SOME FOLK-SONGS AND MYTHS FKOM SAMOA. 26T 



11. But the newly-created islands are, as yet, rough and rugged and 

 unfit for the occupation of man ; and so ' Tangaloa-the-creator' conies down 

 and treads upon them, and prepares them for people to dwell in. And he- 

 looked on all his work, and said, ' It is good.' To people these lands, he- 

 causes Tangaloa-savali to take a native climbing-plant, a Fue, and lay it 

 outside in the sun. Under the Sun's heat, its juice brought forth a great 

 multitude of worms ; these Tangaloa fashioned into men and women, and 

 gave them intelligence, and thus he peopled the lands. This Fue must 

 represent some echo of the origiual creation of mankind by God, for our 

 myth says, at its close, that Fue was the son of Tangaloa, and there is 

 still in Samoa a variety of this vine, which is called Fue-sa, the ' sacred 

 vine.' And, to Sanioans, such origination of life is intelligible ; for 

 they have experience of animal life as a product of the sun's heat ; to 

 procure oil, they slice their cocoa-nuts into lumps, and, leaving a heap of 

 this 'copra' exposed in a canoe, they find that it soon produces oil and 

 worms. 



12. As a parallel to this account of the origin of man, I now refer to 

 the Australian tradition with which I began this introduction. There, 

 the creation-god is Baiamai, that is, Bai-bai, an intensive and therefore 

 honorific name, formed from the Australian root- word ba, 'to cause to 

 be,' ' to make '; similarly, the verb p u n j i 1 k o, that is, p u n j i 1 with, 

 the infinitive suffix -k o added, means ' to cut out,' ' to shape/ ' to make'; 

 hence Baiamai and Punjil simply mean ' the creator.' In his creative 

 work, Punjil uses a knife wherewith to shape all things ; similarly 

 Tangaloa cuts and shapes the vine-worms f into member'd forms.' Punjil 

 too, when he wishes the land to be occupied, cuts the people into small 

 worm-like pieces and scatters them about. Tangaloa declares himself 

 well pleased with his handiwork ; Punjil, in delight, dances around the- 

 clay image of the man which he was making. Tangaloa gives spirit and 

 heart to animate man ; Punjil breathes hard on his image, and the man 

 lives. Tangaloa, in one of his aspect, is the lord of the sea; Punjil's 

 brother is the lord of all waters. Baiamai gave to the Australians all 

 their social regulations ; so also, among the Polynesians, all authority 

 comes from Tangaloa ; he gave them kingly rule, and the right of hold- 

 ing councils, and enjoined them to live in peace. 



And thus, in folk-lore and in tradition-myths, parallel stories may be 

 found in the most unlikely quarters, all the world over, and these parallels 

 can scarcely have proceeded from merely a similar power of invention in. 

 so many diverse nations ; they seem to indicate a common origin. 



