The vast majority of the
Christianity is the official and largest religion in Samoa, with its various denominations accounting for around 98% of the total population. The article 1 of the Constitution of Samoa states that "Samoa is a Christian nation founded of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit".
Religion in Samoa
Public meetings begin and end with prayer. 50% of Samoans are affiliated with the Christian Congregationalist Church. Other denominations include Roman Catholic, Methodist, the Church of the Latter-day Saints, the Seventh Day Adventist and the Baha'i.
Samoan culture tells stories of many different deities. There were deities of the forest, the seas, rain, harvest, villages, and war. There were two types of deities, atua, who had non-human origins, and aitu, who were of human origin. Tagaloa was a supreme god who made the islands and the people.
Catholic missionaries arrived in Samoa in 1845 and today Catholics account for around 20% of the overall population.
The ten nations with the most number of Catholics behind Brazil are Mexico, the Philippines, the United States, Italy, France, Colombia, Poland, Spain, Argentina, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. However, this list changes a bit when you look at the total percentage of a nation that practices Catholicism.
The arrival of fast food restaurants and other contemporary food items on the islands are one of the issues responsible for the obesity in Samoa. The earliest photographs of Samoans provide visual proof of the native population's natural physique before the introduction of processed foods by Western society.
The tattoo and designs of the Samoa islands represents community, power, status, respect, honor, and is a mark of pride that are only to be worn by Samoans.
O LE Tusi Pa'ia - Samoan Bible 4+
The Christian faith integrated with Samoans' beliefs at the time in gods for the sun, earth, heavens and sea. Today, most Samoans identify as Christian and attend church services at least once a week. Sundays are observed as a national day of rest.
Samoans are Polynesian and there are few other distinct ethnic groups, though some elite Samoans have part Chinese or European (especially German) ancestry.
Samoan Mythology
There were two types of deities, atua, who had non-human origins, and aitu, who were of human origin. Tagaloa was a supreme god who made the islands and the people. Mafui'e was the god of earthquakes. There were also a number of war deities.
Iofi also emphasizes the importance of matai authority, writing that “the reason why Christianity was readily accepted by the Samoans was because of their respect for and obedience to the authority of their cultural leaders” (1980: 95).
The unique mixture of Austronesian and Papuan ancestry in Samoans is possibly related to the initial settlement of the islands and suggests that groups with somewhat different ancestry settled Samoa, compared to nearby Tonga, Dr Cochrane says.
Christianity was first introduced in Samoa when John Williams arrived in 1830. As part of the London Missionary Society (LMS), Williams successfully gained converts and established a church that would later form the largest denomination in Samoa, the Congregational Christian Church of Samoa (CCCS).
The quick answer:
No. You don't have to be Samoan to get a Samoan tattoo. It's not difficult to find a tattooist who will take your money for a bit of Samoan looking skin art.
Meals consist of green bananas and taro (boiled or roasted), sapasui (Samoan chop-suey), pisupo (canned corned beef), povi masima (corned beef), mutton flaps, turkey tails, palusami/lu'au (coconut cream and onion cooked in taro leaves), kale (curry), rice, bread, fruit, sandwiches, soups, fish, mamoe (lamb), beef or ...
The turtle or honu is another important creature throughout all Polynesian cultures and has been associated with several meanings. The first being the fact that turtles symbolise health, fertility, longevity in life, foundation, peace and rest.
It appears to be “heavily influenced by globalization” and “the shift from subsistence agriculture to excess consumption of high calorie, processed foods and sedentary lifestyles.” “Infants in American Samoa show a remarkably rapid gain in weight but not in length in early infancy compared to U.S. infants,” she says.
Polynesians are also known for their unique combination of physical characteristics: tall stature, a large muscular body, a robust skeleton, and a strong tendency toward obesity (Katayama, 1996). Katayama (1996) proposed that these characteristics were the result of hypermorphosis.
According to the Vatican, Islam has surpassed Roman Catholicism as the world's largest religion.
Lebanon. Lebanon holds the largest proportion of Christians in the Arab world proportionally and falls behind only Egypt and Syria in absolute numbers.