is a historical Samoan title. It was the highest title of the Samoan aristocracy from the 16th to the 19th century.
Between roughly the 10th century and the 13th century, Samoa was under the rule of the Tuûi Tonga Empire. Following Samoa's emancipation from the Tuûi Tonga in the 13th century, the main power there remained the Tui Manuûa, a dynasty from what is now American Samoa. Little by little, however, power shifted towards the western part of the archipelago.
According to oral tradition, in the late 15th or early 16th century, the "warrior priestess" NÃÂfanua unified, by way of a military victory, the four highest titles then existing in the archipelagoGatoaûitele, Tamasoaliûi, Tui Aûana, and Tui ÃÂtua. She bequeathed them to her mentor, Levalasi Soûoaûemalelagi, who initially refused them for a time before accepting. Subsequently, around the beginning of the 15th century, these titles returned to the latter's niece, SalamÃÂsina, a daughter of Tamalelagi (the concurrent Tui Aûana) and Vaetoeifaga, a Tongan princess and daughter of the then-Tuûi Tonga Kauûulufonua I. SalamÃÂsina would be the first formally recognised as such.
The title itself was not hereditary, but rather based on the acquisition of the four titles on which it depended, the succession of which could be contested by different potential heirs. Fonoti was said to have been a in the early part of the 17th century, and Iûamafana in the late 18th century. The latter chose Malietoa Vainuûupo to succeed him upon his death in 1802, but this succession was contested. For a quarter of a century, the title of remained vacant, until Tamafaiga usurped it in 1827 or 1828. After he was killed in 1829, the title was then seized by Malietoa Vainuûupo following a brief war. In 1830, he converted to Christianity following the arrival of the missionary John Williams, followed by most of the archipelago. Malietoa Vainuûupo died in 1841, and bequeathed his various titles to three different chiefs, so that none would be .
Later in the 19th century, the German Empire, United States and United Kingdom vied for dominance over the archipelago, and exploited rivalries between native chiefs. At the same time, other chieftaincy titles gained prominence over the titles, the four most influential of which were the . Successive attempts to create a Western-style monarchy in Samoa, unrelated to the title, contributed to the Samoan Civil War. The Tripartite Convention of 1899 partitioned the archipelago into two colonies â German Samoa in the west and American Samoa in the east. The concept of the fell into disuse following the independence of Western Samoa in 1962, in favour of that of the , from which modern Samoan heads of state are drawn.
Western visitors in Samoa during the 18th and 19th centuries often referred to the as a "king", but the title itself did not carry any inherent authority. A 's authority was derived from each of the separate titles they held, and holding all of them did not grant the individual any access to additional prerogatives. There was no indigenous concept of monarchy in Samoa, where authority remained at the (village) level, with villages effectively functioning as "autonomous political entities" in the pre-colonial era.