Modesty and Christianity

What is it about going to church that makes all the people in our family suddenly care about what we are wearing. As women we are often told ‘nothing too short’ or ‘nothing too revealing’ or ‘make sure it goes beyond your knees’. All of this to go into a building to ‘worship’ with others. Since when did the length of skirts = how much ‘god’ will bless you. 

Over the course of around 200 years the Pacific was converted into christianity by european missionaries sent to Oceania. Missionaries ranged from catholic, protestant, wesleyan methodist, assemblies of god, mormons to the good ol regular non denominational christians. During this time not only did they convert Pacific peoples to western religions but they also trained Pacific peoples to be missionaries. So our own people ended up traversing the great Pacific to go and convert other Pacific island nations. The introduction of christianity to the Pacific is to date one of the most successful campaigns in the history of the christian missions. 

So when the missionaries arrived in the Pacific they saw what other ‘eXpLoRErs’ saw. People with little to no clothing and what clothing did exist was purpose made (usually with leaves and natural fibres) for the culture specific to the area. So they did what they were trained to do. Teach the people about ‘modesty’ as it pertains to the bible and cover them up head to toe. The remnants of these ‘teachings’ can be found today, where men wear full on suits to church and women are covered and clothed in long mu’umu’u style dresses or long skirts with shirts that come up to their necks. In the 1820’s protestant missionaries introduced the ‘mother hubbard dress’ to Hawaii which in turn became the holokū dress and from there the mu’umu’u came about. A way to cover women up to ensure that their bodies were no longer felt or seen in all their power. 

Pre-arrival of missionaries, clothing or dressing of bodies in the Pacific was usually related to or had roots in power, social status, familial ties and personification of ancestral links. Not only this but it was also linked to submission and dominance within communities. ‘Clothing’ was not as it is seen through a western lens, rather ‘clothing’ was many things. For example skin marking, jewellery adornments, headdress, feather cloaks, tapa, paints, plant fibre adornments and so many more. Having your skin marked however carried the most mana out of all of the versions of ‘clothing’ Pacific peoples carried pre-missionary contact. So to think that our people went from all of that glory and amazing sharing of bodies to being taught that none of that was ok can be really hard to reconcile. 

The missionaries first role in ensuring ‘modesty’ was to cover the breasts of all Pacific women they came across. This was, of course, because of the bible and european standards of ‘modesty’. There was some force in this process and alongside this there was also the teachings of the bible which in turn, obviously Pacific peoples began to believe and take agency of. So it was not all Pacific women being forced to cover up, for some women they took agency over their newly taught ‘belief’ and used clothing as a way to show mana in this new society they were being shown. However it is very hard to look past this when there are so many stories of women being forced to cover up. So many stories of the violence of missionaries in ensuring our women felt shame in walking around bare breasted and shame in their bodily shapes, sizes and markings. 

One of the hardest things to talk about is how horrific the violence of missionaries was towards skin marking, particularly the LMS missionaries. There are stories of them literally cutting woman's skin off in order to remove skin marking because ‘tattooing’ was ‘evil’ and not ‘of god’. There are stories of missionaries taking young children away from their mothers for long periods of time in order to force them to do as they were told. There are stories of missionaries killing women and raping women. There are stories of women being abused in front of whole communities in order to ‘make a point’ about modesty. All of these occurrences have been embedded into the Pacific psyche whether we know it or not. Generations upon generations of Pacific peoples have been led to believe that a woman’s body is not for the consumption of anyone EXCEPT her husband. We have been led to believe that to worship ‘god’ then one must wear clothing that is of a certain length and ‘standard’. We have been led to believe that women must feel shame if other people can see their skin or their breasts or above their knees. All of this because europeans believed we were not of their ‘god’ and WE needed to be civilised and taught the ‘right way’ to act and dress and behave. 

It's hard not to see the flow on effects of this in our Pacific peoples today. Our women who have lost touch with their bodies. Our women who hate talking about periods and sex. The awkward conversations that happen in our homes when our children reach puberty. The high rates of young people having sex earlier and earlier because of the taboo around teaching within our own homes. Our Pacific men who think they own women's bodies because that is so ingrained in all the biblical teachings. The high rates of intimate partner violence within Pacific communities. Our MVPFAFF+ youth who have high rates of sexual abuse because our people are so deeply into christianity that most of the time they ignore or won’t even acknowledge those in their lives within this community. There are sooooooo many effects that are long lasting from the introduction of christianity and modesty into our ancestors and our lives. 

It is 2021 and we must begin to unpack all of these learned behaviours and ideals. We have to start having these talanoa today, in order to keep our babies and ourselves safe. ‘Modesty’ is made up, we weren’t born into that. Our people knew who we were and we knew bodies were to be worshipped, loud and proud. Let’s make our ancestors proud and move forward loving our bodies and showing our babies that it is ok to love theirs too … loud and PROUD! 

Shared with LOVE and RADICAL HOPE.

Tabu Tok

(NB: Tabu Tok believes in the decolonisation and reindigenising of language and for that reason we use a lower case ‘g’ for ‘god’, lower case c for ‘christianity’ and lower case letters for all demoninations of christianity. This is our way of reindigenising spaces that were always used to colonise us.)