SOME FOLK-SONGS AND MYTHS FROM SAMOA. 241 



The crystals are seated on stalactitic ferruginous black oxide of 

 manganese. 



ZOISITE. 



The specimen was obtained by Mr. D. A. Porter from Upper 

 Bingera. 



SOME FOLK-SONGS and MYTHS from SAMOA. 

 Translated by the Rev. G. Pratt. 



With Introductions and Notes by John Fraser, ll.d. 



[Read before the Royal Society ofN.S. Wales, December 2, 1891.'] 



XXIV. — Ia 'Alo-'alo, le alo o le La — A 'Tola.' 



1 About 'Alo-'alo, the son of the Sun.' 



o 



Introduction. — At all times and in all places,, men have believed in 

 luck, fortune, fate, destiny. The ancient Aramaeans, in Isaiah's time 

 and before that (Is. lxv., 11), used to "prepare a table for G-ad and fill 

 up mixed drink for Meni," and their successors, the modern Arabs, still 

 call Jupiter and Venus " the stars of the greater and the lesser Fortune," 

 while Mars and Saturn are to them "unlucky stars." The ancient 

 Greeks and Romans had their Moirai and Parcae — deities whom the great 

 Jove himself could not move from their purpose ; the Roman poets often 

 speak of " ineluctabile Fatum " and of " Fortuna laeta saevo negotio, 

 nunc mihi, nunc alii benigna "; the modern Turks are firm believers in 

 fate, ' kismet '; in our language, too, luck is a well-known word and has 

 established itself in daily converse ; for, to-day, we say of a friend, " he 

 is a lucky dog"; to-morrow, perhaps, we find him "down on his luck"; 

 sometimes we think that there is " luck in odd numbers," and again that 

 " Friday is an unlucky day " for beginning an enterprise. 



All these beliefs have arisen from man's experience in life ; he cannot 



see why a labour which has been undertaken and faithfully carried on 



comes to failure, while another of an exactly similar nature and in similar 



circumstances has been successful, although small pains were bestowed 



P— December 2. 1891. 



