Samoa is recognized as the center of Polynesia, from where people migrated eastward to the Marquesas, southward to Niue and the Pukapuka islands of Rarotonga, and northward to the Tokelau and Tuvalu island groups ; in all these islands, oral tradition is maintained of ancestral voyages from the Samoan islands.

Samoan oral tradition generally recognizes that two Fijian women, Taema and Tilafaiga, introduced the practice of tattooing.

Bestowal of the highly reverential title " Malietoa " marked a period in Samoan history.

The Samoan people are a Polynesian ethnic group of the Samoan Islands, sharing genetics, language, history and culture.

Classification of Rotuman is difficult due to the large number of loan words from Samoan and Tongan, as a result of much cultural exchange over the history of the Pacific.

Queen Salamasina is perhaps the most famous female figure in all of Samoan social history.

Her reign is notable in Samoan history for its absence of warfare and many Samoans today feel pride in tracing their ancestry to Queen Salamasina.

The Samoan government disagreed, however in 2007 the UN Economic and Social Council endorsed the recommendation, setting Samoa's graduation date for 31 December 2010.

In reality, however, the Mau was built upon the traditional forms of Samoan political organisation.

The Samoan Gangster Party, however, never got in the ring or confronted Fatu before he was repackaged and the whole angle was dropped.

This approximation is based on the so-called " Lapita " pottery that has been dated to that time ; it is possible, as the natives suggest, however, that the Samoan Islands were in fact settled some time prior to 1000 BC and that the original settlement actually predates the arrival of those to whom the pottery was culturally relevant.

Classes are taught in English, however all students also take part in a Samoan language programme.

Formal Samoan has only one word with velar ; colloquial Samoan conflates and to.

This was a surprise because previously there had been only lexicostatistical studies, which squarely suggested a " West Polynesian " group composed of at least Tongan and Samoan and that an " East Polynesian " group was equally distant from both Tongan and Samoan.

However, when a dissident Samoan matai ( chief ) exceeded the limits of his considerable tolerance, Solf stepped in assertively, pronouncing that “... there was only one government in Samoa ,” and it was him.

In old Samoa only chiefs could keep such birds as pets, and early European sailors noticed tethered and / or caged swamphens treated by Samoan chiefs as tamed pets.

In 2008 an analysis, of basic vocabulary only, from the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database is contradictory in that while in part it suggests that Tongan and Samoan form a subgroup, the old subgroups Tongic and Nuclear Polynesian are still included in the classification search of the database itself.

The Mau no longer trusted New Zealand police, and this fear only got worse after a 16 year old un-armed Samoan was shot and killed while running away from a marine, whose excuse he thought the boy was going to throw a stone was accepted as an adequate defence and no charges were laid.

It was aboard her that Hood experienced the Samoan Hurricane in which Calliope was the only survivor of seven foreign warships in Apia Harbour.

Endemic birdlife found only on Savai ' i include endangered species Samoan White-eye ( Zosterops samoensis ) found in the high cloud forests and alpine scrub around Mt Silisili, and Samoan Moorhen ( Gallinula pacifica ), which was last recorded in 1873 near Aopo with possible sightings in 1984 and 2003.

The Palolo Reef Worm ( Eunice viridis ) is a Samoan cuisine delicacy which appear in the ocean only one day of the year.

Now called Umaga, the same name of the final and most painful part of the Samoan tattooing process, meaning " the end ", he was depicted as a destructive savage who could only be controlled by his manager, Armando Alejandro Estrada.

Hayes and Cox beat the Samoan Swat Team for the titles once again on October 15, but this time they only held the gold for two days before they lost it back to the SST.

The Samoan Swat Team made their pay-per-view debut at AWA SuperClash III, the first ( and only ) PPV that the American Wrestling Association ever presented.

This is the only site in Samoa where decorated Lapita sherds have been found, although pieces of Polynesian plainware ceramics are commonly found throughout the Samoan islands.

