Tulafono and The Pigs That Follow

Tulafono and The Pigs That Follow

 

Tulafono is Samoan for rules.  Each time a major rule is broken in the village there are two Matai meetings.  The first one is to decide upon the fine, and the second is for the person to pay the fine. 

Last week there was a Matai meeting because there was another rape in the village.  It might have been an attempted rape, I did not find out all of the details and was not in the village for the day of the fining, so I am not sure of the outcome.  I just know the young girl, and hope she is doing okay emotionally.  In such a small village, I am amazed and upset about how often this kind of thing happens in such a small village.

The next  meeting for a different case was yesterday.  A woman about 40 years of age in my village called her boyfriend to come over one night.  He got caught over, and they were both fined.  She was fined 50 large pigs, or the equivalent, which could be cases of food.  He was fined 150 large pigs. 

My sister told me that if a man was caught coming over to me, he would probably be fined 200 pigs. 

I have heard about people sneaking over in the middle of the night, and I thought it was because of the shame of being caught, I did not realize there were actual rules against it. 

Thinking about universities across America, I can’t imagine how many pigs people would owe if they were under the same strict rules.