hoy 
take it, Samoans who were wrecked from a canoe and after- 
wards swam ashore. The Kauga were much respected. Toa, 
a piece of land in Funafuti, is named after one of them, and the 
southernmost island, Tuaeriki, after another: after death they 
were worshipped as spirits. 
The only son of Terematua was Kitosuga, and he had one 
son Tiloa, who likewise had an only son Tilotu. In the time 
of Tilotu a subordinate king or chief was appointed, by name 
Paolau. What relationship by blood, or whether any existed, 
between Tilotu and Paolau the king could not tell me; a very 
old woman, as he said over 100 years old, who had instructed 
him in the history of his predecessors, had not informed him on 
this point. 
Paolau became king after Tilotu’s death, and Tilotu’s children 
became sub-kings or chiefs. 
Paolau was killed by his younger brother Nigi, who aspired 
to the throne. When Nigi drew near to Paolau the latter 
said, ‘* Are you going to kill me?” Nigi pointed to the rising 
moon and said, ‘‘ My head is there,” and then to the place 
where it would set, adding ‘‘your head is there!” and killed 
him. 
Nigi then became king ; after his death he was succeeded by 
Tukalamiti, whose parentage is not known ; he was probably a 
son of either Paolau or Nigi—possibly of Paolau’s, for there were 
two branches of the royal family, and when one king died his 
successor was generally chosen from the other branch. 
It is not known whether this was a friendly arrangement or 
not. Then another Paolau became head king, and Masaleika, 
his brother, sub-king ; the latter never attained the chief dignity, 
as he was killed by Tauvasa. Paolau fell sick on the southern- 
most island, and Tauvasa sent people in canoes to kill him, 
Paolau and his people went to see what the canoes had come 
for, and invited the crews to stay the night with them. This 
they did, and during the night Paolau’s daughter discovered 
their purpose and warned her father. 
The leader of the expedition, Salaiki, a brother of Paolau’s, 
was then set upon and killed. Paolau retained his kingship, 
and Tauvasi remained chief till the illness of the former proved 
fatal, as it did soon after the attempt upon his life. Tauvasi 
then became king. He seems to have been a good ruler, and 
signalised his reign by dividing the land, which had hitherto been 
held in common, and fairly apportioning it amongst the people. 
The history of the kings now becomes mixed up with that of the 
priesthood. In early times the people worshipped thunder and 
lightning and the powers of nature, as well as birds and fishes. 
This was followed by the worship of spirits, one of whom was 
named Tufakala after a particular kind of seagull. There then 
arose priests or spirit-masters (vakatua). 
One of the earliest, if not the first, was Erivara, evidently a 
very masterful person. He abolished the ancient worship, 
taking the dead Firapu, or his spirit, the father of Tauvasi, for 
his first god. Firapu was a hero whose death is shrouded in 
mystery—he and his daughter Mumu had left Funafuti in their 
canoe on a voyage to the Gilbert Islands, and had never returned. 
As time went on descendants of Firapu after death were added 
to the list of spirits, and worshipped as subordinate deities. 
Besides this worship of spirits there was also a kind of fetish 
worship, also introduced by Erivara. Erivara in his sleep 
visited the other world, and made the acquaintance of seven 
spirits, who showed him a wonderful object and directed him on 
returning to earth to make a copy after its fashion, giving him 
full instructions how to proceed. On his return to earth, 
more prosaically when he awoke, he sent one of the people to 
dive outside the reef for a red stone. This was procured and 
brought to him. He wound round it a dress of pandanus 
leaves—red, white and black, some fathoms long, and placed it 
inside a cage shaped like a hen-coop. This was called the Teo. 
If a parishioner was sick, Erivara took the stone from its 
wrappings, talked to it, charmed it with rhymes, and applied it 
to the sick man. Another fetish was a hat, the size and shape 
of a hogshead cask, made up of red, white and black fandango 
(Pandanus) leaves, and adorned with white shells. This was 
called the Puluo, and was said to be the hat of Firapu. I think 
this was kept in the spirits-house, but the Teo was kept ina 
separate hut—the charm-house. 
When the people wanted to catch fish, the Puluo was brought 
out of the spirits-house by the king’s orders, and the whole 
community walked three times round the house, bearing the 
Puluo in front. The women followed, stark naked, and the 
men, who belaboured one another with sticks; the children 
completed the procession. 
