We need many more songs of our measina a Samoa and especially those songs that preserve those traditions that are now hard to find. I went looking for U'a or the Mulberry tree and found it in Mulifanua from a lady called Logotaeao Tipa from Tutuila who was visiting there.
She graced me by allowing me to take photos for an upcoming book and also she gave us (my mother was there too) some u'a plants from their garden there. What's so sad is that there aren't many of those u'a plants planted like they used to plant.
It's been a blessing to be here with my mum as she encourages me to still keep looking into these topics of things that were abundant in her upbringing in Samoa but that have now become almost extinct as the younger generation take to other priorities like IT Information Technology, western paradigms and away from cultural measina.
I hope that my undertakings through books, social media platforms and talanoa can somehow aid to preserving and stemming the tide and encouraging a dialogue on the important of protecting our cultural measina and then passing it onto the next generations...
No comments:
Post a Comment