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.
Fa'afafine the Tongan "fakaleiti" (also "fakafefine"), the Cook Islands Māori "akava'ine", the Hawaiian and Tahitian "māhū" (literally "in the middle"), the Māori "whakawāhine", the Niuean "fiafifine" (also "fakafifine"), the Tokelauan "fakafāfine", the Tuvaluan "pinapinaaine", the Gilbertese "binabinaaine", and the Wallisian "fakafafine". The FTM or female-to-male equivalent in Samoa are known variously as "fa'atane", "fa'atama", and "fafatama". Ultimately, Western terms like gay, transgender, FTM, etc., do not align exactly with Samoan terms like fa'afafine, fa'atane, etc., which have meaning within the fa'asamoa traditional cultural systems of Samoa. The Samoan slang word "mala" (or "devastation" in the Samoan language) is in less frequent