98 JOHN FRASEK. 



When the messenger told him that there was a chief in the house who 

 wished to see him, he thought he would make a preliminary survey of his 

 visitor ; so he wrapped himself up in a taro leaf, and on it he floated down 

 the stream till he was opposite his own house ; then Tangaloa, knowing 

 the deceit, put forth his hand, seized the float, and was about to eat it up 

 like a sandwich, when Pava saved himself by giving voice. Now, among 

 ourselves, children in the nursery still read of Tom Thumb, and how, one 

 day, when he was resting on a dock-leaf, a hungry cow, with one sweep 

 of her tongue, carried leaf and him into her capacious stomach. So here ; 

 Pava must have been a very small man, if he could conceal himself in a 

 taro leaf and use it as a boat. 



Meanwhile, the women of the household had been preparing the kava 

 bowl for the guest. Etiquette requires that, while this is going on, a 

 respectful quietness should prevail in the house, for there is a sort of 

 sacredness in the process ; but an unruly son persisted in romping about, 

 and at last he upset the kava bowl. Tangaloa, in anger, struck the boy 

 with the stem of a cocoa-nut leaf ; the stroke cut him in two ; then, seeing 

 Pava's grief, he joined the parts together again, and the boy became 

 whole as before. Frightened by this exhibition of power, Pava and his 

 wife took to flight, swam to Tutuila, a distance of seventy miles, and at 

 last settled in Upolu, where Pava became the war-god of the district of 

 Fale-alili. 



But A-Ui's adventures were not yet over. Leaving the kava ground of 

 Saua, he sauntered along and picked up a few companions. With them 

 he formed a plan to capture the beautiful princess Sina, a Polynesian 

 Thetis, when she came up from her sea-green cave to bathe in the fresh 

 water near the shore. In this they succeeded, and Sina became the wife 

 of Tangaloa and the mother of both spirits and men. 



Le-Fanonga, " Destruction/" one of her sons was a lad ill to manage 

 and restrain — as * destruction ' usually is. He found his way up to the 

 councils of heaven, and his unwonted presence there caused a sensation. 

 The gods, to get rid of him, imposed on him something like one of the 

 labours of Hercules, and sent him to pull up the ( fierce kava/ about 

 which I can tell you no more than what its name bears on its face — a 

 c fierce kava ' which it was dangerous to touch. But Le-Fanonga over- 

 powered it, and dragged it in triumph into the presence of the gods. So 

 it became his property. 



But as Fanonga lived, so he died— still an unruly boy. If ever a Book 

 of Metamorphoses, written by some Samoan Ovid, should be discovered, 

 I am sure that Fanonga's end will be found to have a conspicuous place 