With only one rifle between them, they were soon overrun by pursuing Mataafan Samoan forces ; both officers died on the spot.

The maulu ' ulu is a group dance performed by female counterparts only, also the taualuga is the main Samoan traditional dance that is performed by a village prince ( manaia ) or village princess ( taupou ).

In 2006, 21. 4 % spoke Vietnamese, 4. 1 % spoke Arabic, 2. 5 % spoke Samoan and 51. 8 % spoke only English with various other minority groups speaking other languages.

Hayes and Cox would beat the Samoan Swat Team for the titles once again on October 15, 1988 but this time they only held the gold for two days before they lost it back to the SST.

The Samoan Swat Team made their Pay Per View debut at AWA Superclash III, the first ( and only ) PPV that the American Wrestling Association ever presented.

Albanian, Amharic, Arabic, Armenian, Assyrian, Auslan, Bengali, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Burmese, Cantonese, Chinese ( translation only ), Croatian, Czech, Dari, Dinka, Dutch, Filipino, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hakka ( interpreter only ), Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Khmer, Korean, Kurdish ( Kurmanji ), Kurdish ( Sorani ), Lao, Macedonian, Malay, Maltese, Mandarin, Nepali, Nuer, Oromo, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Pushto, Romanian, Russian, Samoan, Serbian, Sinhalese, Slovak, Somali, Spanish, Swahili, Tamil, Tetum ( interpreter only ), Thai, Tigrinya, Tongan, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Vietnamese.

The Tripartite Convention of 1899 partitioned the Samoan Islands into two parts: the eastern island group became a territory of the United States ( the Tutuila Islands in 1900 and officially Manu ' a in 1904 ) and is today known as American Samoa ; the western islands, by far the greater landmass, became known as German Samoa after Britain vacated all claims to Samoa and accepted termination of German rights in Tonga and certain areas in the Solomon Islands and West Africa.

: The word traveled swiftly, up and down the coast, and by nightfall the downtown streets were crowded with people who had come from as far away as South Point and the Waipio Valley to see for themselves if the rumor was really true-that Lono had, in fact, returned in the form of a huge drunken maniac who dragged fish out of the sea with his bare hands and then beat them to death on the dock with a short-handled Samoan war club.

The oldest date so far from prehistoric remains in the Samoan Islands has been calculated from archaeology in Samoa to a likely true age of circa 1, 050 BCE from a Lapita site at Mulifanua wharf on Upolu island.

Its team, the Pacific Islanders, is drawn from the best Fijian, Tongan and Samoan players, and created far more interest on their inaugural 2004 tour than any of the three nations could have hoped to individually.

Oral traditions trace Samoan ancestry back to pre-history.

Losi then stole a slip of taro plant and smuggled it back to earth, where it became a staple of Samoan diet.

With his back to the police calling for peace he was shot in the back ; another Samoan who rushed to help him was shot in both legs while cradling his head.

Glasgow came into this season off the back of a record equaling 5th place the previous season, and having bolstered their squad over the summer with big names such as Pumas ' fullback Bernardo Stortoni and Samoan winger Lome Fa ' atau, but struggled in the early rounds due to missing key players to the RWC in France.

Rikishi admitted injuring Austin, claiming that he had done so in order to allow his cousin The Rock to achieve stardom, insisting that Buddy Rogers, Bruno Sammartino, Bob Backlund, Hulk Hogan, and Austin-" The Great White Hope "-had always been pushed over Samoan performers such as High Chief Peter Maivia and Jimmy " Superfly " Snuka, who he believed had been held back, this turned Rikishi heel in the coming weeks.

John Williams ' remains were sought by a group from Samoa and his bones were brought back to Samoa, where throngs of the LMS mission attended a funeral service attended by Samoan royalty, high ranking chiefs and the LMS missionaries.

Nu ' u Fa ' aola ( born January 15, 1964 in Honolulu, Hawai ' i ) is a former running back of Samoan ancestry who played in the National Football League from 1986 to 1989.