page_title: Savaiʻi
section_title: Society and culture
hierarchical_section_title: Savaiʻi / Society and culture
caption_attribution_description: English: Two men in a canoe (paopao) fishing in Samoa.
context_page_description: Savaiʻi is the largest and highest island in Samoa and the Samoan Islands chain. The island is the sixth largest in Polynesia, behind the three main islands of New Zealand and the Hawaiian Islands of Hawaii and Maui.
  The island of Savaiʻi is also referred to by Samoans as Salafai, a classical Samoan term used in oratory and prose. The island is home to 43,142 people who make up 24% of the country's population.
  The only township and ferry terminal is Salelologa, the main entry point to the island, situated at the east end of Savaiʻi. A tar sealed road serves as the one main highway, connecting most of the villages with local buses reaching most settlements.
  Savaiʻi is made up of six itūmālō. Each district is made up of villages with strong traditional ties of kinship, history, land and matai chief titles. There is also some limited ecotourism development which operates mostly within the villages. The Mau, Samoa's non-violent movement for political independence during colonialism in the early 1900s, had its beginnings on Savaiʻi with the Mau a Pule movement.
  The island is the largest shield volcano in the South Pacific with recent eruptions in the early 1900s.
context_section_description: Faʻa Samoa, the unique traditional culture and way of life in Samoan society, remains strong in Savaiʻi where there are fewer signs of modern life and less development than on the island of Upolu where the capital Apia is situated.
  Samoan society is communal and based on extended family relationships and socio-cultural obligations, so that kinship and genealogies are important. These faʻa Samoa values are also associated with concepts of love (alofa), service (tautua) to family and community, respect (faʻaaloalo) and discipline (usitaʻi). Most families are made up of a number of different households situated close to each other.
  Like the rest of Samoa, Savaiʻi is made up of villages with most of the land collectively owned by families or ʻaiga. Most people on Savaiʻi, 93% of the island population, live on customary land. The heads of the family are called matai, the holders of family names and titles. An extended family can have a number of chiefs with different chief titles. Men and women in Samoa have equal rights to chief titles which are bestowed by consensus of the extended family. Traditionally, male and female roles are defined by labours and tasks, chiefly status and age. Women play an important role contributing to family decisions as well as village governance. Elders are revered and respected. Social relationships are dictated by cultural etiquettes of politeness and common greetings.
  The Samoan language has a 'polite' and formal variant used in Samoan oratory and ceremony as well as in communication with elders, guests, people of rank and strangers. In all villages, the majority of people are largely sustained by plantation work and fishing with financial assistance from relatives working in Apia or overseas.
  Most people live in coastal villages although there are some settlements inland such as the villages of Aopo, Patamea and Sili.
  Behind the villages are cultivated plantations with crops of taro, cocoa koko, coconuts popo, yams palai, ʻava, fruit and vegetables as well other native plants such as pandanus for weaving ʻie toga fine mats and bark for tapa cloth.
  There is a church in every village, mostly Christian denominations. Sunday is sacred and a day of rest as 98% of Samoans identify themselves as religious. White Sunday is one of the most important days of the year in Samoa when children are treated with special attention by their families and community.
caption: Two men fishing from canoe, 1914
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