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Samoan Material Culture

Hair Ornamentation

Hair Ornamentation

The toilet of the body, and especially the hair, receives much attention. After the day's work in forest or sea, the fresh water pools or streams, where available, are in much demand. The Samoans say they cannot sleep at night if the sea salt is not removed by fresh water bathing, as it causes itching of their skin. In places like Tau where fresh water is obtained by seepage through the beach sand, holes are dug out with the hands to collect water. There the people wash and pour fresh water over the head and body with coconut shell cups.

Most people have a little toilet basket ('ato ta'ele; ta'ele, to bathe) in which is carried the soap or its Samoan equivalent and the husk of a particular kind of coconut with a soft fibre. (17, p. 28). The soap material consists of the page 620leaves of the toi (Alphitonia) and the fisoa (Columbrina asiatica) which form a lather. The body and head are lathered and rubbed with the coconut fibre which is termed pulu ta'ele. The leaves are also rubbed against stones (ma'a tamea) to produce the lather. In addition to leaves, oranges and limes are now much in favor for washing the hair.

A clay (u'u), found in the beds of streams, is also used with fresh water as a soap and often left on the head for some time.

Chewed preparations (tuitui) of candlenut kernels, with orange leaves was rubbed into the hair to scent it. The term tuitui is now applied to any chewed preparation used for a similar purpose, such as ifiifi seeds (Parinarium) mixed with coconut oil and langaali. The bulbs of the mumuta are also chewed to form a tuitui.

Coconut oil (lolo), usually scented with sweet smelling leaves or flowers, was much used for rubbing into the hair and over the body after the bath, when the person had returned to the house to don a change of garment. In all dances of the siva posturing type, coconut oil was rubbed over the body so that the dancer entered the arena with the body gleaming with the wet oil.

The oil was prepared from the meat of the mature nut, grated and exposed to the sun. Leaves and flowers could be bruised and broken up with it. After sufficient exposure to make the oil run, the nut material was placed in a to wringer similar to that used in expressing the 'o'a dye from the scraped bark of the 'o'a tree. The wringer which, from its specific use in this instance, is termed to tau lolo was twisted with the usual pole and the oil ran down into a wooden bowl placed below. The oil, if already scented, was stored in coconut shells and corked. If not scented, the scenting material could be added to the prepared oil.

Lime (namu) from coral blocks burnt over a fire in a pit has been largely in use for mission houses and similar types of introduced buildings. The use of lime, however, as a mixture for plastering over the hair is ancient. It was the correct head covering in mullet netting and bonito fishing. On land, protection from the fierce sun in the hot season was obtained from the shelter of the houses and the shade of trees. The Samoan works usually in the early mornings and has a strong objection to exposing his body to the heat of the noonday sun. He is up and away attending to his duties while foreigners are still in bed. When the latter rouse to their activities, the Samoan returns from his plantation and sleeps during the period of heat. The higher culture is thus apt to wrongly accuse the Samoans of laziness as tourists and journalists see them during their resting period and not during the hours that centuries of tropical experience have laid down as the sensible period for physical page 621exertion. An appreciation of the amount of work done in the early morning in the plantations and the hours devoted to fishing in the evening and at night can only be formed by those who have lived in a Samoan village and shared its normal routine. In the forests, the belated worker obtains protection if needed by making wreaths of creepers and leaves. The Samoan, therefore, never invented an everyday form of head cover because probably his need was never acute enough. For the greater exposure in the waters of the lagoon and out at sea, when special fish seasons caused him to leave the houses during the warm part of the day, lime formed his only substitute for a hat. On land, shelter could be usually obtained for the work that had to be continued through the midday hours. Thus the guild of carpenters demanded a shelter shed in building either a canoe or a house. Those, however, working on the frame of the new house could not avail themselves of the shelter of the shed and they also had recourse to lime as a head covering. Lime was thus of practical use as well as ornamental. Some writers have stated that lime was used to bleach the hair and to kill parasites. Such uses are subsidiary to the main use of protection from heat when needed.

Dressing the hair. The women wore their hair short; the men kept their's long. After cutting, the women kept their hair short by singeing the ends with lighted bark. Besides using the pomades described and lime, women also stiffened their hair with breadfruit gum (pulu). After the use of pomades and lime, washing with limes helped to change the hair color to a brown which was greatly desired. Turner (41, p. 122) says the women wore a small twisted lock in a curl with the end lying on the left temple. Stair (33, p. 121), says there were seven different styles of dressing women's hair, denoted by the frontlets and the preparations used. These include the use of breadfruit gum and the clay pomade. The tutangi ta method, restricted to virgins, consisted of shaving the middle of the head from the front backwards and allowing the hair on the sides to grow long and hang loosely over the shoulders.

For men, the hair was cut or trimmed by regular attendants (songa) who acted as chiefs' valet and barber, besides cup bearer, trumpeter, and messenger. The songa used hinged cockle shells as forceps for pulling out the hairs of the beard. The thick fibres of coconut husk are also used by making an open overhand knot and closing it over a single hair by pulling the ends. The hair is then jerked out. Both processes were slow and painful. The beard was also shaved off with sharks' teeth. The hairs growing from the inside of the nostrils were also plucked. The long hair was tied in a knot called fonga and worn usually a little to the right side of the crown. It could, however, be worn to the front, back, or sides, as fashion directed. Stair (33, p. 120) states that there were 12 different combinations each distinguished by a name denoting the position of the fonga. Young men occasionally cut their hair page 622short with a small twisted lock hanging down onto the breast from either temple.

The body, besides being rubbed with coconut oil was, on occasions, rubbed with turmeric. In death ceremonials, when the turmeric kept for a father by his children (lenga o le matua) was handed out to the mourners, they proceeded to rub themselves with it.

Flowers worn through the hair or over the ear are termed sei.

Ribands. The white, silky looking material obtained from the outer surface of the young inner leaves of the coconut in long riband-like strips is tied in bunches to a piece of coconut leaflet midrib to form the ornament sei milamila which is stuck in the hair.