Thousands Bid Farewell to Fallen Church Elder in Grand Samoan Style

One choir already had crowded into the tiny First Samoan United Church of Christ in Santa Ana. Another choir waited patiently in an air-conditioned bus across the street. A third was due to arrive any moment.

“We’re going to have one choir sing, then file out to make room for the next. We just don’t have that much room inside,” said Irene Elizarraraz, daughter of the Rev. Tauvaa Sagiao, 68, who died of cancer Aug. 8 and whose memorial service Sunday drew so much attention.

More than 3,000 people were expected to pay their respects to Sagiao, one of two elders for the Congregational Church of Samoa in the United States, during three days of services.

Weeklong Wake

And they were going to do it in grand Samoan style.

Since Tuesday, the family and church have been hosts to a weeklong wake including feasts expected to be completed tonight after Sagiao’s burial at Westminster Memorial Park.

More than $100,000 from the church and families has been spent on the feasts and ceremonies, and additional sums were spent on travel and lodging, said a church source.

One store in Garden Grove--Strickland Brothers Food Market--supplied $50,000 worth of food, including 300 barrels of salted beef, 250 sacks of Taro root, 80 cases of chicken legs, 40 cases of whole chickens, 40 cases of biscuits, 10 cases of corned beef from New Zealand and 500 loaves of Samoan bread.

Final Feast Tonight

The feast is expected to end tonight after a 10 a.m. graveside service at the memorial park.

Visiting church delegates included the Rev. Elder Sapolu, chairman of the Congregational Christian Church from Samoa, and some of the other seven elders from Samoa, New Zealand and Australia, who had joined Sagiao on the the church’s nine-member worldwide board.

More than 50% of all Samoan Christians are members of the Samoan Congregational Church. There are 90,000 Samoans on the West Coast and about 15,000 in Hawaii. About 33,800 live in American Samoa in the Pacific Ocean, according to 1984 population figures.

“Since my father was only one of two elders in the United States, many, many Samoans want to honor his passing,” Elizarraraz said.

Samoans from more than 20 churches in Southern California, including Pentecostal, Seventh-Day Adventist, Congregational and others, had sent word they would attend Sunday’s service, which was expected to last until midnight.

People began arriving an hour before the 11 a.m. service. Because of the overflow, a second service was held at 4 p.m.

Sagiao had been pastor of the 200-member First Samoan United Church of Christ in Santa Ana since 1969, according to his son, Ernest Sagiao.

Sagiao’s family noted that the last ceremony of this size was in 1973, when the church in Santa Ana was formally dedicated.

Grand Celebration

Traditionally, such grand celebrations held by Samoans are reserved for the inauguration of a new church, succession of a new chief, formal meetings between villages and major funerals or marriages.

The most important part of the ceremony is the passing of “fine mats,” which were the equivalent of money in Samoa, the family said. “The most treasured treasure of Samoans,” said High Talking Chief Vae Tagaloa.

Mats are handmade--and only in Samoa--of banana leaves, stripped thin, dried and woven tightly. The degree of fineness increases a mat’s value, and the finest may take two years to make. When completed, the mats look like dried woven grass, but with a bright line of parakeet feathers running along the bottom.

For Sagiao’s ceremony about 3,000 of the mats were expected to be made for the church.

Sagiao is survived by his wife, Elsie, six sons and two daughters; 28 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.