SOME FOLK-SONGS AND MYTHS FROM SAMOA. 277 



13. The god Tangaloa. He is the great god of the Polynesians ; cf. 

 the notes on ' le Solo o le Va/ 



The Expanse ; ' va-nimo-nimo ' is the word used here. Va means space 

 between any two things ; it may be as small a space as that between two 

 laths on a partition wall or the planking on a ship's deck ; but it may 

 include as much as the east is distant from the west ; nimo-nimo means 



* far, far distant/ I therefore take va-nimo-nimo to mean ' vastly ex- 

 tended space '—so vast that the mind cannot compass it. In Samoan, 

 nimo-nimo is said of any thing that has quite passed from the memory; 

 and a lark soaring aloft and thus going out of sight would be said to 

 nimo-nimo. The word mamao, which occurs further on, also means ' space,' 

 but it seems to differ from va-nimo-nimo in that it is used of a measurable 

 distance between objects ; it may be translated ' extension.' The differ- 

 ance may thus be that va-nimo-nimo is ' unlimited extension,' whereas 

 mamao is ' limited extension.' In Genesis L, 6, the ' firmament ' is the 

 Hebrew rakid, that which is ' spread out/ and seems to correspond with 

 the ' expanse ' here. In Gen. I., 2, " the Spirit of God moved ('brooded') 

 on the face of the waters "; here it is said that Tangaloa fe-alu-alu-mai, 

 ' goes backwards and forwards'; alu means to 'go'; the prefix fe has a 

 reciprocal force ; alu-alu is a reduplication of intensity ; the -mai is a 

 formative termination. In the ' Solo o le Va/ Tuli, which is the ata or 

 spirit-emblem of Tangaloa-savali, is tired of moving to and fro, and desires 

 a place to rest on ; forthwith upsprang Manua's Eock. So also in this 

 myth; where Tangaloa halted from his wandering to and fro, on that 

 spot a Rock sprang up. In line 32 of that same Solo, the footstool of 

 Tangaloa is called taa-tuga, ' that on which he stands'; with this compare 

 " Heaven is my throne, earth is my footstool; . . . what is the place 

 of my rest." ? Here comes in the ancient idea that the heavens were a 

 solid vault ; cf. Gr. ' stereoun,' ' stereoma '; Lot. ' firmamentum/ 



He made all things ; ' na f aia mea uma '; with this compare, "And with- 

 out him was not anything made that was made/' 



No earth; the word here is lau-'ele'ele which means 'land spread out'; 

 'ele'ele elsewhere is merely 'earth, soil, dirt '; the lav, here prefixed denotes 



* breadth '; cf. the ' broad -bosomed ' earth of Hesiod. With the meaning 

 of lau-'ele'ele compare Isaiah xlii., 5, " Thus saith God the Lord, he that 

 created (cf. Heb* bara) the heavens and stretched them out (cf. Samoan 

 va-nimo-nimo and Heb. rakia); he that spread forth the earth (cf. lau-'ele- 

 'ele) and that which cometh out of it; he that giveth breath unto the 

 people upon it {cf. ' Solo o le Va,'), and spirit (cf. anga-anga) to them 

 that walk therein." The Hebrew verb there, ' rdkd/ properly signifies to 

 spread out by ' trampling ' on with the feet or ' beating ' into thin plates. 

 In Samoan, lau has a similar reference ; for, of its compounds, lau-lelei 

 means ' even, level,' lau-papa is a ' board, a plank,' lau-tele is ' wide,' and 

 lau itself, as a prefix to verbs, denotes ' uniformity ' and ' universality/ 

 as if ' spread out/ 



