In old Samoa, we set our year by the moon and palolo

In the old days, Samoans tracked the seasons by the moon and palolo.

What we now know as Tau Masina had no fixed dates. Each month began with the new moon: masina fou.

In Aotearoa, Matariki celebrates the new year, which is anchored to the stars and the moon. Samoa keeps lunar time, too.

How did the Samoan months work?

Each month began at the new moon. The months were named after gods worshipped in them, after the crops, and after the fish that came in season. With no fixed astronomical dates, adding a month was easy and the twelve moon names stayed the same.

Every night of the moon had its own name. The modern calendar prints about 30 of them, from Masina Fou to Maunā.

The full moon is Atoa and the night before it is Punifaga. Kramer recorded the same names in 1902.

Months listed here follow the 2026 Tau Masina calendar with meanings from Turner's 1884 record.

Why do the Samoan months move every year?

A moon month is 29.5 days so the months drift and some years, like 2026, have a 13th month. 12 moon months run about 11 days short of the sun's year. A fixed mapping, such as 'January = Utuvāmua', only describes one year.

The palolo: the clock on the reef

To anchor the drifting months. We just watch the reef. The palolo rises from October to November every year at lunar time, usually for only two mornings, eight days after the full moon. We could set our year by it. We still can.

The old books agree on the worm even where they disagree on the months.

Turner says: Palolo comes the day before, the day of, and the day after the moon's last quarter in October or November

Stair says: in the early part of two days only... and is never seen at any other time

Krämer says: 'eight days after the full moon', and 'Das Jahr wurde nach dem Palolo berechnet' ('the year was reckoned by the palolo').

Why do the old records disagree?

The names of our months vary greatly by written source, which relied on oral traditions.

Turner's 1884 list puts Pālolomua in July. He glosses it as the first month of the 'Palolo season' half-year, not the month the worm rises.

Turner's own palolo passage puts the worm in October–November. [r9]

Turner's order and the 2026 calendar's order match for the first half of the year and differ in the second half.

The 2026 calendar puts the palolo months where all three old sources put the worm.

On the other hand, Turner's July may faithfully record his informants' district rather than an error. Turner and Stair worked mostly from Upolu and Savai'i, and the modern calendar is an American Samoa publication. Regional difference can't be ruled out.

Even in 2026's calendar, it says the names 'may vary due to the traditional reliance on oral history transmitted through generations'. That disagreement is the nature of a living calendar.

Is the Samoan lunar calendar still used today?

The Tau Masina calendar is still published every year by Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council. It's free to download in PDF form on their website.

The Council has made lunar calendars with communities in Hawai'i, American Samoa, Guam and the CNMI since 2006 '…for the people still fishing by it.'

In 1902 Krämer recorded that people of his generation still reckoned the palolo months.

Every 2026 month spread pairs the lunar month with the Samoan forms of the Gregorian months ('Ianuari 19 – Fepuari 17').

The two calendars sit side by side.

A note on the record: these are written snapshots of an oral tradition. The sources themselves disagree — different districts, different tellers, different years… Samoan families carry their own knowledge; if your aiga names the moons differently, that's not a contradiction, that's the tradition working.