Samoan Story Of Creation by John Fraser Lyrics
INTRODUCTION—1. All nations have traditions or speculations as to their own origin, and these often include a Cosmogony, by which they endeavour to account for the existence of the world, or at least of their own land, and for the creation of men to be its inhabitants. Our own Australian blacks, whom some ethnologists wrongly describe as the lowest of human beings, speak of a great Creator, known by such tribal names as Baiamai, Punjil, Nuralli, who made them and all things, and who still lives in the heavens above; in the work of creation, he carried a great knife, with which to shape the toil of his hands; in this work he is assisted by a demiourgos whom the p. 185 Kamalarai tribe call Dharamulan, and certain birds and animals are also associated with him as agents; Punjil first made two men each of a lump of clay, which he gradually fashioned from the feet upwards into the human form; and, as the figures grew in symmetry and beauty, he danced round them, well satisfied with his work; then he breathed very hard on them and they lived, and began to move about as full-grown men. The one had straight hair, and the other had curly hair.
2. Punjil's brother had control of all waters, great and small; and so, one day, he brought up by a hook from a muddy-pool two young women, and they became the companions of the two men. Some time after, Punjil came down and visited the camp of the blacks; and, becoming very angry, he used his great knife on the men, women, and children there, and cut them into very small pieces, which still lived and wriggled about like worms; these he carried into the sky, and then dropped them wherever he pleased; the pieces became men and women, and peopled the whole land. Baiamai gave to the blacks their sacred songs and their social institutions.
There is not much of a Cosmogony in this tale, for it tells us only how men were brought into being, and how Australia came to be occupied by straight-haired and curly-haired blacks; but I have introduced it here, because it bears some relation to the Polynesian myth which I am now to make known to you.
3. The Polynesian race of the Eastern Pacific has an elaborate system of Cosmogony, which aims at explaining how the heavens were created and sustained, how gods and men came to be, how their own islands arose; but the details thereof vary much as given by the wise men in the various groups. Of the varying forms of the great Myth of Creation, the one I have here from Sāmoa seems to me to be the purest and the noblest, and to be the original from which the others have come. Any one who knows Polynesia would reasonably expect this to be so, for, in many respects, the Sāmoans 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 depositories 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 value, we must always bear in mind that natives consider their traditional records as property which ought not to be shared with stangers; if circumstances compel them to open their stores against their will to foreigners, they so abridge or mutilate the narrative that p. 166 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‘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 god Tangaloa 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.
In this same sense, Charles Kingsley eloquently says:—"Those simple-hearted forefathers of ours said within themselves 'Where is the All-father'? Then they lifted up their eyes to the clear, blue sky, the boundless firmament of heaven. That never changed; that was always the same. The clouds and storms rolled far below it, and all the bustle of this noisy world; but there the sky was still, as bright and calm as ever. The All-Father must be there, unchangeable in the unchanging heaven; bright, and pure, and boundless, like the heaven; and like the heavens too, silent and far off. So they named him after the heaven, Tuisco—the God who lives in the clear heaven, p. 167 the heavenly father. He was the Father of Gods and men; and man was the son of Tuisco and Hertha—heaven and earth."
Now as to the meaning and derivation of the name Tangaloa, I may call to your remembrance the fact that the Anglo-Saxon god-name, Tuisco, is of the same origin as the Eng. word day and Lat. dies; the old Aryan root is dyu or div, 'to shine,' which gives other god-names, the Sans. Dyaus and deva, the Gr. Zeus and Zēn, and the Lat. Jupiter, Jovis, as well as the common noun divus. The idea common to them all is that of 'bright, lustrous, beaming,' and this fits in with the fact that Tangaloa dwells in the empyrean above. But, in seeking for a derivation of the name Tangaloa, I call to mind the Polynesian tradition that originally the sky lay flat on the lower world, lalo-langi, as they call it, the 'under-the-sky,' and that the nine heavens, being now propped up, surround the earth and envelope it on all sides. Therefore I divide the name Tangaloa into two parts tanga and loa; in Samoan the verb ta‘ai, that is, takai ( = tangai) means, to 'wind round' like an ulcer encircling a limb, and ta‘aiga is a 'roll,' of mats or tobacco or the like. In the Maori dialect, tangai is the 'bark' or 'rind,' that which 'envelopes,' and takai is a 'wrapper'; in Samoan tanga is a 'bag,' that which 'envelopes' or 'encloses.' I would therefore say that the name was at first Tanga-la, then lengthened into Tanga-loa,—'the god that encompasses all things,' 'the encircling Aether'; but, as -la is not a common formative in Polyesian dialects, at least so far as I know, it is quite possible that -loa is a separate word, and may be the Samoan loa, 'long,' 'far off.'
5. The myth next goes on to say that, in his wandering to and fro in the Expanse, Tangaloa one day stood still, and then there grew up păpă, 'a rock,' for him to rest on. In another Samoan myth, 'le Solo o le Va,' Tangaloa is, at another time, weary of flying over the waste of waters, and no sooner does he express a wish for a resting place, than an island rises up from the deep for him. In both cases, there is no laborious work of creation ascribed to him, but his wish or his need at once produces the result desired. There is certainly some dignity in this.
The word păpă, in Samoan, means 'rock,' but in other dialects it also means 'foundation,' 'anything level or flat,' and pala, means 'mud.' Now I take the myth here to indicate that, by the exercise of his will alone, Tangaloa caused to spring up, out of chaos, first the solid foundation-material out of which the Earth, the Sea, the Sky, were afterwards evolved by separate fiats or acts of creation; for the myth then declares that he spake to the Rock, saying, 'Be thou split p. 168 open,' and there came forth, as if by successive efforts of parturition, various kinds of foundation-stuff, then the Earth, then the Sea, and Fresh-water, and the Sky, and 'Prince-Prop-up-sky,' and Immensity, and Space, and Height, and, last of all, Man, as a physical being, but not yet endowed with intelligence. Unlike the original papa, all of these come into existence, not at his will, but by the power of a separate command of evolution for each.
