Locals also planned to raise the issue of climate change with the monarch, who is on his first visit to Samoa

King Charles III has taken part in a traditional kava-drinking ceremony before a line of bare-chested, heavily tattooed Samoans and been declared a “high chief” of his Pacific island realm.

The British monarch is on an 11-day tour of Australia and Samoa, independent nations where he is still head of state – the first major foreign trip since his cancer diagnosis earlier this year.