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.
Tau Tau Tau (uppercase Τ, lowercase τ; ) is the 19th letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 300. The name in English is pronounced or , but in modern Greek it is . This is because the pronunciation of the combination of Greek letters αυ has changed from ancient to modern times from one of to either or , depending on what follows (see Greek orthography). Tau was derived from the Phoenician letter taw (𐤕). Letters that arose from tau include Roman T and Cyrillic Te (Т, т). The letter occupies