I am not much concerned to explain how, on natural principles, the Sea, and the Sky, and Man himself, can have been produced by this papa, but the succession of ideas in this Samoan myth is consistent; for first comes the Rock or Foundation—the physical origin of all things—then the varieties of rock, which are soon united to form the Earth; then the Sea, 'le tai,' is made to surround the Earth and lave its shores; then its counterpart, 'le vai,' Fresh-water, appears on the Earth; hitherto Earth and Sky had been as one, but now the Sky is lifted up above the earth and secured in its place by props; then the dimensions Length, Breadth, and Height appeared; and then, all things being ready for him, Man came upon the scene.
6. But Man was yet a dull, inert mass of matter; so Tangaloa created Spirit, and Heart, and Will, and Thought, and put them within him, and thus Man became a living soul. Here the myth duly recognises the composite nature of man, and that too with a precision scarcely to be expected from Polynesians.
7. The Kosmos had been, to some extent, arranged already as Land, Sea, and Sky, but now that Man is to dwell on earth, Tangaloa proceeds to make him comfortable; and so he sends Immensity and Space, as a wedded pair, to dwell in the sky above; he bids another pair, 'Two-clouds' and 'Two-fresh-water-bottles,' attend to the supply of water from the clouds, and another pair to people the Sea. Meanwhile the man and his wife are to people the earth on its southern side. But now a catastrophe seems to have happened, for Tui-te‘e-langi, the Polynesian Atlas, found himself unable any longer to support the weight of the sky, and so it fell down on the earth once more. Then Tui bethought him of two native plants that grow, spread out a-top like an umbrella; with these he propped up the sky, and it has never fallen since! In this connection, it is curious to note that our Australian Aborigines believe similarly that the sky is held up by props, and they have a tradition that the props once broke, and then the wizards had great work to do in getting the sky propped up again.
8. The wedded pair, Immensity and Space, that had a little before been removed from the earth to the sky, now brought forth children— p. 169 Night and Day, and these two, by their united action, produced the Sun and the Stas; these two dwell in the First Heavens, the region of alternate darkness and brightness. Immensity and Space next gave birth to Le-Langi, 'the clear, blue sky'; that is the Second Heavens. Langi then produces all the other heavens up to the Ninth, and each of these is peopled by Immensity and Space. All this means that, above the cloud land of the First Heaven, everything is serene, calm, and clear, and everywhere there is illimitable extension of space. So it must have appeared, at all events, to the earliest of myth-makers, when they turned their thoughts from earth to heaven.
9. Our myth now turns to the creation of the other gods; every one of these, however, is a Tangaloa, and is therefore not a seperate and independant being, but only a phase, as it were, of the supreme Tangaloa—a distinct manifestation of himself in some one or other of his functions. These he created, but the word used here fa‘a-tupu, only implies that he 'caused them to grow up' or to be. Of all these facets of himself, he makes Tangaloa-le-fuli, 'the immoveable,' to be the chief, for up there, in his domain, the Ninth Heavens, the clouds 'never roll along' (le fuli), the storms below never come nigh, and all is tranquility and peace.
10. The myth next shows the Sāmoan pride of race, for it makes Sāmoa and Manu‘a to be brothers to the Sun and the Moon. And yet we cannot believe that the Polynesians are akin to the rulers of the Celestial Empire. After these, the other islands of the Pacific, as known to Sāmoans,—Tonga and Fiji and the Eastern groups—are made to spring up at the will of 'Tangaloa-the-creator-of-lands.' This is a much more dignified account of things than that which is given in some other Polynesian legends, which say that, while one of the gods was engaged in fishing in the sea, he pulled up with his line an island here and there; and that had not the line at last broken with the pull, some of these islands might have been continents.
11. But the newly-created islands are, as yet, rough and rugged and unfit for the occupation of man; and so 'Tangaloa-the-creator' comes 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-sāváli 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 original creation of mankind by God, for our myth says, at its close, p. 170 that Fue was the son of Tangaloa, and there is still in Sāmoa a variety of this vine, which is called Fue-sā, the 'sacred vine.' And, to Sāmoans, 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 punjilko, that is, punjil with the infinitive suffix -ko added, means 'to cut out,' 'to shape,' 'to make'; hence Baimai 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 '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 aspects, is the lord of the sea; Punjil's brother is the lord of all waters. Baiamai gave to the Australians all their socal regulations; so also, among the Polynesians, all authority comes from Tangaloa; he gave them kingly rule, and the right of holding 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.
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TRANSLATION.
13. The god Tangaloa dwelt in the Expanse; he made all things; he alone was [there]; not any sky, not any country; he only went to and fro in the Expanse; there was also no sea, and no earth; but, at the place where he stood there grew up a rock. Tangaloa-fa‘a-tutupu-nu‘u was his name; all things were about to be made, by him, for all things were not yet made; the sky was not made nor any thing else; but there grew up a Rock on which he stood.
14. Then Tangaloa said to the Rock, 'Be thou split up.' Then was brought forth Papa-taoto; after that, Papa-sosolo; then Papa-lau-a‘au; then Papa-‘ano-‘ano; then Papa-‘ele; then Papa-tu; then Papa-‘amu-‘amu and his children.
15. But Tangaloa stood facing the west, and spoke to the Rock. Then Tangaloa struck the Rock with his right hand, and it split open towards the right side. Then the Earth was brought forth (that is the parent of all the people in the world), and the Sea was brought forth. Then the Sea covered the Papa-sosolo; and Papa-nofo [that is, Papa-taoto] said to Papa-sosolo, 'Blessed are you in [the possession of] your sea.' Then said Papa-sosolo 'Don't bless me; the sea will soon reach you too.' All the rocks in like manner called him blessed.
