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AMERICAN SAMOA 
Mr. James C. Flannery, Acting Secretary, Office of the Governor, Pago Pago, 
American Samoa: distributed Pacific Bird Observer Notebooks to interested 
persons, published Samoan translation of notice in newspaper and on radio 
and television. 
COOK ISLANDS 
Mr. A. 0. Dare, Nikao Teachers’ Training Centre, Nikao Rarotonga, Cook Is- 
lands: distributed Pacific Bird Observer Notebooks to teachers. 
WESTERN SAMOA 
Mr. A. Ripine, Prime Minister’s Dept., Gov’t, of Western Samoa, Apia, Western 
Samoa: published notices in the "Savali" newspaper and distributed notices 
to interested persons spending much time at sea. 
LETTER REVEALS SOUTH SEA LORE 
A most intriguing tale con- 
cerning the Frigatebird in the 
Solomons has been sent to us by W. 
R. Ferguson of the Seventh-Day-Ad- 
ventist Mission, Kukudu, British 
Solomon Islands. Such personal 
accounts, given by alert observers 
who have lived in the South Pacific 
many years, are often the best 
sources of folklore in the area. 
Parts of Mr. Ferguson’s letter are 
quoted below. 
"...I have always followed the 
custom of asking the meaning of a 
person’s name. Often they are sig- 
nificant . 
Well one day on my ship I said 
to an islander, "What does Langia 
mean? (Langia used to be a native 
Captain of my ship). Well the boy 
answered something I did not be- 
lieve, so I went to another lad and 
repeated my question. This time the 
answer I got was "Be lama." 
Now "Be lama" is the island word 
for Frigate bird. Again I felt the 
young fellow was pulling my leg. 
So I went to a third person on the 
ship and repeated my original ques- 
tion. 
This time I did not wait for an 
answer. I answered myself with the 
word "Belama". And the chap said 
"Who told you that?" He did not 
wait for me to answer his question 
but answered it himself with the 
name "Tekeni". Of course I said 
"Yes, how did you know?" So he 
told me this island philosophy. 
It has been tabu to call the 
name of a person’s father-in-law in 
these islands. This is done out of 
respect, shall I say. The idea is 
that a son-in-law must always eulo- 
gise his father-in-law. Now Langia 
was the father-in-law to Tekenia 
and when I asked the meaning of 
Langia, Tekena had to eulogise his 
father-in-law and so he simply said 
"Belama". In these islands the 
frigate bird (Belama) and the tuna 
(Makasi) are used in an island way 
to- eulogise. ...The frigate bird 
is looked up on as the greatest 
bird in the sky and the tuna is 
thought of as the greatest fish in 
the sea." 
