The last village in the world to see the end of each day, Samoa's Falealupo, is in turmoil as its chiefs order the removal of dozens of people they accuse of practising forms of Christianity they do not accept.
Falealupo is just east of the International Dateline and is the last place to bid farewell to each day. By coincidence, in Polynesian mythology the entrance to the after-world is just off its white sand beach.
The village has become a battleground between established branches of Christianity and new religious groups sweeping the Pacific.
Most of its around 500 people are either Catholics or members of the Congregational Church but a new Bible study group has grown, despite the objections of the village council.
Samoan media reported this week that families were being forced out of Falealupo and their homes, and even a school, destroyed on the orders of matai or chiefs who have outlawed the Bible study group and its members.
At least 40 people have arrived in the capital Apia having been driven out, with more expected.
The dispute in Falealupo mirrors a battle taking place across the Pacific, which from 1797 has been almost exclusively Christian along Protestant, Catholic and Congregational lines.
Pacific states have written Christianity into their constitutions and Samoa's national motto reads "Samoa is founded on God".
But with churches aligned to the conservative political establishment, new religious groups have found the Pacific a fertile recruiting ground.
One study estimates the new groups have already taken 20 percent of the congregations of the traditional churches and their popularity is rising rapidly.
"The religious landscape of the Pacific is changing very fast and especially as the historic mainline churches continue to lose members," says German political scientist Manfred Ernst who is carrying out a study on the new religious groups for the Pacific Theological College in Fiji.
The Samoa News based in Pago Pago, American Samoa, reported 40 people have been moved out of Falealupo, their homes have been destroyed and a 60,000 US dollar school building torn down.
Banished matai Aeau Tapu told the Samoa Observer the first wave of banishments occurred on May 28 when they were told to either leave or "be burned to death."
Expelled villager Lemoa Silivelio said force was used.
"Children and women, including an elderly grandmother, were pulled from their homes, carried and thrown into waiting pick-ups. We tried to fight back, and were quickly overpowered and likewise, carried to the vehicles," he said.
"A wife who had just given birth a few days before was also picked up with her baby and carried to a waiting truck," he added.
More banishments followed during the first week of June when Samoa was marking its 40th anniversary of independence and New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark was in the country apologising for wrong-doings inflicted by Wellington during the colonial period.
"We believe in our faith so we waited until they came to take us away," villager Fanoga Sefo was quoted saying by the Samoa Observer.
Sago Silivelio and her family were banished and their large home targeted for destruction.
"We've been saving for so many years to build that house," she said. "But now they want us to pull it down. All because we choose to worship in a faith that's different from theirs."
Two years ago Australian Justice Andrew Wilson, sitting in the Samoa Supreme Court, outlawed religious banishments in Saipipi village. He held that Samoa's constitution provided a guarantee of freedom of religion.
But in the face of continuing growth in the new religious groups, Samoa's National Council of Churches, which represents the traditional churches, is pressing the government to change the constitution to limit Christianity to the established mainstream groups only.