148 EEV. T. POWELL ON THE 



following tradition with its song were obtained from this 

 family. 



There exists in the native mind a great desire to know 

 these sacred myths, and offers are often made to exchange 

 myths, or, as the natives say, to buy one myth with another. 

 But deception is generally connected with this kind of thing. 

 In such cases, something is often added to or omitted from 

 the original so as to mislead. Sometimes an account is 

 fabricated for the occasion. In order, therefore, to the 

 verification of any mythic piece of history, it is necessary to 

 obtain its Solo. This is a poetic composition which contains 

 references, somewhat occult, to the leading events of the 

 myth, and which is supposed to settle any point in dispute. 

 A disputant, therefore, may demand from the narrator the 

 recitation of the solo, saying, " Ta mai le soifua," which^ 

 given freely, may be rendered, '' Demonstrate its life " or 

 right to existence. 



We now give a specimen of each. The myth is entitled 



The Tradition of tbe Origin of Samoa, 



and is as follows : — 



Tagaloa* is the god who dwells in the illimitable void. 

 He made all things. He alone [at first f] existed. When 

 there was no heaven, no people, no sea, no earth, he traversed 

 the illimitable void ; but, at a point at which he took his 

 stand, up sprang a rock. His name is Tagaloa-faatutupu- 

 nuu, {i.e., Tagaloa — Creator; literally the People-producing 

 Tagaloa), because he made all things when nothing had 

 been made. He said to the rock, " Divide ! ^' and thereupon 

 were born, in immediate succession, the reclining rock, the 

 lava rock, the branching rock, the porous rock, the red-clay 

 rock, the standing rock, and the cellular rock. Tagaloa then. 



* The g in the Samoan orthography represents the sound of wj, as heard 

 in the word amcj. Tagaloa, therefore, should be pronounced Ta-nga-loa 

 (a, as in father). The meaning of this name is, perhaps, the Unrestrained, 

 or Illimitable one, from tanga, which means iinreslraincd by tabu, and loa, 

 continuously. It has been suggested that this is possibly from the Arabic 



djlij" (Tangala). 



+ Throughout both the prose account and the solo, any words added to 

 bring out the sense or to complete a stanza, which are not in the original, 

 will be enclosed within brackets thus [at first]. The tradition will be given 

 as literally as possible ; and the translation of the solo will faithfully 

 represent the meaning of the original, and, for the most part, will be nearly 

 literal. 



