

…and since we were both of an age, referring to the good old days when guys used to use greasy pomade that came in jars and tubes, giving rise to the term “greaser” — someone who usually over-oiled his hair and combed it in the flamboyant styles of the day. It also made me think of the can my mom used to keep on the stove where she poured off hot grease and made her own lard when I was a kid. But I digress.

Plenty of guys used to rub pomade into their hair when I was growing up, but I never really cared for it; and while ordering ga’o in a Samoan store back in my missionary days in the mid-60s would get you some cooking lard, even the smallest country stores there also almost always carried fagu ga’o or small glass jars of sweet-smelling, greasy pomade.

Now days by far, I prefer my Paul Mitchell medium-hold coconut-scented mousse in a spray can…even if it does make some people wonder if I “paint my head.”

The Tongans welcome the young couple
into their lives and community

The Polynesian Cultural Center, where I have worked off-and-on in various student, full-time and freelance capacities for the past 41 years, premiered its latest night show — Hä: Breath of Life — on August 14, 2009. During those years I’ve seen almost all of the previous productions, and in a word, I think the new show is fantastic. (more…)

In 1925-26, armed with a Columbia University Ph.D. in cultural anthropology, 23-year-old Margaret Mead spent about six months on the island of Ta’ü, Manu’a, American Samoa, conducting field research on whether nurture or nature was predominant in determining behavior. Her controversial book, Coming of Age in Samoa (which I was required to read in Anthropology 101 at the University of Utah in 1964), described an idyllic place where adolescent promiscuity was a natural part of their society.

Even though her book captured the imagination of many, while raising the ire of others, that didn’t stop the people of Ta’ü from giving the doyenne of anthropology a royal welcome when she returned for the first time in 46 years on November 11, 1971 . . . and I had fa’amolemole‘d [i.e. begged] and bluffed my way onto the official traveling party to see it:

Margaret Mead (center) with American Samoa Governor John Hayden
(on her left) arriving at Faleasao, Ta’ü, Manu’a, on November 11, 1971
— photos by Mike Foley
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After a church meeting today, a friend who has been teaching early-morning Laie North Stake Seminary told me how he still got up early this past week, even though class is over for the school year, and went for a walk on Hukilau Beach — one of the great treasures of our community. He said it was very beautiful and peaceful as the sun came up . . . which reminded me of an experience I had several years ago on the same beach one glorious, golden morning: (more…)

The senior men’s preliminary round in the Polynesian Cultural Center’s 17th annual World Fireknife Championship on May 14, 2009 saw a smaller field of entrants, but a tougher level of competition as the skilled “warriors” once again put their skills with the flaming knives in front of a panel of judges and an wildly appreciative audience.

After all the flames were all extinguished and the drums silenced, the judges selected nine of the senior men (age 18-and-up) to advance to the semifinals. They are:

Jeurell Lavata’i, American Samoa
Dana Teai, Tahiti
Pati Levasa, Samoa (via Hong Kong)
Brandon “Fue” Maneafaiga, Waianae
Joseph Cadousteau, Tahiti
Mikaele Oloa, Waialua, Oahu
Lopeti Tu’ua, Lahaina, Maui
Viavia “VJ” Tiumalu Jr., Orlando, Florida
Chesrveigh “Jessie” Usiel, Guam

See a sampling of my pictures that will be posted on the Polynesian Cultural Center’s Samoan World Fireknife Championship web site, http://www.polynesia.com/fireknife/fire.html . . . and at http://www.polynesia.com/blog (more…)