16. Then Tangaloa turned to the right side, and the Fresh-water sprang up. Then Tangaloa spake again to the Rock, and the Sky was produced. He spake again to the Rock and Tui-te‘e-langi was brought forth; then came forth Ilu, 'Immensity,' and Mamao, 'Space,' came (that was a woman); then came Niuao.
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17. Tangaloa spake again to the Rock; then Lua‘o, a boy, came forth. Tangaloa spake again to the Rock, and Lua-vai, a girl, came forth. Tangaloa appointed these two to the Sā-tua-langi.
18. Then Tangaloa spoke again, and Aoa-lālā, a boy was born, and [next] Ngao-ngao-le-tai, a girl; then came Man; then came the Spirit; then the Heart; then the Will; then Thought.
19. That is the end of Tangaloa's creations which were produced from the Rock; they were only floating about on the sea*; there was was no fixedness there.
20. Then Tangaloa made an ordinance to the rock and said:—
(1) Let the Spirit and the Heart and Will and Thought go on and join together inside the Man; and they joined together there and man became intelligent. And this was joined to the earth ('ele-ele'), and it was called Fatu-ma-le-‘Ele-‘ele, as a couple,† Fatu the man, and ‘Ele-‘ele, the woman.
(2) Then he said to Immensity and Space, 'Come now; you two be united up above in the sky with your boy Niuao, then they went up; there was only a void, nothing for the sight to rest upon.
(3) Then he said to Lua-‘o and Lua-vai, 'Come now, you two, that the region of fresh-water may be peopled.'
(4) But he ordains Aoa-lālā and Ngao-ngao-le-tai to the sea, that they two may people the sea.
(5) And he ordains Le-Fatu and Le-‘Ele-‘ele, that they people this side; he points them to the left-hand side, opposite to Tua-langi.
(6) Then Tangaloa said to Tui-te‘e-langi, 'Come here now; that you may prop up the sky.' Then it was propped up; it reached up on high. But it fell down because he was not able for it. Then Tui-te‘e-langi went to Masoa and Teve; he brought them and used them as props; then he was able. (The masoa and the teve were the first plants that grew, and other plants came afterwards). Then the sky remained up above, but there was nothing for the sight to rest upon. There was only the far-receding sky, reaching to Immensity and Space.
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THE PRODUCTION OF THE NINE HEAVENS.
21. Then Immensity and Space brought forth offspring; they brought forth Po and Ao, 'Night and Day,' and this couple was ordained by Tangaloa to produce the 'Eye of Sky,' [the Sun]. Again Immensity and Space brought forth Le-Langi; that is the Second Heavens; for Tui-te‘e-langi went forth to prop it up and the sky became double; and Immensity and Space remained there, and they peopled the sky. Then again Langi brought forth, and Tui-te‘e-langi went forth and propped it up; that was the Third Heavens; that was peopled by Immensity and Space. Then Langi bore again; that was the Fourth Heavens. Tui-te‘e-langi went forth to prop it up; that heaven also was peopled by Ilu and Mamao. Then Langi bore again; that was the Fifth Heavens. Then went forth Tui-te‘e-langi to prop it up; that heaven also was peopled by Ilu and Mamao. Langi brought forth again; that was the Sixth Heavens. And Tui-te‘e-langi went and propped it up; that heaven was peopled by Ilu and Mamao. Then Langi bore again; that was the Seventh Heavens. And Tui-te‘e-langi went forth and propped it up; that heaven was peopled by Ilu and Mamao. Then Langi again brought forth; that was called the Eighth Heavens. Tui-te‘e-langi went to prop up that heaven; and that heaven was peopled by Ilu and Mamao. Then again Langi brought forth; that was the Ninth Heavens; and it was propped up by Tui-te‘e-langi; and that heaven was peopled by Ilu and Mamao. Then ended the productiveness of Ilu and Mamao; it reached to the Ninth Heavens.
THE PRODUCTION OF OTHER GODS.
22. Then Tangaloa sat [still]; he is well known as Tangaloa-fa‘a-tutupu-nu‘u; then he created Tangaloa-lē-fuli, and Tangaloa-asiasi-nu‘u, and Tangaloa-tolo-nu‘u, and Tangaloa-sāváli, and Tuli also, and Longonoa.
23. Then said Tangaloa, the creator, to Tangaloa-lē-fuli, 'Come here; be thou chief in the heavens.' Then Tangaloa, 'the immoveable,' was chief in the heavens.
24. Then Tangaloa, the creator, said to Tangaloa-sāváli, 'the messenger,' 'Come here; be thou ambassador in all the heavens, beginning from the Eighth Heavens down to the First Heavens, to tell them all to gather together in the Ninth Heavens, where Tangaloa, the immoveable, is chief. Then proclamation was made that they should go up to the Ninth Heavens, and then visit below the children of Night and Day in the First Heavens.
25. Then Tangaloa, the messenger, went down to Night and Day in the First Heavens, and asked them thus:—'Have you two any children appointed to you? And they answered, 'Come here; these two are our children, appointed to us, Langi-‘uli and Langi-mā.'
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26. All the stars also were their offspring, but we do not have the names of all the stars (the stars had each it own name), for they are forgotten now, because they dropped out of use. And surely the last injunction of Tangaloa, the creator, to Night and Day was that they should produce the Eye-of-the-Sky. That was the reason Tangaloa, the messenger, went down to ask Night and Day in the First Heavens [if they had any children].
27. Then answered Night and Day, 'Come now; there remain four boys that are not yet appointed,—Manu‘a, Sāmoa, the Sun, and the Moon.'
28. These are the boys that originated the names of Sāmoa and Manu‘a; these two were the children of Night and Day. The name of the one is Sā-tia-i-le-moa, 'obstructed by the chest'; the meaning of which is this:—the boy seemed as if he would not be born, because he was caught by the chest; therefore it was he was called Sā-tia-i-le-moa, that is, Sāmoa; the other was born with one side abraded ('manu‘a'); then said Day to Night 'Why is this child so greatly wounded?' therefore the child was called 'Manu‘a-tele.'
