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The Tufuga’s fale tele : constructing social relations in the samoan built environment

University of British Columbia

Social structure is an important influence on the arrangement and construction of the traditional fale tele (guest house) in Western Samoa. Architecture and constructed spaces are physical manifestations and expressions of culturally defined social structures and cosmologies. Social relationships are also defined by constructed space. In Samoa, social status and relationships are manifested in the fale tele (round guest house). In this thesis, I examine the spatial orientation of the traditional fale tele in the family compound and the idealized Samoan village, and how these constructions reflect the traditional social structure and ordering of the community. One of the most important and ritually defined relationships, between the commissioning taufale (owner of house) and the tufuga fa'ifale (Master Carpenter), is created and defined by the construction of a fale tele. I discuss the ways in which the most ritualized use of the fale tele, for the fono (village council), is defined by the constructed space of the tufuga'?, fale tele. I also discuss how significant social changes over the last fifty years have impacted and been incorporated into the built environment.

Thesis/Dissertation

application/pdf

2009-06-15

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/9204

Anthropology

University of British Columbia

UBCV

DSpace