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PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION F. 
of Vaitupu. Funafuti appears to have had bitter experience of 
despotic chieftains. Foilape was a man of enormous physical strength, 
and a fearful despot. He had to flee for his life to Vaitupu, where 
he was honoured as a god, after he had been murdered as a despot. 
Another of the principal gods of Vaitupu was Te Moloti, evidently in 
his lifetime a man of a similar character to Foil ape, for he was said to 
have been branded on the cheek and then driven away from Samoa. 
Circumcision (or an equivalent ceremony) was practised on 
Vaitupu, but probably not on any other islands in the Ellice Group. 
III. Gilbert Islands. — The islands in the Kingsmill or Gilbert 
Group known to the writer are five in number, and are situated south 
of the equator. They have all been christianised by Samoan native 
missionaries, and are the only islands in the group which have received 
Christianity through the medium of Samoans. The writer has derived 
his information of native traditions and legends through Samoans. 
Hue allowance will therefore be made for the inevitable bias in favour 
of the Samoan as distinct from the Ocean Island origin of the people 
inhabiting the five islands here referred to. # 
The islands are Arorae or Ilurd Island ; Nikunau or Byron 
Island ; Peru ; Onoatoa or Francis Island ; Tamana or Botch Island. 
Judging from the testimony of Samoans, these islands would 
appear to be rich in legends which testify to the fact that the Samoans 
were, as Bougainville called them in his time, “ navigators.” In this 
they have undoubtedly retrograded in the generations which have 
elapsed since the Gilbert Islands were peopled. 
Of the “ gods” mentioned as formerly worshipped in these 
islands I found several of Samoan origin. 
The principal settlement on the Island of Onoatoa is named 
Buariki. Everywhere I (and others before me) have found that 
Tapuarikif was worshipped as chief among the gods of these islands 
south of the line. On Arorae the tradition referring to him says that 
he swam from Samoa to Peru on two logs of wood apparently the 
puapua ( Ouettarda spvciosa) and the tauanave (Cordia subcordata) of 
Samoa. The myth declares that these two logs of wood uuited, and 
the result was the child Eiarepoto (core of a tree), who became the 
wife of Tapuarikl and mother of Kaneloa and Ntinuea, by whom Peru 
was peopled; thence also came the people of Arorae, Onoatoa, 
iNikunau, Tamana, and Tapitauea. At Onoatoa the Samoan origin of 
the people through Peru is confirmed. There also Tapuariki was 
considered to be the chief of the gods. Tamana is said to be a piece 
of land broken off from Banaba or Ocean Island. At Arorae the 
people worshipped Tangaloa and Borata. Both these names are well 
known in Samoan and Ellice Island traditions, Borata being Folasa of 
Samoa. 
* The late Rev. Thomas Powell, for forty years a missionary in Samoa, in some 
notes written in 1871, quoted this as the opinion of Commodore Wilkes, and refers to 
AVilkes’ Narrative, U.S. Exploring Expedition, voL v., page 82. I have been unable 
to see and to confirm the opinion there given. 
f An ancient stone on which in olden times offerings of fish to Tapuariki, the 
demigod of Manu’a (the eastward islands of the Samoan Group), were placed, could a 
few years ago, and may perhaps still, be seen at Tau, the principal island of the 
little Manu’a Group. 