29. Then said Tangaloa, the messenger, 'It is good; come now; go up into the Ninth Heavens, you four; all are about to gather together there to form a Council; go up you two also.' Then they all gathered together in the Ninth Heavens,—the place where dwelt Tangaloa, the creator, and Tangaloa, the immoveable; the Council was held in the Ninth Heavens; the ground where they held the Council was Malaē-a-Toto‘a, 'the council ground of Tranquillity.'
30. Then various decrees were made in the Ninth Heavens; the children of Ilu and Mamoa were appointed all of them to be builders, and to come down from the Eighth Heavens to this [earth] below; perhaps they were ten thousand in all that were appointed to be builders; they had one name all were [called] Tangaloa. Then they built houses for the Tangaloa; but the builders did not reach to the Ninth Heavens—the home of Tangaloa-lē-fuli—which was called the 'Bright House' [fale-‘ula].
31. Then said Tangaloa, the creator, to Night and Day:—'Let those two boys go down below to be chiefs over the offsprings of Fatu and ‘Ele-‘ele.' But to the end of the names of the two boys was attached the name of Tangaloa-lē-fuli who is king ('tupu') of the Ninth Heavens; hence the [Samoan] kings ('tupu') were named 'Tui o Manu‘a-tele ma Samoa atoa.'
32. Then Tangaloa, the creator, said to Night and Day:—'Let those two boys, the Sun and the Moon, go and follow you two; when day comes, let the Sun follow; also when Night comes, the Moon too comes on.' These two are the shades of Tangaloa; they are well-known in all the world; the Moon is the shade of Tangaloa; but thus runs the decree of Tangaloa, the creator,—Let there be one portion of p. 179 the heavens, in which they pass along; in like manner also shall the Stars pass along.'
33. Then Tangaloa, the messenger, went to and fro to visit the land; his visit began in the place where are (now) the Eastern groups; these groups were made to spring up; then he went off to cause the group of Fiji to grow up; but the space between seemed so far off that he could not walk it; then he stood there and turned his face to the Sky, [praying] to Tangaloa, the creator, and Tangaloa, the immoveable; Tangaloa looked down to Tangaloa, the messenger; and he made the Tongan group spring up; then that land sprang up.
34. Then he turns his face to this Manu‘a; and looks up to the heavens, for he is unable to move about; then Tangaloa, the creator and Tangaloa, the immovable, looked down, and caused Savai‘i to spring up; then that land grew up.
35. Then Tangaloa, the messenger, went back to the heavens, and said—'We have (now) got countries, the Eastern group and the Fiji group, and the Tongan group, and Savai‘i.' Then, as all these lands were grown up, Tangaloa, the creator, went down in a black cloud to look at the countries, and he delighted in them; and he said, 'It is good;' then he stood on the top of the mountains to tread them down, that the land might be prepared for people to dwell in. Then he returned [on high]. And Tangaloa, the creator, said [to Tangaloa, the messenger],—'Come now; go back by the road you came; take people to possess the Eastern groups; take Atu and Sasa‘e; that is a pair; they were called conjointly Atu-Sasae; these two people came from the heavens from among the children of Tangaloa.
36. Then Tangaloa, the messenger, went again to the Fiji group; he also again took two persons, a pair—their names were Atu and Fiji—from among all the children of Tangaloa; so that group of islands was called Atu-Fiji.
37. Then he turned his face towards Tonga; he took [with him] a couple; their names were Atu and Tonga; these two peopled that group of islands; their names were the Atu-Tonga; these two were the people of Tangaloa.
38. Then Tangaloa, the messenger, came back to this Manu‘a, to Le-Fatu and Le-‘Ele-‘ele and their children; because the command of Tangaloa, the creator, [had gone forth] from the heavens, that Le-Fatu and Le-‘Ele-‘ele should go there to people this side of the world. Then went out Valu‘a and Ti‘ăpă to people Savai‘i; these two are the children of Le-Fatu and Le-‘Ele-‘ele; these two people are from this Manu‘a; Savai‘i and this Manu‘a are one; these two were the parents of I‘i and Sava; I‘i was the girl, and Sava was the boy; that island was peopled by them, and was named Savai‘i.
39. And Tangaloa, the messenger, went again to this Manu‘a; then he stood and faced the sky, as if he were making a prayer; then p. 180 Tangaloa, the creator looked down, and the land of Upólu sprang up. Then Tangaloa, the messenger, stood and again faced the heavens towards Tangaloa, the creator; and Tangaloa, the creator, looked down from the heavens, and the land of Tutuila sprang up.
40. Then Tangaloa, the messenger, turned to the heavens, and said, 'Two lands are now gotten for me to rest in. And Tangaloa, the creator, said, 'Come now, go you with the Peopling-vine; take it and place it outside in the sun; leave it there to bring forth; when you see it has brought forth, tell me.' Then he took it and placed it in Salēa-au-mua, a council-ground, which is now called the Malae-of-the-sun. Then Tangaloa, the messenger, was walking to and fro; and he visited the place where the Fue was; he went there and it had brought forth. Then he went back again to tell Tangaloa, the creator, that the Fue had brought forth. Then Tangaloa, the creator, first went down; he went to it; he looked, and it had brought forth something like worms; wonderful was the multitude of worms; then Tangaloa, the creator, shred them into stripes, and fashioned them into members, so that the head, and the face, and the hands, and the legs were distinguishable; the body was now complete, like a man's body; he gave them heart and spirit; four persons grew up; so this land was peopled; there grew up Tele and Upólu, which are the children of the Fue; Tutu and Ila, that is a pair; these are the children of Fue; four persons, Tele and Upólu, Tutu and Ila. Tele and Upólu were placed to people the land of Upolu-tele; but Tutu and Ila, they two were to people the land now called Tutuila.
