Pago Pago

Samoan settlement around this harbour goes back thousands of years, and the villages on its shores were part of the chiefly world of eastern Tutuila long before Europeans arrived. The bay's shape, deep water and shelter made it valuable to nineteenth-century shipping, and it drew the attention of naval powers competing over the islands. The United States secured rights to use the harbour in 1878, and after the partition of the Samoan islands the high chiefs of Tutuila and Aunu'u ceded their islands in 1900. The harbour became Naval Station Tutuila, with a coaling station, a commissary and the buildings that still line Fagatogo.

Navy rule lasted half a century and shaped the town: the courthouse, the old commissary, the officers' housing and the roads around the bay date from it, and Samoans served in the Fita Fita Guard, a local naval unit. The harbour was also the setting of Somerset Maugham's story Rain, written after he sheltered here in 1916. In the Second World War Tutuila became a base, with marines, gun batteries above the harbour entrance and an airstrip built on the plain at Tafuna.

Administration passed to the Department of the Interior in 1951, and the navy's departure hit the town hard until tuna canneries opened on the northern shore in the 1950s and became the territory's economic engine. The harbour has since been a fishing port as much as a capital. An earthquake and tsunami in September 2009 struck the harbour villages, killing dozens of people in the territory and wrecking waterfront buildings, and warning systems and evacuation routes have been a priority ever since.

Pago Pago is not a city in the usual sense but a chain of villages around a harbour, and village institutions run local life. Each has its matai, its fono, its malae, or green, and one or more churches, and the pastor and the chiefs carry authority that the territorial government does not displace. Samoan is spoken everywhere, with English in offices and schools.

Church is the centre of the week. Congregational, Catholic, Methodist and Latter-day Saint congregations all have large buildings around the bay, choirs rehearse on weekday evenings, and Sunday morning empties the roads while the family meal after the service fills the afternoon. Most villages keep sa, when a bell or conch sounds and everyone stops for prayers.

The harbour is the natural stage for the territory's biggest occasions. Flag Day in April brings fautasi racing, the long crewed longboats that villages train for months, along with siva dancing, oratory and parades, and the water and the shore road fill with spectators. Fine mats and 'ava ceremonies mark formal events, and gifts and obligations move between families at weddings and funerals. Rugby and American football are followed intensely, and the territory sends players to college and professional teams in the United States far out of proportion to its size.

About fifteen thousand people live around the harbour, in a territory of about forty-seven thousand, and the balance has shifted west: the airport plain at Tafuna and Nu'uuli now hold the biggest shops, schools and much of the newer housing, while the harbour keeps the government offices, the port and the cannery. Families are large, households often span three generations, and many depend in part on money sent home from relatives in Hawaii, California, Washington and Utah.

Work means the tuna cannery on the northern shore, which is by far the largest private employer and ties the territory's fortunes to the fishing industry; the port, with its longline fleet and container berths; the territorial government, which employs a great many people; the hospital, schools and the community college; and shops and small businesses. A lower federal minimum wage, raised in steps, is a long-running argument about keeping canning viable.

The day starts before dawn with buses, cannery shifts and market deliveries, and ends early; shops shut in the evening and almost everything closes on Sunday. Persistent issues include the cost of imported food and fuel, power and water reliability, emigration of young people to the mainland, and rates of diabetes and heart disease linked to diet. The harbour's own condition — its water quality and the cannery's discharges — is a recurring local debate.

Everyday cooking here is Samoan: taro, breadfruit, green bananas and yam as the starches, with palusami or lu'au, young taro leaves baked in coconut cream and sometimes wrapped around corned beef, as the dish most associated with the islands. Reef fish and tuna are eaten grilled, in soup, or as oka, raw cubes marinated in coconut cream with lime, onion and chilli. Sapasui, a Samoan chop suey of glass noodles and soy-seasoned meat, and koko alaisa, rice cooked with local cocoa, are family staples.

Sunday brings a family meal cooked in an umu of hot stones and eaten after church: pork or chicken, taro, palusami and often a whole fish, with sweet buns baked in coconut cream afterwards. Market food runs to taro and breadfruit, papaya, drinking coconuts and cooked packets of palusami.

The harbour's fishing industry shows on plates. Fresh tuna is cheap and good, served as steaks or sashimi, and Korean, Chinese and Filipino restaurants around the bay reflect the crews and cannery workers who settled here. Imported tinned corned beef, or pisupo, Spam, turkey tails and mutton flaps are cheap and widespread, and are part of the reason diet-related illness is a public health concern. 'Ava is drunk in ceremony rather than socially, while koko Samoa, made from local cocoa, and imported soft drinks are the everyday drinks.