Ie Sina – a lost Samoan art

Quick Samoan language lesson: Ie means sheet or a piece of fabric, like a mat.

Sina, can either be short for sinasinā, which is a respectful way to refer to something white, for example:

“Ua sinasinā le ulu a le lo’omatua”

…means, “The old lady’s hair is now white.”

OR, sina could be short for the word measina, which is what Samoans call our sacred cultural treasures.

First Encounter

I was back of house at the Melbourne Museum a few years ago, browsing their hidden Pasifika collection, when I first saw this shaggy woven mat.

This is Samoan? I asked.

Yes, came the reply… and apparently, when a group of Samoan community elders visited a few weeks earlier, they gasped and shed a few tears at the rare sight of this long lost treasure.

The mat I saw then was reddish-brown, and they had another one that was smokey-grey, almost black.

It was only when I saw this white one (pictured) at the Auckland War Memorial Museum Tamaki Paenga Hira, that I heard people referring to it as an ie sina.

Given the colour of this ie, both possible meanings of sina apply.

When I first wrote this post in 2019, I said:

“Sadly, none of the museum scholars is a hundred percent sure what this type of woven art is actually called. . .We have no record or documentation to confirm any other uses of these.. let’s just call this an ie.”

Well, I have since read a book :)…probably the most authoritative series of books on Samoan anthropology and culture that we have so far: The Samoan Islands (1903) by German ethnographer Augustin Kraemer.

In any case, Volume II of The Samoan Islands, called Material Culture, taught me a lot about this shaggy woven mat.

The name of this shaggy mat

In Samoa’s material culture, we have several kinds of mats, but they can be divided into two general categories: mats that have a general, household function – like mats that we use to cover hard floors – and dress mats.

Dress mats are a lot more intricately crafted and are used, not just as ceremonial clothing, but also for ritual gifting.

Back in the late 1800s when The Samoan Islands book was first compiled, we recognized two main types of dress mat:

Ie tōga

and

Ie sina

So yes.

That pretty much confirms that this shaggy mat is called ie sina, and because it comes in colours other than white, the sina part of its name most likely refers to it being a sacred cultural treasure.

What the ie sina were used for

As mentioned above, ie sina were used as clothing, usually ceremonial, but only for the most elite of us.

These privileged Samoans also used ie sina as sleeping mats, especially on wedding nights, when it became the ie o le pō (the mat of the night) and served to “absorb the blood of the immaculate maiden,” says Kraemer.

As with the more common ie tōga, we also exhchanged ie sina during cultural ceremonies, such as weddings and funerals, and as an imporatant part of a high ranking bride’s dowry.

How the ie sina was made

Sadly, Samoans stopped making the ie sina a century ago, and no one I spoke to knows why.

Our ie tōga take a lot of skill and time to create. Could making these old, ie sina be even more complicated and time consuming?

Kraemer helps shed some light on this.

While they look like a wooly animal coats, we know that the ie sina is actually made from the inner bark of various shrubs we call fau, which are related to the hibiscus.

These fau include faupata (Cypholophus macrocephalus) and fausogā (of pipturus species), which is a kind of mulbury.

We actually had four kinds of ie sina:

The white one… which was likely known as si’aloa
The red one… which was dyed with soil
The fuipani mat… which was smeared in mud and coconut oil for royalty to dance in, and
The fau (bast) mat… made of brown fibres of inner bark

Regardless of colour, all our ie sina began life the same way:

First, the inner bark was stripped and scraped with a pipi shell then laid out to dry in the sun. Once dry, the fibres were split into threads and plaited (woven).

This process took at least a couple of months not just because the weaving was difficult, but also because so much bark (bast) was needed.

An excerpt from The Samoan Islands, Vol II: Material Culture by Augustin Kraemer

After the weaving phase, the mat was alternately washed in sea water then dried in the sun, then washed in fresh water, dried in the sun, then sea water again, and so forth until it was bright white.

It was only then that the mat was brushed so its ‘hairs’ were teased out to create the shaggy look… and from here, the red ie sina was dyed with soil and the fuipani mat smeared in mud.

(I’m going to assume that the fau (bast) mat was not bleached in the sea, as it kept its original brown colour.)

A possible revival

Even with this explanation provided by Kraemer, it’s kind of difficult to really picture how ie sina were made – what kind of plaiting (weaving) is used? What materials are needed other than a scraping shell and dexterous fingers? etc.

I know that a Samoan lady out here in Auckland is trying to figure it out, but as of a couple years ago, she wasn’t having much luck. I hope she’s still working on it!

Do you know of anyone else who might be trying to revive this artform?

In any case, these ie sina give us a stunning glimpse back into the lives of our Samoan ancestors. I’m so grateful for the museums around the world who make the effort to lovingly document and preserve our cultural treasures for us.

What can you help us learn about the ie sina?

Please share your knowledge in the comments below.