SOME FOLK-SONGS AND MYTHS FKOM SAMOA. 83 



and down by it. Ti'i-ti'i had compassion, and he closed the road 



so that there is now no traffic that way. 



Notes.— 1. Mafui'e, the Samoan god of earthquakes. When there is 

 an earthquake, the Samoans cry out, ' Ua Mafui'e/ 'oh! that's Mafui'e/ 

 In the Maori dialect, ' puia ' is a volcano. Ululepapa means ' the enter- 

 ing into the rock/ 



2. Down below, that is, below the surface of the volcanic island Tau, 

 in Manu'a. 



3. Toa tree. This is a very hard wood, indigenous to Samoa ; it is the 

 Casuarina equisetifolia, common in Tau, rarer in Upolu and Savai'i, but 

 cjuite common in Earotonga (Hervey group) and in other islands. When 

 once lighted, the ' toa ' wood burns on and smoulders, like touchwood, 

 until the entire log is consumed. 



4. The people of Mafui'e; cf. the Cyclops and the Cabiri. 



5. The road. This is well known to classical mythology in the stories 

 of Orpheus, Hercules, Castor and Pollux, &c, cf. 'itquereditqueviam toties. 3 



6. Cooked food. There was no fire there, no taro or yams, no cooking, 

 until Ti'i-ti'i conquered Mafui'e. 



7. Any of the men above. This must refer to those who occupied the 

 higher parts of Mafuie's land, for the inhabitants of earth above had, as 

 yet, no means of cooking food. 



8. Talanga went down still. In Samoa, a man, when he marries, has to 

 go and live in his wife's family and work for them. At the end of the 

 first year, the husband and his wife go to their own home. Till then, 

 the husband is a veritable slave to the mother-in-law. Coming home at 

 night, tired and weary with work, he will hear her say to him, ' What 

 do you sit down for ; you are lazy ; go and get some cocoa-nut.' And he 

 goes ! 



9. Make an oven. The oven for cooking food is a necessary appendage 

 to every house, at a little distance from it, and protected by a fence. A 

 sufficiently large hole is dug in the ground ; fuel is placed in it, and on 

 the fuel a lot of round and hard stones ; the fire is kindled and an hour 

 is allowed for this heating process ; the stones are then spread out, and 

 the food to be cooked, — bread-fruit, taro, fish — is laid upon the stones 

 and covered up with green leaves ; this steaming process goes on for 

 another hour, until the food is ready ; the cry then is fu'e le umu, ' open 

 the oven'; ' uncover it.' 



10. To fetch salt water. Salt water is used for all kinds of cooking. To 

 prepare taro for the table, the leaves, being easily broken, are wrapped 

 together into the shape of a hollow bundle ; a liquid consisting of the 

 expressed juice of the cocoa-nut and salt water, half and half, is poured 

 into the middle of it ; the whole is then tied up and cooked. The dish 

 when ready is much relished ; it tastes like spinach. Pudding of grated 



