"

 Samoa mo Samoa - Mata Usi Wikipedia -  

Samoa (i/səˈmoʊ.ə/; Samoan: Sāmoa, IPA: [ˌsaːˈmoa]), officially the Independent State of Samoa (Samoan: Malo Sa'oloto Tuto'atasi o Sāmoa), formerly known as Western Samoa, is a country encompassing the western part of the Samoan Islands in the South Pacific Ocean. Samoa announced their independence to Aotearoa - New Zealand in 1962. The main island of Samoa is Upolu, and is one of the largest islands in the Polynesian Triangle, next to Savai'i. The capital city, Apia, and Faleolo International Airport are situated on the island of Upolu.

Samoa was admitted to the United Nations on 15 December 1976.[6] The entire island group, inclusive of American Samoa, has been called “Navigators Islands” by late European explorers, who at 3000 years after Polynesia's ""Age of Navigation"" surged into an era of exploration. Before the 20th century because of the Samoans' seafaring skills, and origins of Polynesian culture,  

History Main article: History of Samoa
Many recent studies into the pre-history of Samoa has been taken up by Asia Pacific Universities, including departments in Aotearoa - New Zealand. In general public education, the Polynesian Expansion is chronologically studied in the range of 3,000 years, leading off at a Lapita site at Mulifanua during the 1970s.[8]

The origins of ""The Samoan Expansions"" are linked to the Pre-historical waves of Southeast Asian expansions which is a continued study in modern research in various scientific disciplines such as Genetics, Linguistics and Anthropology. Scientific research resides on the results that the Samoans originate from, or of, the ancient lines of Austronesian expansions and predecessors during some of the first waves expansions eastward across Southern Asia and Asia Pacific. The Lapita expansion period from Southeast Asia through Melanesia between 2,500 and 1,500 BCE is an on going Anthropological interest.[9] The Samoan origins are currently being thoroughly assessed due to new scientific evidence and carbon dating findings from 2003 and onwards.

It's theorized that intimate sociocultural and genetic ties were maintained in Pre-historical eras between the Polynesian Lapita colonies. Archaeological record supports Samoan oral History and Genealogy that indicate inter-island exploration, war, colonization, and eras of Monarchal ties between ancient Samoans, Tongans, Fijians, and in Eastern Polynesia orders - Ali'i.

 
Studio photo depicting preparation of the Samoa 'ava ceremony c. 1911. 
Interior of Samoan house, Apia, Urville 1842.At the final arrival of western exploration in the early 18th century. Jacob Roggeveen (1659–1729), a Dutchman, was the first documented to sight the Samoan islands in 1722. This visit was followed by another western explorer Louis-Antoine de Bougainville (1729–1811), who named them the Navigator Islands in 1768. Contact was limited before the 1830s which is when missionaries and traders began seeking relations with Samoan orders.

Religious missions were cautious in Samoa which began in the late 1830's by John Williams, of the London Missionary Society arriving in Sapapali'i from The Cook Islands and Tahiti.[10] According to Barbara A. West, another western author seeking interests of readers, ""The Samoans were also known to engage in “headhunting,” a practice invoked in ancient Samoan warfare, in which a warrior took the head of his slain opponent to give to his leader, thus taking his Mana.""[11] By that time, the Samoans had gained a reputation of being savage and warlike from a famously published French journal of the times, which insued panic during that time, and a wonder of Samoan invasion. The violent altercations had occurred between a village of Samoa and a French expedition [La Perouse Expedition], who had lost almost the entire crew leaving the expedition adrift, over a French sailor direspecting a Samoan woman.

Later expeditions by the British, German, and American forces, who by the late nineteenth century understood the invaluble oceanic position of Samoan trade, sought it's cooperation in resupply and refueling for coal-fired shipping and whaling.

 
Wilhelm Solf, German governor of Samoa 1900-1910 
Mata'afa Iosefo (1832-1912) paramount chief & rival for the kingship of SamoaThe Germans in particular began to show great academic and commercial interest in Samoa, especially on the island of 'Upolu where German firms established trade with Samoa in copra and cocoa bean processing; the United States rushed into the new Pacific international trade and formed alliances with Samoan orders, be it the Chiefs, High Chiefs of the public, or with the current anointed Monarch. Most intuitively, the American government established their strongest relations on the islands of legend, Tutuila and Manu'a, (which later became a