Thoughts from a Paramount Chief

Te’o Anthony describes the relationship between the ali’i | paramount chief and the tulāfale | orator chief.

Te’o Anthony: You have high chiefs, or ali’is, and then you have your sa’os, which are the paramount chiefs, or the head of the family, a clan, and then you’ve got your tulafales, which are the talking chiefs, the orators.

My two chief titles that I hold dear to myself is Fuiali’i which is an ali’i title, as well as Te’o. It was given to me in 2016. The title Te’o is one of the highest titles in the village of Vaie’e.

No matter where you travel as a Samoan, you always take your culture with you. O lou tu, o lou savali, o lou tautala: the way you stand, the way you walk, the way you talk, the way you sit. Everything has a way. There are Samoan ways and there are western ways.

There is a Samoan proverb that says the birds of the air are fed by the fruits of the tree, but the children of men are fed by words, and it’s those words that give you the principles and values and the standards or what we call Fa’asāmoa, which is the Samoan way of doing life in general.

[The] tulāfale needs to be able to represent the family in a positive light, serve the family, have a good heart. A lot of people think that being a chief is someone that can speak well. To me a chief is someone that can walk the talk because a crafty chief is you know, is valuable within a family because he has a role to play and he’s a mouthpiece. You cannot face another family without a chief, a talking chief. That is the mouthpiece of every family. So that’s what I see in a good orator—someone who has good knowledge but knowledge with wisdom. So you need a chief that has the knowledge and wisdom and also have that heart. Part of that knowledge is someone that is a very practical person in their faith because your faith is part of that wisdom.