SOME FOLK-SONGS AND MYTHS FKOM SAMOA. 263 



in many respects, the Samoans are a nobler people than most of the other 

 islanders ; they have a strong claim to be considered the parents of the 

 race ; and their highest chiefs and priests were the depositaries of the 

 old traditions and beliefs. The present myth was communicated by one 

 of these old chiefs, Taua-nu'u of Manu'a, and, as Mr. Powell who got it 

 had his full confidence, I have no doubt that this is a genuine and 

 uncorrupted record. In estimating its value, we must always bear in 

 mind that natives consider their traditional records as property which 

 ought not to be shared with strangers ; if circumstances compel them to 

 open their stores against their will to foreigners, they so abridge or 

 mutilate the narrative that it is then of little value, and, only when 

 there is mutual confidence and trust as between friends, will they 

 consent to tell the tale in its fulness and purity. Now, it is evident that 

 this condition of friendship existed between Taua-nu f u and Mr. Powell. 

 Hence my belief in the genuineness of this record. 



4. There is much simple dignity in the opening sentence of the myth — 

 "The godTangaloa dwelt in the Expanse" as the sole intelligence there.. 

 He was soon to be the creator of all things, but as yet there was no sky,. 

 no sea, no land. He moved to and fro in the Expanse. 



It is noticeable that this opening sentence of the myth assumes the 

 prior existence of three things before the work of creation began — (1) an 

 Expanse or Firmament, (2) an intelligent and self-existing creative 

 principle, £ ,le atua Tagaloa,' the god Tangaloa, and (3) the material 

 wherewith to form the earth. There is here no notion that the earth 

 was formed out of nothing. There is, however, an implied belief in the 

 eternity of matter, — the matter, at least, which became the primitive 

 papa, ' rock/ And also there was an Expanse, a sort of illimitable space 

 — and that is a necessary belief in every creation-myth, — but there was 

 no sky, that is, no cloud-land or rain-land such as is now over the earth, 

 and there was Tangaloa, moving to and fro at will in the Expanse. I 

 therefore take Tangaloa to be the Aether of other cosmogonies, — the 

 bright and pure principle of light and heat which existed before the sun,, 

 and which spread everywhere in that earliest state of things which we 

 call Chaos. And, as this myth goes on, we shall find that, according to 

 Polynesian belief, after the heavens and the earth had been made, this 

 same Tangaloa places himself in the highest heavens, the Ninth, the 

 clearest empyrean — where no cloud ever comes, — and there he dwells, calm 

 and undisturbed, in his fale'ula, his 'palace of brightness/ So I see 

 nothing sordid in these three Polynesian ideas ; the whole presents itself 

 to me as a very chaste opening to a Creation-myth. 



