About Anavatau

Anavatau is a Samoan heritage archive. At its centre is a searchable database of academic resources, historical documents, and cultural research about Samoa, gagana Samoa, and fa'asamoa - collected, curated, and made freely available. 

Alongside this database, essays, research papers, and blog posts brings that material to life.

Who this is for

Anavatau is for those of us in the diaspora looking for knowledge about our heritage. It is also for researchers and academics producing serious work about Samoan people, who want that work to reach our community.

If you have spent years studying Samoan family structures, traditional medicine, or the psychology of diaspora identity, Anavatau can help you find the audience that is most impacted by your work. 

How it works

Essays on Anavatau are written by contributors who bring documented knowledge and a clear relationship to their subject. Each essay carries a standfirst - a few sentences establishing why this person is writing this piece. Contributors retain full copyright over their work.

Anavatau also features blog posts, which help to translate and break down concepts presented in our essays and papers.

The Resources section, currently under development, will hold the database layer -historical documents, academic sources, public domain texts, curated links - structured and searchable.

Who is building this

My name is Lillian 'Lilieni' Arp. I am a writer and self-taught software engineer based in South Auckland, New Zealand. I publish under my Samoan-ised name, Lilieni, because that's what my grandmother called me. 

Anavatau is published by Anavatau Limited.