Samoans in the context of "Polynesians"

American Samoa is an unincorporated and unorganized territory of the United States located in the Polynesia region of the south Pacific Ocean. Centered on 14°18′S 170°42′W / 14.3°S 170.7°W / -14.3; -170.7, it is 40 miles (64 km) southeast of the island country of Samoa, east of the International Date Line and the Wallis and Futuna Islands, west of the Cook Islands, north of Tonga, and some 310 miles (500 km) south of Tokelau. American Samoa is the southernmost territory of the United States, situated 2,200 miles (3,500 km) southwest of the U.S. state of Hawaii, and one of two U.S. territories south of the Equator, along with the uninhabited Jarvis Island.

American Samoa consists of the eastern part of the Samoan archipelago – the inhabited volcanic islands of Tutuila, Aunuʻu, Ofu, Olosega and Taʻū and the uninhabited Rose Atoll – as well as Swains Island, a remote coral atoll in the Tokelau volcanic island group. The total land area is 77 square miles (199 km), slightly larger than Washington, D.C.; including its territorial waters, the total area is 117,500 square miles (304,000 km), about the size of New Zealand. American Samoa has a tropical climate, with 90 percent of its land covered by rainforests. As of 2024, the population is approximately 47,400 and concentrated on Tutuila, which hosts the capital and largest settlement, Pago Pago. The vast majority of residents are indigenous ethnic Samoans, most of whom are fluent in the official languages, Samoan and English.

In 1976 the All Blacks toured South Africa, with the blessing of the then-newly elected New Zealand Prime Minister, Rob Muldoon. Twenty-five African nations, Afghanistan, Burma, Guyana, Iraq, Sri Lanka and Syria protested against this by boycotting the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal. In their view the All Black tour gave tacit support to the apartheid regime in South Africa. The five Māori players on the tour, Bill Bush, Sid Going, Kent Lambert, Bill Osborne and Tane Norton, as well as ethnic-Samoan Bryan Williams, were offered honorary white status in South Africa. Bush asserts that he was deliberately provocative toward the apartheid regime while he was there.

The All Blacks achieved a record of 18 wins and 6 losses, and they lost the test series 3–1.

Ambilineality is a form of kinship affiliation of cognatic descent that relies on self-defined affiliation within a given social system, meaning individuals have the choice to be affiliated with their mother's or father's group. Common features of societies that practice ambilineality are a shared set of land, communal responsibilities, and collective ownership of some segments of wealth and debt in their societies. This system of descent is distinct from more common genealogical structures in that rather than determining affiliation and descent using the standard determinants of biological and genealogical relation, it instead relies heavily on voluntary affiliation with one's group, oftentimes being determined by factors including residence.

Societies practicing ambilineal descent are especially common in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands. Polynesian cultures and Micronesian cultures are often ambilineal, including, for example, Samoans, Māori, Hawaiians and people of the Gilbert Islands. The indigenous peoples of Northwestern North America are also followers of ambilineality; and it is also found among the Southern Yoruba people residing in West Africa.

The Samoan Islands (Samoan: Motu o Sāmoa) are an archipelago covering 3,030 km (1,170 sq mi) in the central South Pacific, forming part of Polynesia and of the wider region of Oceania. Administratively, the archipelago comprises all of the Independent State of Samoa and most of American Samoa (apart from Swains Island, which is geographically part of the Tokelau Islands). The land masses of the two Samoan jurisdictions are separated by 64 km (40 mi; 35 nmi) of ocean at their closest points.

The population of the Samoan Islands is approximately 250,000. The inhabitants have in common the Samoan language, a culture known as fa'a Samoa, and an indigenous form of governance called fa'amatai. Samoans are one of the largest Polynesian populations in the world, and most are of exclusively Samoan ancestry.

Samoan (Gagana faʻa Sāmoa or Gagana Sāmoa, pronounced [ŋaˈŋana ˈfaʔa ˈsaːmʊa]) is a Polynesian language spoken by Samoans of the Samoan Islands. Administratively, the islands are split between the sovereign country of Samoa and the United States territory of American Samoa. It is an official language, alongside English, in both jurisdictions. It is widely spoken across the Pacific region, heavily so in New Zealand and in Australia and the United States. Among the Polynesian languages, Samoan is the most widely spoken by a number of native speakers.

Samoan is spoken by approximately 260,000 people in the archipelago and with many Samoans living in diaspora in a number of countries, the total number of speakers worldwide was estimated at 510,000 in 2015. It is the third-most widely spoken language in New Zealand, where 2.2% of the population, 101,900 people, were able to speak it as of 2018.

The Tahitians (Tahitian: Māʼohi; French: Tahitiens) are the Indigenous Polynesian people of Tahiti and thirteen other Society Islands in French Polynesia. The numbers may also include the modern population in these islands of mixed Polynesian and French ancestry (French: demis). Indigenous Tahitians are one of the largest Polynesian ethnic groups, behind the Māori, Samoans and Hawaiians.