41. Fue, the son of Tangaloa, that came down from heaven, had two names, Fue-tangata and Fue-sa; he peopled the two flat lands.
42. Then Tangaloa gave his parting command thus; 'Always show respect to Manu‘a; if any one do not, he will be overtaken by calamity; but let each one do as he likes with his own lands.'
43. [Here] the story of the creation of Sāmoa finishes with this parting command, which was given at Malae-lā.
2. Punjil's brother had control of all waters, great and small; and so, one day, he brought up by a hook from a muddy-pool two young women, and they became the companions of the two men. Some time after, Punjil came down and visited the camp of the blacks; and, becoming very angry, he used his great knife on the men, women, and children there, and cut them into very small pieces, which still lived and wriggled about like worms; these he carried into the sky, and then dropped them wherever he pleased; the pieces became men and women, and peopled the whole land. Baiamai gave to the blacks their sacred songs and their social institutions.
There is not much of a Cosmogony in this tale, for it tells us only how men were brought into being, and how Australia came to be occupied by straight-haired and curly-haired blacks; but I have introduced it here, because it bears some relation to the Polynesian myth which I am now to make known to you.
3. The Polynesian race of the Eastern Pacific has an elaborate system of Cosmogony, which aims at explaining how the heavens were created and sustained, how gods and men came to be, how their own islands arose; but the details thereof vary much as given by the wise men in the various groups. Of the varying forms of the great Myth of Creation, the one I have here from Sāmoa seems to me to be the purest and the noblest, and to be the original from which the others have come. Any one who knows Polynesia would reasonably expect this to be so, for, in many respects, the Sāmoans 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 depositories 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 value, we must always bear in mind that natives consider their traditional records as property which ought not to be shared with stangers; if circumstances compel them to open their stores against their will to foreigners, they so abridge or mutilate the narrative that p. 166 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‘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 god Tangaloa 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.
In this same sense, Charles Kingsley eloquently says:—"Those simple-hearted forefathers of ours said within themselves 'Where is the All-father'? Then they lifted up their eyes to the clear, blue sky, the boundless firmament of heaven. That never changed; that was always the same. The clouds and storms rolled far below it, and all the bustle of this noisy world; but there the sky was still, as bright and calm as ever. The All-Father must be there, unchangeable in the unchanging heaven; bright, and pure, and boundless, like the heaven; and like the heavens too, silent and far off. So they named him after the heaven, Tuisco—the God who lives in the clear heaven, p. 167 the heavenly father. He was the Father of Gods and men; and man was the son of Tuisco and Hertha—heaven and earth."
Now as to the meaning and derivation of the name Tangaloa, I may call to your remembrance the fact that the Anglo-Saxon god-name, Tuisco, is of the same origin as the Eng. word day and Lat. dies; the old Aryan root is dyu or div, 'to shine,' which gives other god-names, the Sans. Dyaus and deva, the Gr. Zeus and Zēn, and the Lat. Jupiter, Jovis, as well as the common noun divus. The idea common to them all is that of 'bright, lustrous, beaming,' and this fits in with the fact that Tangaloa dwells in the empyrean above. But, in seeking for a derivation of the name Tangaloa, I call to mind the Polynesian tradition that originally the sky lay flat on the lower world, lalo-langi, as they call it, the 'under-the-sky,' and that the nine heavens, being now propped up, surround the earth and envelope it on all sides. Therefore I divide the name Tangaloa into two parts tanga and loa; in Samoan the verb ta‘ai, that is, takai ( = tangai) means, to 'wind round' like an ulcer encircling a limb, and ta‘aiga is a 'roll,' of mats or tobacco or the like. In the Maori dialect, tangai is the 'bark' or 'rind,' that which 'envelopes,' and takai is a 'wrapper'; in Samoan tanga is a 'bag,' that which 'envelopes' or 'encloses.' I would therefore say that the name was at first Tanga-la, then lengthened into Tanga-loa,—'the god that encompasses all things,' 'the encircling Aether'; but, as -la is not a common formative in Polyesian dialects, at least so far as I know, it is quite possible that -loa is a separate word, and may be the Samoan loa, 'long,' 'far off.'
5. The myth next goes on to say that, in his wandering to and fro in the Expanse, Tangaloa one day stood still, and then there grew up păpă, 'a rock,' for him to rest on. In another Samoan myth, 'le Solo o le Va,' Tangaloa is, at another time, weary of flying over the waste of waters, and no sooner does he express a wish for a resting place, than an island rises up from the deep for him. In both cases, there is no laborious work of creation ascribed to him, but his wish or his need at once produces the result desired. There is certainly some dignity in this.
The word păpă, in Samoan, means 'rock,' but in other dialects it also means 'foundation,' 'anything level or flat,' and pala, means 'mud.' Now I take the myth here to indicate that, by the exercise of his will alone, Tangaloa caused to spring up, out of chaos, first the solid foundation-material out of which the Earth, the Sea, the Sky, were afterwards evolved by separate fiats or acts of creation; for the myth then declares that he spake to the Rock, saying, 'Be thou split p. 168 open,' and there came forth, as if by successive efforts of parturition, various kinds of foundation-stuff, then the Earth, then the Sea, and Fresh-water, and the Sky, and 'Prince-Prop-up-sky,' and Immensity, and Space, and Height, and, last of all, Man, as a physical being, but not yet endowed with intelligence. Unlike the original papa, all of these come into existence, not at his will, but by the power of a separate command of evolution for each.
I am not much concerned to explain how, on natural principles, the Sea, and the Sky, and Man himself, can have been produced by this papa, but the succession of ideas in this Samoan myth is consistent; for first comes the Rock or Foundation—the physical origin of all things—then the varieties of rock, which are soon united to form the Earth; then the Sea, 'le tai,' is made to surround the Earth and lave its shores; then its counterpart, 'le vai,' Fresh-water, appears on the Earth; hitherto Earth and Sky had been as one, but now the Sky is lifted up above the earth and secured in its place by props; then the dimensions Length, Breadth, and Height appeared; and then, all things being ready for him, Man came upon the scene.
