Come To The Land Of Ancient Mystery As Well As Beauty

This is the land of TuiManu'a, who ruled these islands for generations until they were ceded over to the United States and became part of American Samoa. According to Samoan legends and myths, this is the ancient land of Tagaloa, the pagan god of Samoa and other Polynesian islands. According to those myths, it was here that he came down and formed man and earth. While the rest of Samoa was fiercely contested between families and political factions, the linage of TuiManu'a held absolute power with a religious intensity.

Change comes slow to Manu'a compared to the rest of American Samoa. Many of the original Samoan houses were destroyed by the recent desvastating hurricanes and are now replaced with palagi western styled houses. In spite of that, you might experience in Manu'a the same things that the American anthropologist Margaret Mead did when she was doing her research about the Samoan adolescents during the 1920's.

Yes, Manu'a will provide that romatic vacation as many other tropical island do now a days. But more than that, it will offer a visitor a glimpse backward to Samoa and the South Pacific that's clouded in ancient mysteries and lore.

"Manu'a is awesome, the heart of Polynesia. Words and pictures fail." Terry Skaggs (a visitor from the United States mainland)

There were no famous palagi who lived in Manu'a like the famous writer Robert Louis Stevenson who lived and died in Western Samoa or Paul Gauguin who visited and did some very famous work in Tahiti. You might be the first famous palagi to visit Manu'a.

Anyway, Manu'a is still the most Samoan of all the islands in American Samoa and that may include Upolu in the independent Western Samoa. As a matter of fact when people refer to a Samoan as behaving fa'a Manu'a, they're saying that that person is too entrenched in tradition.

Remember, just because there are a lot of food outlets on Tutu'ila, don't expect all of American Samoa to be like that. David Stanley recommends in his South Pacific Handbook to buy your favorate bread and other food items in Tutu'ila before departing for Manu'a. There are small family stores in Manu'a, but they might not carry your favorate items.

If you're planning to do some snorkling or camping, you might have to rent equipments at Tutu'ila before you depart for the Manu'a islands.

The sky over the Pacific islands is clear, and far from the light polution normally associated with large cities, which will afford the sky enthusiasts with an excellent view of the stars and the moon.