Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before eBook

George Turner (writer)
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 230 pages of information about Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before.

Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before eBook

George Turner (writer)
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 230 pages of information about Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before.

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 3:  There is an island called Maatea in the Paumotu group.]

CHAPTER XXI.

POLITICAL DIVISIONS AND PLACES OF NOTE ON UPOLU.

On Upolu the name of Pili has an early place among the doings of mortals and in the division of the lands.  In one of the traditions his history runs thus:—­Manga had a daughter called Sina, who married the king of Manu’a.  They had a daughter called Sinaleana, White of the cave, because she lived in a cave in which there was also kept the parrot of the king.  The god, Tangaloa, of the heavens looked down and fancied her.  He sent Thunder and Storm for her; they did not get her.  Lightning and Darkness were also sent to fetch her, but they also failed.  Next Deluging Rain, dashing down in great egg-drops, was sent, but to no purpose.  He then let down a net, which covered up the mouth of the cave, caught her, and pulled her up to the heavens.  She became his wife, had a child, and named him Pili, or Entangled, from the way in which she was entangled in the net.

Pili grew up to manhood under the care of the gods, and was sometimes told, pointing down to the earth, that that place was his.  He begged of his father Tangaloa to be allowed to go down.  The reply was:  “If you go down, come up again.  But if you wish to go and not return, take my wooden pillow and fishing-net with you.”

He was let down to the earth by the fishing-net, and placed on Manu’a.  The king of Manu’a asked where he came from, and on hearing that he was his grandson, and that his mother, Sina, was still up in the heavens, he wept aloud.  Pili went to visit Tutuila, tried his hand at fishing, but caught nothing, and was mocked by the Tutuilans.  He then swam away to Savaii, took up his abode at the village Aopo, and from that was called Piliopo.  He quarrelled with the chief there and went off to the village called Palapala, where he met with Tavaetele, Great tropic bird, who had come from Aana on Upolu to seek taro plants.  The Palapala people were generous, and presented the Upolu chief with 100,000 plants.  The retinue of the chief made a difficulty about taking so many across the channel, but Pili stepped forward and said he would bring them all over himself, which he actually did, and helped in making a taro plantation, which extended from the one side of Aana to the other, right across the island.  He remained there and married Sina, the daughter of this chief.

Pili and his wife had four children.  First there were twins, the one called Tua and the other Ana.  Tua was so named from the back of a turtle which Pili caught at that time, and Ana from the cave in which it was taken.  The next born was called Tuamasanga, or, After the twins.  Then followed Tolufale, or Three houses, from the three houses into which the mother was taken before the child was born.

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Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.