6. But Man was yet a dull, inert mass of matter; so Tangaloa created Spirit, and Heart, and Will, and Thought, and put them within him, and thus Man became a living soul. Here the myth duly recognises the composite nature of man, and that too with a precision scarcely to be expected from Polynesians.
7. The Kosmos had been, to some extent, arranged already as Land, Sea, and Sky, but now that Man is to dwell on earth, Tangaloa proceeds to make him comfortable; and so he sends Immensity and Space, as a wedded pair, to dwell in the sky above; he bids another pair, 'Two-clouds' and 'Two-fresh-water-bottles,' attend to the supply of water from the clouds, and another pair to people the Sea. Meanwhile the man and his wife are to people the earth on its southern side. But now a catastrophe seems to have happened, for Tui-te‘e-langi, the Polynesian Atlas, found himself unable any longer to support the weight of the sky, and so it fell down on the earth once more. Then Tui bethought him of two native plants that grow, spread out a-top like an umbrella; with these he propped up the sky, and it has never fallen since! In this connection, it is curious to note that our Australian Aborigines believe similarly that the sky is held up by props, and they have a tradition that the props once broke, and then the wizards had great work to do in getting the sky propped up again.
8. The wedded pair, Immensity and Space, that had a little before been removed from the earth to the sky, now brought forth children— p. 169 Night and Day, and these two, by their united action, produced the Sun and the Stas; these two dwell in the First Heavens, the region of alternate darkness and brightness. Immensity and Space next gave birth to Le-Langi, 'the clear, blue sky'; that is the Second Heavens. Langi then produces all the other heavens up to the Ninth, and each of these is peopled by Immensity and Space. All this means that, above the cloud land of the First Heaven, everything is serene, calm, and clear, and everywhere there is illimitable extension of space. So it must have appeared, at all events, to the earliest of myth-makers, when they turned their thoughts from earth to heaven.
9. Our myth now turns to the creation of the other gods; every one of these, however, is a Tangaloa, and is therefore not a seperate and independant being, but only a phase, as it were, of the supreme Tangaloa—a distinct manifestation of himself in some one or other of his functions. These he created, but the word used here fa‘a-tupu, only implies that he 'caused them to grow up' or to be. Of all these facets of himself, he makes Tangaloa-le-fuli, 'the immoveable,' to be the chief, for up there, in his domain, the Ninth Heavens, the clouds 'never roll along' (le fuli), the storms below never come nigh, and all is tranquility and peace.
10. The myth next shows the Sāmoan pride of race, for it makes Sāmoa and Manu‘a to be brothers to the Sun and the Moon. And yet we cannot believe that the Polynesians are akin to the rulers of the Celestial Empire. After these, the other islands of the Pacific, as known to Sāmoans,—Tonga and Fiji and the Eastern groups—are made to spring up at the will of 'Tangaloa-the-creator-of-lands.' This is a much more dignified account of things than that which is given in some other Polynesian legends, which say that, while one of the gods was engaged in fishing in the sea, he pulled up with his line an island here and there; and that had not the line at last broken with the pull, some of these islands might have been continents.
11. But the newly-created islands are, as yet, rough and rugged and unfit for the occupation of man; and so 'Tangaloa-the-creator' comes 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-sāváli 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 original creation of mankind by God, for our myth says, at its close, p. 170 that Fue was the son of Tangaloa, and there is still in Sāmoa a variety of this vine, which is called Fue-sā, the 'sacred vine.' And, to Sāmoans, 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 punjilko, that is, punjil with the infinitive suffix -ko added, means 'to cut out,' 'to shape,' 'to make'; hence Baimai 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 '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 aspects, is the lord of the sea; Punjil's brother is the lord of all waters. Baiamai gave to the Australians all their socal regulations; so also, among the Polynesians, all authority comes from Tangaloa; he gave them kingly rule, and the right of holding 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.
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TRANSLATION.
13. The god Tangaloa dwelt in the Expanse; he made all things; he alone was [there]; not any sky, not any country; he only went to and fro in the Expanse; there was also no sea, and no earth; but, at the place where he stood there grew up a rock. Tangaloa-fa‘a-tutupu-nu‘u was his name; all things were about to be made, by him, for all things were not yet made; the sky was not made nor any thing else; but there grew up a Rock on which he stood.
14. Then Tangaloa said to the Rock, 'Be thou split up.' Then was brought forth Papa-taoto; after that, Papa-sosolo; then Papa-lau-a‘au; then Papa-‘ano-‘ano; then Papa-‘ele; then Papa-tu; then Papa-‘amu-‘amu and his children.
15. But Tangaloa stood facing the west, and spoke to the Rock. Then Tangaloa struck the Rock with his right hand, and it split open towards the right side. Then the Earth was brought forth (that is the parent of all the people in the world), and the Sea was brought forth. Then the Sea covered the Papa-sosolo; and Papa-nofo [that is, Papa-taoto] said to Papa-sosolo, 'Blessed are you in [the possession of] your sea.' Then said Papa-sosolo 'Don't bless me; the sea will soon reach you too.' All the rocks in like manner called him blessed.
16. Then Tangaloa turned to the right side, and the Fresh-water sprang up. Then Tangaloa spake again to the Rock, and the Sky was produced. He spake again to the Rock and Tui-te‘e-langi was brought forth; then came forth Ilu, 'Immensity,' and Mamao, 'Space,' came (that was a woman); then came Niuao.
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17. Tangaloa spake again to the Rock; then Lua‘o, a boy, came forth. Tangaloa spake again to the Rock, and Lua-vai, a girl, came forth. Tangaloa appointed these two to the Sā-tua-langi.
