History of Samoa who brought the tools necessary to create the art of tatau, or in English tattoo, whence came the traditional Samoan "malofie" (also known as "pe'a" for men and as "malu" for women). The foundation of the cultural tradition of Samoa, or the fa'asamoa came with the rise of the warrior queen Nafanua. Her rule instituted traditions of the fa'amatai or local family and village and regional chiefly systems, a decentralized system. Her niece Salamasina continued under this system and their time is considered a golden age of Samoan cultural traditions. For a long period, a Tongan aristocracy ruled in Samoa.
Tonga emigration of several hundred Chinese so that only about 300 remain. The Tongan language is the official language, along with English. Tongan, a Polynesian language, is closely related to Wallisian (Uvean), Niuean, Hawaiian, and Samoan. Although nominally a secular state, the Free Wesleyan Church of Tonga is the established religion in the state. It is the world's only state church in the Methodist tradition of Protestantism, although only one-third of the island's population adheres to it. In 1928, Queen Salote Tupou III, who was a member of the church, established the Free Wesleyan Church as the state religion of Tonga.