SAMOAN TKADITJON OK CKWATION AND THE DKLUUK. 147 



them are ordained pastors. Their religion is supported entirely by themselves, 

 and, in addition to this, they send voluntary contributions to the funds of 

 the London Missionary Society, as a token of gratitude for the blessings 

 received through its missionaries, to the amount of between „£1,()00 and 

 .£1,500 a year. As above mentioned, this Society has a training institution 

 at Malua, from which many tramed missionaries go to distant lands in the 

 South Seas ; it has also, at the port, an English school for half-castes and 

 natives. 



I have thought it right to make these preliminary remarks, in order that 

 those I am addressing may be able to understand something about the people 

 of whose traditions I now give a specimen : — 



A SAMOAN TRADITION OF CREATION AND THE 

 DELUGE. By Rev. T. Powell, F.L.S. 



THE Samoans* are very tenacious o£ their traditionary 

 inytlis. This may partly account for their being so 

 little knov^^n. There reside, on most of the islands of the 

 group, one or more families who are the descendants of the 

 hereditary keepers of these myths. The office seems to 

 answer to that represented by the Mazhir ("'^i?|P) of the kings 

 of Judah (2 Sam. viii. 16). See the Samoan rendering. f 



On the largest island of the Manuka cluster of Samoa, there 

 resides a family whose office it has been, from time imme- 

 morial, to guard these myths with sacred care, and, only on 

 occasion of a royal tour, to rehearse any of them in public. 

 They were taught to the children of the family with great 

 secresy, and the different parts of a myth and its song were 

 committed to the special care of different members of the 

 family ; so that a young man would have the special care of 

 the prose part, and a young woman that of the poetic part, 

 while to the older members, and especially the head of the 

 family, belonged the prerogative of explaining the meaning 

 of the various allusions of the poetic lines. A single line 

 would often bring out a lengthy piece of history. The 



* For the information of such readers as may not be acquainted with the 

 particulars of the Samoan Group, I may mention, that it lies between 

 169" 24' and 172'' 50' west longitude, and 13' 30' and 14" 20' south latitude, 

 and consists of ten inhabited islands. The principal of these are, Tau or 

 Manu'a-tele at the eastern extremity ; Tutuila, sixty miles to the westward ; 

 Upolu, tliirty-six miles west of Tutuila ; and Savai'i, the largest and most 

 westerly of the group. The entire population is 34,000. 



t Fatua'i-upu, Tradition treasurer. They are called in Samoa FaUtal — 

 History families. 