18. Then Tangaloa spoke again, and Aoa-lālā, a boy was born, and [next] Ngao-ngao-le-tai, a girl; then came Man; then came the Spirit; then the Heart; then the Will; then Thought.
19. That is the end of Tangaloa's creations which were produced from the Rock; they were only floating about on the sea*; there was was no fixedness there.
20. Then Tangaloa made an ordinance to the rock and said:—
(1) Let the Spirit and the Heart and Will and Thought go on and join together inside the Man; and they joined together there and man became intelligent. And this was joined to the earth ('ele-ele'), and it was called Fatu-ma-le-‘Ele-‘ele, as a couple,† Fatu the man, and ‘Ele-‘ele, the woman.
(2) Then he said to Immensity and Space, 'Come now; you two be united up above in the sky with your boy Niuao, then they went up; there was only a void, nothing for the sight to rest upon.
(3) Then he said to Lua-‘o and Lua-vai, 'Come now, you two, that the region of fresh-water may be peopled.'
(4) But he ordains Aoa-lālā and Ngao-ngao-le-tai to the sea, that they two may people the sea.
(5) And he ordains Le-Fatu and Le-‘Ele-‘ele, that they people this side; he points them to the left-hand side, opposite to Tua-langi.
(6) Then Tangaloa said to Tui-te‘e-langi, 'Come here now; that you may prop up the sky.' Then it was propped up; it reached up on high. But it fell down because he was not able for it. Then Tui-te‘e-langi went to Masoa and Teve; he brought them and used them as props; then he was able. (The masoa and the teve were the first plants that grew, and other plants came afterwards). Then the sky remained up above, but there was nothing for the sight to rest upon. There was only the far-receding sky, reaching to Immensity and Space.
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THE PRODUCTION OF THE NINE HEAVENS.
21. Then Immensity and Space brought forth offspring; they brought forth Po and Ao, 'Night and Day,' and this couple was ordained by Tangaloa to produce the 'Eye of Sky,' [the Sun]. Again Immensity and Space brought forth Le-Langi; that is the Second Heavens; for Tui-te‘e-langi went forth to prop it up and the sky became double; and Immensity and Space remained there, and they peopled the sky. Then again Langi brought forth, and Tui-te‘e-langi went forth and propped it up; that was the Third Heavens; that was peopled by Immensity and Space. Then Langi bore again; that was the Fourth Heavens. Tui-te‘e-langi went forth to prop it up; that heaven also was peopled by Ilu and Mamao. Then Langi bore again; that was the Fifth Heavens. Then went forth Tui-te‘e-langi to prop it up; that heaven also was peopled by Ilu and Mamao. Langi brought forth again; that was the Sixth Heavens. And Tui-te‘e-langi went and propped it up; that heaven was peopled by Ilu and Mamao. Then Langi bore again; that was the Seventh Heavens. And Tui-te‘e-langi went forth and propped it up; that heaven was peopled by Ilu and Mamao. Then Langi again brought forth; that was called the Eighth Heavens. Tui-te‘e-langi went to prop up that heaven; and that heaven was peopled by Ilu and Mamao. Then again Langi brought forth; that was the Ninth Heavens; and it was propped up by Tui-te‘e-langi; and that heaven was peopled by Ilu and Mamao. Then ended the productiveness of Ilu and Mamao; it reached to the Ninth Heavens.
THE PRODUCTION OF OTHER GODS.
22. Then Tangaloa sat [still]; he is well known as Tangaloa-fa‘a-tutupu-nu‘u; then he created Tangaloa-lē-fuli, and Tangaloa-asiasi-nu‘u, and Tangaloa-tolo-nu‘u, and Tangaloa-sāváli, and Tuli also, and Longonoa.
23. Then said Tangaloa, the creator, to Tangaloa-lē-fuli, 'Come here; be thou chief in the heavens.' Then Tangaloa, 'the immoveable,' was chief in the heavens.
24. Then Tangaloa, the creator, said to Tangaloa-sāváli, 'the messenger,' 'Come here; be thou ambassador in all the heavens, beginning from the Eighth Heavens down to the First Heavens, to tell them all to gather together in the Ninth Heavens, where Tangaloa, the immoveable, is chief. Then proclamation was made that they should go up to the Ninth Heavens, and then visit below the children of Night and Day in the First Heavens.
25. Then Tangaloa, the messenger, went down to Night and Day in the First Heavens, and asked them thus:—'Have you two any children appointed to you? And they answered, 'Come here; these two are our children, appointed to us, Langi-‘uli and Langi-mā.'
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26. All the stars also were their offspring, but we do not have the names of all the stars (the stars had each it own name), for they are forgotten now, because they dropped out of use. And surely the last injunction of Tangaloa, the creator, to Night and Day was that they should produce the Eye-of-the-Sky. That was the reason Tangaloa, the messenger, went down to ask Night and Day in the First Heavens [if they had any children].
27. Then answered Night and Day, 'Come now; there remain four boys that are not yet appointed,—Manu‘a, Sāmoa, the Sun, and the Moon.'
28. These are the boys that originated the names of Sāmoa and Manu‘a; these two were the children of Night and Day. The name of the one is Sā-tia-i-le-moa, 'obstructed by the chest'; the meaning of which is this:—the boy seemed as if he would not be born, because he was caught by the chest; therefore it was he was called Sā-tia-i-le-moa, that is, Sāmoa; the other was born with one side abraded ('manu‘a'); then said Day to Night 'Why is this child so greatly wounded?' therefore the child was called 'Manu‘a-tele.'
29. Then said Tangaloa, the messenger, 'It is good; come now; go up into the Ninth Heavens, you four; all are about to gather together there to form a Council; go up you two also.' Then they all gathered together in the Ninth Heavens,—the place where dwelt Tangaloa, the creator, and Tangaloa, the immoveable; the Council was held in the Ninth Heavens; the ground where they held the Council was Malaē-a-Toto‘a, 'the council ground of Tranquillity.'