NO. 1424, VOL. 55 | 
NATURE 
[FEBRUARY II, 1897 
The charm-house was set round with a great number of 
sharp-pointed stakes, and when a catch of fish was made the 
people were required to take it to the spirit-master and lay 
it down in front of the charm-house, not the king’s. The 
charmer then picked out the finest fish, impaling each, as he 
selected it, on one of the stakes and dedicating it in a loud 
chant to the particular spirit—Faiologata, Tamaiki, Fijiroa, 
Tongatumatua, Firapu, Sasaka, or some other to which the 
post was sacred. When the dedication was complete, the people 
shared the remainder between them. The sacrifice was divided 
between the priest and his relations. 
This was a pretty fair source of income; but the charmer 
could not live on fish alone, and so he had other methods by 
which coconuts, taro, and the rest were added to them. 
The spirits would come to him and give him warning that 
some one was going to be sick; the spirit-master would then 
send for this person, and take him to the charm-house to be 
charmed. This house was a square hut with a fire burning 
in the centre, and on the entrance of the threatened man this 
was made to smoke so that the spirit should not be able to 
see him. The spirit-master was provided with two young 
coconuts and young white leaves of the coco palm. He rubbed 
oil on one of the nuts, rubbed his nose against one eye, 
whispered to it, and then turned it away from him. Crossing 
his hands he gave it a good spin, and watched how it came to 
rest; if when it stopped it pointed sideways or away from 
him, the spirit was very angry and the man would be very ill; 
if, on the contrary, it pointed to him, the spirit was not vexed. 
Of course these performances meant taro and coconuts. 
In case the man was to be taxed pretty severely the spirit 
would of course be angry, and there would be other charms 
required to mollify him, and these had to be paid for. If a 
man were really ill the spirit-master would come and wave a 
staff, with a bunch of coloured pandanus leaves at the end, 
over him, or he would thrust this staff like a spear through a 
coconut, or he would try the smoking and the Teo treatment. 
In any case the medical attendance was very expensive, 
and the patient’s friends and relatives had to gather together 
a good deal of food to keep the spirit-master and his friends 
while the case was in progress. 
Erivara, the first devil-master, was so fertile in inventions of 
this kind, that I could not believe he had owed them all to 
his own unaided powers, and I inquired therefore if he was 
accustomed to travel much, and was told he had visited at 
various times Nukulailai, Vaitapu and Nukufetau, neighbouring 
islands of the group, as well as the Gilberts. This in itself, 
however, is no proof that he was a plagiarist. 
Erivara was, notwithstanding, a great benefactor to the island ; 
the coconut palms were few, and food was scarce, so he 
organised expeditions to the Gilbert Islands, and brought back 
in canoes a great quantity of nuts; the people extracted the 
cotyledon from these for food, which shows they were very hard- 
up, and then planted them. The whole of the islets of Funafuti 
were planted in this way under his direction—a great achieve- 
ment. 
On the other hand, Erivara broke up the ancient laws of the 
kings, and upset the distribution of the land, dividing it afresh 
between the king (erikitutu) and thirty or more sub-kings of his 
own creation (erikitabua). Hence arose disputes as to the 
ownership of the land, which persist even to the present day. 
There is this excuse to be made for Erivara, that by reason ot 
his planting the land acquired the chief value that it possesses. 
Still he might have shown a little more consideration for those . 
families which had no man at the head, only old women; he 
was oppressive towards the weak. 
During the time of Erivara Tauvasi died, and his son Sirimiau 
became king, after him his son Dili succeeded, and after Dili 
Sukumuni, after Sukumuni Tarafo, belonging to another branch 
of the Tauvasi family, succeeded to the headship ; he was fol- 
lowed by Taturi, his son, and Taturi by his brother Teriki. 
Teriki was followed by Matavai, who was deposed by reason of 
the ulcers with which he was afflicted, the evil smell of which 
made it impossible for people to sit in the house with him. 
Jacopa, his eldest son, replaced him; then Manu, his second 
son; and finally Erivara, the reigning monarch, the youngest 
of Matavai’s three sons. Erivara is a very intelligent and dig- 
nified old man, say fifty years of age, every inch a king, though 
shorn of all power. Our High Commissioner is the chief 
governor, and makes laws for the island; but the true master 
here is the native missionary Simona, who is a Christian spirit- 
master of a very friendly disposition. The ancient religion 
