Faafafine Performing at Pasifika Festival 2007

The Samoan "village" at the Pasifika Festival in Auckland in March 2007 was by far the biggest of them all. No wonder, since the Samoan community is the largest non-indigenous Polynesian community in Auckland. (The Pasifika Festival, by the way, features the Polynesian races of the south Pacific island, and does not include the Polynesian natives of New Zealand, the Maoris.

As mentioned in the previous post, Fa'afafine at the Pasifika Festival 2007, fa'afafine are cross-dressing Samoan males. They took the stage at the Samoan village before a very large crowd. This photo is of one of the fa'afafine performing with her group.

Faafafine at the Pasifika Festival 2007

Fa'afafine (fah-fa-fee-neh) is a Samoan word that translates literally as "like a woman" and describes males who identify as female.

I can't find much information on fa'afafine on the web at all, but Wikipedia's entry on fa'afafine states: "Fa'afafine fall in the general and vague category called transgender...They are often sexually attracted to non-transgender men, although some decide to marry heterosexually"

A link from Wikipedia to Radio ABC Australia has a rather idealized 2005 piece on fa'afafine (Samoan boys brought up as girls)

A paucity of information on the web about fa'afafine is made up for by the ubiquity of fa'afafine in New Zealand (and I presume Samoa) whenever groups of Samoans gather for fun. I have been at barbecues in New Zealand that have evolved into impromptu shows of fa'afafine entertaining the guests with antics consisting of a combination of traditional dance and "camp" to the delight of the guests.

The Polynesian dance festival "Pasifika" which I had the pleasure of attending in Auckland this past March for the first time featured a group of fa'afafine who performed for the large crowd gathered at the Samoan village. In this photo I caught them hiding behind a tent nervously awaiting their turn on the stage.