30. Then various decrees were made in the Ninth Heavens; the children of Ilu and Mamoa were appointed all of them to be builders, and to come down from the Eighth Heavens to this [earth] below; perhaps they were ten thousand in all that were appointed to be builders; they had one name all were [called] Tangaloa. Then they built houses for the Tangaloa; but the builders did not reach to the Ninth Heavens—the home of Tangaloa-lē-fuli—which was called the 'Bright House' [fale-‘ula].
31. Then said Tangaloa, the creator, to Night and Day:—'Let those two boys go down below to be chiefs over the offsprings of Fatu and ‘Ele-‘ele.' But to the end of the names of the two boys was attached the name of Tangaloa-lē-fuli who is king ('tupu') of the Ninth Heavens; hence the [Samoan] kings ('tupu') were named 'Tui o Manu‘a-tele ma Samoa atoa.'
32. Then Tangaloa, the creator, said to Night and Day:—'Let those two boys, the Sun and the Moon, go and follow you two; when day comes, let the Sun follow; also when Night comes, the Moon too comes on.' These two are the shades of Tangaloa; they are well-known in all the world; the Moon is the shade of Tangaloa; but thus runs the decree of Tangaloa, the creator,—Let there be one portion of p. 179 the heavens, in which they pass along; in like manner also shall the Stars pass along.'
33. Then Tangaloa, the messenger, went to and fro to visit the land; his visit began in the place where are (now) the Eastern groups; these groups were made to spring up; then he went off to cause the group of Fiji to grow up; but the space between seemed so far off that he could not walk it; then he stood there and turned his face to the Sky, [praying] to Tangaloa, the creator, and Tangaloa, the immoveable; Tangaloa looked down to Tangaloa, the messenger; and he made the Tongan group spring up; then that land sprang up.
34. Then he turns his face to this Manu‘a; and looks up to the heavens, for he is unable to move about; then Tangaloa, the creator and Tangaloa, the immovable, looked down, and caused Savai‘i to spring up; then that land grew up.
35. Then Tangaloa, the messenger, went back to the heavens, and said—'We have (now) got countries, the Eastern group and the Fiji group, and the Tongan group, and Savai‘i.' Then, as all these lands were grown up, Tangaloa, the creator, went down in a black cloud to look at the countries, and he delighted in them; and he said, 'It is good;' then he stood on the top of the mountains to tread them down, that the land might be prepared for people to dwell in. Then he returned [on high]. And Tangaloa, the creator, said [to Tangaloa, the messenger],—'Come now; go back by the road you came; take people to possess the Eastern groups; take Atu and Sasa‘e; that is a pair; they were called conjointly Atu-Sasae; these two people came from the heavens from among the children of Tangaloa.
36. Then Tangaloa, the messenger, went again to the Fiji group; he also again took two persons, a pair—their names were Atu and Fiji—from among all the children of Tangaloa; so that group of islands was called Atu-Fiji.
37. Then he turned his face towards Tonga; he took [with him] a couple; their names were Atu and Tonga; these two peopled that group of islands; their names were the Atu-Tonga; these two were the people of Tangaloa.
38. Then Tangaloa, the messenger, came back to this Manu‘a, to Le-Fatu and Le-‘Ele-‘ele and their children; because the command of Tangaloa, the creator, [had gone forth] from the heavens, that Le-Fatu and Le-‘Ele-‘ele should go there to people this side of the world. Then went out Valu‘a and Ti‘ăpă to people Savai‘i; these two are the children of Le-Fatu and Le-‘Ele-‘ele; these two people are from this Manu‘a; Savai‘i and this Manu‘a are one; these two were the parents of I‘i and Sava; I‘i was the girl, and Sava was the boy; that island was peopled by them, and was named Savai‘i.
39. And Tangaloa, the messenger, went again to this Manu‘a; then he stood and faced the sky, as if he were making a prayer; then p. 180 Tangaloa, the creator looked down, and the land of Upólu sprang up. Then Tangaloa, the messenger, stood and again faced the heavens towards Tangaloa, the creator; and Tangaloa, the creator, looked down from the heavens, and the land of Tutuila sprang up.
40. Then Tangaloa, the messenger, turned to the heavens, and said, 'Two lands are now gotten for me to rest in. And Tangaloa, the creator, said, 'Come now, go you with the Peopling-vine; take it and place it outside in the sun; leave it there to bring forth; when you see it has brought forth, tell me.' Then he took it and placed it in Salēa-au-mua, a council-ground, which is now called the Malae-of-the-sun. Then Tangaloa, the messenger, was walking to and fro; and he visited the place where the Fue was; he went there and it had brought forth. Then he went back again to tell Tangaloa, the creator, that the Fue had brought forth. Then Tangaloa, the creator, first went down; he went to it; he looked, and it had brought forth something like worms; wonderful was the multitude of worms; then Tangaloa, the creator, shred them into stripes, and fashioned them into members, so that the head, and the face, and the hands, and the legs were distinguishable; the body was now complete, like a man's body; he gave them heart and spirit; four persons grew up; so this land was peopled; there grew up Tele and Upólu, which are the children of the Fue; Tutu and Ila, that is a pair; these are the children of Fue; four persons, Tele and Upólu, Tutu and Ila. Tele and Upólu were placed to people the land of Upolu-tele; but Tutu and Ila, they two were to people the land now called Tutuila.
41. Fue, the son of Tangaloa, that came down from heaven, had two names, Fue-tangata and Fue-sa; he peopled the two flat lands.
42. Then Tangaloa gave his parting command thus; 'Always show respect to Manu‘a; if any one do not, he will be overtaken by calamity; but let each one do as he likes with his own lands.'
43. [Here] the story of the creation of Sāmoa finishes with this parting command, which was given at Malae-lā.