Flying fox in a freedom tree

Weekender

By STEVEN WINDUO
FLYING Fox in a Freedom Tree (1974) is the first collection of short stories by the Samoa writer, Albert Wendt. It is the first single collection of short stories to be published by a Pacific Islander in the early period of literary bloom across the Pacific, starting at the University of Papua New Guinea and later at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji.
The book is dedicated to Wendt’s grandmother, Mele Tuaopepe, the greatest storyteller in his life. Since that book Wendt went on to write great stories of Samoa and Samoans at home and in diaspora in New Zealand and around the world.
Albert Wendt is the single most influential Samoan and Pacific Islander author of our times. He is among the greatest in the literary world and the giant in Pacific Islands literary landscape.
I first read Wendt’s Flying Fox in a Freedom Tree in 1978 in the year I started Grade 7 at St. Xaviers High School, on Kairiru Island. Wendt was among the pioneer writers of the 1970s that I came to read early in my life.
It turned out I was to meet Wendt at UPNG after I had just completed my BA degree in Literature; studying all of his novels and poems and remaining inspired to write like him. Wendt visited UPNG at the invitation of the Waigani Seminar Organizing Committee.
Over the years I came to know Albert Wendt more and respected him as a senior mentor and leader to many of us. I had read alongside him on a number of literary events and we also remain in contact with each other, thanks to the Facebook social network.
The Samoa I have mentally constructed based on Wendt’s novels was different to the reality that I experienced on three separate visits to Samoa. Samoa is experienced the moment one arrives in Faleolo International Airport.
The first impression to hit me during the drive from the airport to Apia city central is the coexistence of traditional Samoan villages together with modern western styles and themes of architecture. The most noticeable is the competition between villages to build their own churches. The villages are neat and well marked by their freedom of bold expression of themselves as a village.
There are no spiked fences or fenced-off villages. There is no need for such expressions of fear of violent criminal behavior. The Samoan society is based on a powerful traditional authority known as the Matai system, which enforces its own rules so that there is no need for a modern police system. Everyone respects the matai system and fears the decisions made within it. The system is intricately connected to the Church system, making it difficult for disobedience and dishonor of the family and clan becoming a norm.
If someone has wronged in the Samoan system he or she must quickly seek forgiveness and correct the wrong as soon as possible before the Matai Council intervenes. Once the wrongdoer is banished from the aiga or clan that person cannot be accepted back in. Shame and ridicule to family is a result of someone’s actions in violation of the rules of the society.
The houses or fale of each village are open with no walls and rooms. During the night people can stay up and walk around until late hours without the fear of violence and criminal activities. Samoa is a free country. People respect each other and honor their traditions and identity as Samoans.
In the central business district of Apia a competition between the different churches is visible. The SDA and the LMS are competing with the Catholic Church in Apia. The Apia Catholic cathedral is one of the most incredible churches I have ever seen. Its interior designs are so unique because it blends traditional designs with modern Christian themes.
There was something familiar about Apia that I kept trying to grasp. It was more to do with the natural landscapes. It was a feeling that I have been to a similar place sometime, somewhere. A deja vu kind of experience.
Then it dawned on me that Apia reminds me of Wewak, East Sepik. A view from the Apia waterfront against the mountain backdrop is strikingly similar to the view one has when in in Wewak and looking towards the Prince Alexander mountain ranges.
Then again, perhaps it’s the vivid details in Wendt’s stories that I was trying to match with reality.
“A hot sun is coming through the windows on to the foot of my bed. Though the window I see the plain on which this hospital stands, dropping down to the ravine, and on the other side the land rises up through taro and banana patches and mango and tamaligi trees to palms at the top of the range. Further up the range, Robert Louis-Stevenson is buried there. (If my novel is as good as Stevenson’s Treasure Island, I will be satisfied),” a passage from the story ‘Flying Fox in a Freedom Tree’ reinforces Wendt’s ability to describe the landscape in detail.
Fiction versus reality is what I was experiencing. I felt in place with the reality of Apia, but still felt out of place with the fictional reality of the place because it was pre-constructed in my head through reading of Wendt’s books.
I also was thinking of Apia through the mind of Sia Figiel, the first female Samoan novelist to win the Commonwealth Writers Prize with her novel Where we once belonged. Recently Figiel has published a new novel, Free Love, which some of us read before its publication. Figiel’s other books are: The Girl in a Moon Circle and To a Young Artist in Contemplation.
If suicide is described in the image of a Flying Fox in a Freedom Tree, then it becomes clear that strict observation of rules and manners of conduct in Samoan society leaves no room for misbehaviour or disrespect of elders and others.