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.
Samoan language Tongic and Nuclear Polynesian are still included in the classification search of the database itself. There are approximately 470,000 Samoan speakers worldwide, 50 per cent of whom live in the Samoan Islands. Thereafter, the greatest concentration is in New Zealand, where people of Samoan ethnicity comprise the largest group after New Zealand European, Māori, and Chinese: the 2006 New Zealand census recorded 95,428 speakers of the Samoan language, and 141,103 people of Samoan ethnicity. Among ethnic Samoans in New Zealand, 70.5 percent (87,109 people) could speak Samoan. Samoan is the third most commonly spoken language in New Zealand after English