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274 JOHN FRASER. 
south-eastern Asia, long before the Mongolian race and the Malays estab- 
lished themselves in these parts. A third opinion is that the Polynesians 
in the islands have come from an admixture of a conquering white race 
with a conquered black race previously there. 
Now our present Samoan myth supports the second of these two opin- 
ions and, indirectly, to some extent the third also. For,so far asI know, 
the story of the war of the gods and the giants does not exist in Mon- 
golian or Malay lands, and is the exclusive property of the Aryan lan- 
guages and race in India, in Greece, in Scandinavia, as I have shown. If 
it should be proved that the Mongolian-Malay race has not this tale at 
all, or has it in an essentially different form, then it is clear that the Sa- 
moans did not get it from the Malays, and therefore they are not of Malay 
origin. But if the myth is entirely Aryan, then it follows that the ances- 
tors of the Samoans must have been at one time in close contact with the 
Aryans, and are probably, in some way, an offshoot of that Indo-Germanic 
race. And it is because of the ethnological aspect of it that I have dwelt 
so long on this simple Samoan myth. 
Mr. Powett’s Summary.—l. Sa-Tangaloa in the heavens desired to 
eat fish. Losi, at that time, had charge of the sea and was the fisherman 
of the gods. Accordingly, two female messengers, Tuli and Longonoa, 
were sent down to him with a request for fish. Losi obeyed orders, went 
and caught some very large fish, tied them by their tails to a long rope, 
and then told the messengers to come and take the fish. They came, 
but the fish dragged them hither and thither, and they had to call to Losi 
for help. He said, “ You go on first, and I will take up the fish.” So he 
went up with one hundred large fish ; he took so many, because the large 
house in heaven, where the single young men lived, had a hundred doors. 
When he arrived there, Losi, placed a fish, during the night, on the thres- 
hold of each door; and, in the early dawn, when the young men came 
out, each stepped upon the slippery thing and fell down; one got a broken 
arm, another a wounded head, and soon. This took away all their en- 
joyment of the fish ; hence the proverb, “‘ Ua lé poa le ta‘e a Losi,” which 
means ‘ Losi’s fish (lit. ‘ dirt’) has no savour,—applied to any favour or 
service the enjoyment of which is marred by painful circumstances attend- 
ing it. . 
2. Hospitality, however, required that the young men should prepare 
an oven of food for their guest, and Losi went to look at its preparation. 
In those days there was no ‘ taro,’ or breadfruit, or yams on the earth below. 
Losi, therefore, secreted one of the ‘taro’ eyes about his person under his 
girdle. The young men observed his movements, and, suspecting what 
he had done, they laid hold of him, and, in searching him, they most in- 
decently exposed his person. But they did not find his treasure. He 
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