Samoa

Samoa takes in the western half of the Samoan archipelago: two volcanic islands, Upolu and Savaiʻi, with small isles between them. On Savaiʻi, lava fields mark where Matavanu erupted from 1905 to 1911, burying villages but leaving a church standing in black rock, and at Alofaaga waves blast seawater through lava tubes into blowholes. At the end of 2011 Samoa skipped a day, moving west of the date line to share a working week with Australia and New Zealand.

Polynesian ancestors settled the islands nearly three millennia ago, and the London Missionary Society arrived in 1830. Germany, Britain and the United States vied for control until a hurricane wrecked German and American warships at Apia in March 1889; in 1899 Germany took the west and the Americans the east. Robert Louis Stevenson died at Vailima in 1894. Under New Zealand, which seized German Samoa in 1914, influenza brought ashore in 1918 killed about a fifth of the people. Independence came in January 1962.

Faʻa Samoa rests on the ʻaiga, the extended family, whose matai hold its titles and sit in the village fono. Men’s tatau, the peʻa, runs from waist to knee; women wear the lighter malu on the thighs. After church on Sundays, families eat from the umu, an oven of hot stones, with palusami, taro leaves baked in coconut cream. Money sent from New Zealand, Australia and American Samoa supports many households, alongside taro, coconuts, nonu juice, fishing and tourism.