Savaiʻi

Savaiʻi holds a central place in Samoan tradition as the older island, the seat of ancient chiefly authority; its name shares a root with Hawaiki, the homeland of Polynesian tradition, although Samoans have preserved no account of having come from anywhere else. Its ancient past is visible in the stone platforms scattered through the bush, above all the great stepped mound at Pulemelei in the Letolo plantation on the south side. The island's districts held the Pule, the group of chiefly centres — Safotulafai among them — whose consent was needed to make a paramount title, giving Savaiʻi lasting weight in Samoan politics.

Christianity entered Samoa here: the London Missionary Society preacher John Williams landed at Sapapaliʻi in 1830 and was received by Malietoa Vaiinupo, after which conversion spread quickly through the islands. Under German and then New Zealand administration the island's economy turned to copra and cocoa plantations, worked from coastal villages, and in 1908 the Mau a Pule, the resistance to German rule that grew into the national Mau movement, began here.

The defining modern event was volcanic. From 1905 to 1911 Mount Matavanu erupted in the centre of the island, and its lava flows ran north over some 100 square kilometres to the sea, destroying Saleaula and other villages and burying a church; many families lost their land permanently and resettled elsewhere in Samoa or emigrated. Cyclone Ofa in 1990 and Cyclone Valerie in 1991 did extensive damage along the north and west coasts, and logging and copra declined in the decades that followed. Steady migration to Upolu, New Zealand and beyond has left the larger island with far fewer people than the smaller one.

Savaiʻi is regarded within Samoa as the stronghold of fa'a Samoa, the Samoan way. Villages are governed by the fono, the council of matai or titled chiefs, who hold family land and speak for the aiga; decisions about land, reefs, fishing and behaviour are made there rather than by any outside authority. Ceremony carries weight — the 'ava ritual, formal oratory, the presentation of fine mats at weddings, funerals and title bestowals — and much of village life is communal work, church and family obligation.

Church attendance is near-universal and the large village church is usually the biggest building for miles. Sunday is quiet: services in the morning, the family umu meal in the early afternoon, and no work or noise. The evening prayer curfew is still kept in most villages, and visitors who find themselves walking through one when the bell sounds are expected to stop and wait.

Craft traditions remain active. Women weave 'ie tōga, the fine mats that are the highest form of Samoan wealth, and make siapo from paper mulberry bark painted with natural dyes; carvers produce kava bowls and clubs. Siva dancing, choir singing and kilikiti, Samoan cricket, fill village greens at weekends, and the tattooing traditions of the pe'a and malu are maintained by master tattooists whose families have held the craft for generations.

Something over 40,000 people live on Savaiʻi, about a quarter of Samoa's population, on the larger of the country's two main islands, almost all of them in villages strung along the coast road. Salelologa, beside the ferry terminal, is the only place that functions as a town, with the market, banks, shops and the bus stand; government offices and the island's hospital stand a few kilometres north at Tuasivi.

Households live from the land and the sea. Taro, breadfruit, bananas, coconuts and cocoa grow on family plantations behind the villages, and men fish the lagoon and the drop-off outside the reef. Cash comes from produce sold at the market or shipped to Apia, from government and church salaries, from a modest tourism trade in beach fales, and above all from remittances sent by relatives in New Zealand, Australia and the United States.

The day begins at first light, work pauses in the heat of the afternoon, and families gather for evening prayers. Young people leave for Upolu or overseas for school and work, which leaves many villages weighted towards children and older people. Electricity, mobile coverage and piped water reach most of the island, but services are thinner than on Upolu, roads and jetties suffer in storms, and everything — fuel, freight, patients needing specialist care — depends on the ferry.

Food on Savaiʻi comes from the plantation, the reef and the umu, the oven of hot stones built above ground and covered with leaves. Taro, breadfruit and green bananas are the staples, served with fish, chicken or pork and dressed with coconut cream. Palusami — young taro leaves folded around coconut cream and baked in banana leaf — is the dish visitors remember, and oka, raw fish cubed and marinated in coconut cream with lime, onion and chilli, appears at almost every meal.

The Sunday umu is the week's centrepiece: it is lit early, and after church families eat taro, palusami, whole fish, chicken, fresh seaweed and, on important occasions, a whole pig. Beach fale kitchens along the north coast serve much the same food, with fruit and pancakes at breakfast.

The reef supplies edible seaweed, octopus and shellfish, and on a few nights in October or November villagers gather palolo, the rising reef worm, prized far beyond its brief season and sold at high prices in the markets. Koko Samoa, a thick drink of locally grown roasted cocoa, is the morning standard, green coconut water the everyday thirst-quencher, and 'ava is drunk in ceremony. Village shops sell imported rice, tinned fish, crackers and cordial, which now make up a large part of the everyday diet.