The Samoan parsonage family: The concepts of feagaiga and tagata’ese

Contact between the indigenous peoples of the Pacific and the western world has had immense sociocultural and linguistic impacts on indigenous communities. Perhaps the major source of sociocultural and linguistic impact in the Pacific can be attributed to the arrival of Christianity. This is certainly the case for Samoa. The fusion between fa’asamoa (Samoan culture) and the lotu (church) is evidence of Christianity’s profound impact. The fusion is also evidence of the Samoan people’s unequivocal stance for cultural safeguarding. As missionaries sought to eradicate much of the Samoan beliefs system, the Samoan leaders at the time were content to construct the new doctrine around the fa’asamoa.

The highest class in the church is the faife’au (church pastor). A decade after continued missionary work in Samoa, the faife’au and his family were introduced by the missionaries, once they had deemed that the Samoan church was fit for self-governance. Today, both in Samoa and overseas, the church is structured around the Samoan indigenous political order. To some degree, the faife’au was also bestowed the highest of honorific status in Samoa. Yet the Samoan parsonage family is unique in the Samoan class structure. The aim of this article is to discuss this uniqueness by examining the feagaiga (covenant) and tagata’ese (stranger) experiences of the Samoan parsonage family. Both the feagaiga and tagata’ese concepts are fused entities that have been constructed by both the fa’asamoa and lotu. The Samoan parsonage family has been neglected in both the Pacific mainstream and theological literatures until now.