SOME FOLK-SONGS AND MYTHS FROM SAMOA. i 0> 



10) obeyed 8 my word, bring here your children; henceforth they 

 shall face the coral 9 bottom of the sea; neither shall you look up; 

 now then, you go and seek 10 for a land [to dwell in].' Then they 

 went and reached Upolu and dwelt under (^lalo 1 ) Manu. That is 

 the reason why it was called Lalo-Manu. x x And their children 

 15) [were various kinds of sea-eggs], the vatu'e, 12 the vana, the 

 'ina, the tapumiti, the qfa-ofa, and all things in the sea whoso 

 eyes turn downwards. 



Notes. — 1. Afusi-ngalu. This name means ' the place where the waves 

 dash over the reef in spray/ It is a village near Muti'e. 



2. Tangaloa-le-Mana means ' Tangaloa-the-all-powerful,' or ' Tangaloa- 

 of-snpernatural-power.' This is one of the manifestations of Tangaloa„ 

 the supreme god of the Polynesians. 



3. Celestial. It is possible that there is here some reference to the 

 'heavenly fishes' of the Zodiac. Some people, of old, regarded the 

 Zodiac as a celestial river. With a fish for them; 'ma lana i f a'; lit., 'with 

 his fish'; the ' lana ' in the text, instead of ' lona,' implies that the fish 

 was for his use, not for theirs. Various fishes were supposed to be the 

 special property of the gods. 



4. Fresh-water. The 'ana'ana ' is a fresh-water fish. 



5. Feed. The Samoans feed fishes by throwing crumbs to them, and 

 so fatten them for food. The fishes become so tame that they rush to 

 be fed. Small boys amuse themselves by throwing to them little pellets 

 of soap. A fish, suspecting nothing, seizes a pellet, but drops it from 

 the mouth; another fish then seizes it likewise. He said ; 'fetalai/ a 

 chief's word, to ' speak with authority.' 



6. They remained. The usual complimentary formula when a Samoan 

 leaves a friend's house is 'I am going; ' he answers, 'You go'; elsewhere 

 it is 'I go, you remain.' 



7. He spake to them ; 'fetalai ane '; the f ane' is a particle used with 

 verbs and denotes direction 'towards.' This time Tangaloa did not 

 speak to them as a friend, but only towards them, or concerning them. 



8. Obeyed; ' usitai,' to give deference to, to comply with. Punishment; 

 e tau/ reward good or bad ; price ; payment ; punishment. 



9. The coral bottom of the sea ; 'papaga.' 



10. Seek for a land; cf. "So he drove out the man." Gen. iii., 24. 



11. Lalo-Mdnu is a village at the base of a high conical mountain — ■ 

 Manu — in Upolu, Alama's island. This mountain is volcanic, and has 

 an extinct cup-like crater at its top ; volcanic action has long since ceased 

 here, but, in Savai'i, it has been comparatively recent, for we know that 

 four or five generations ago, a volcano was still smouldering there ; fifty 



