THE HEAVENS, AND THE HEAVENLY BODIES.
1. The Samoans say that of old the _heavens fell down_, and that
people had to crawl about like the lower animals. After a time the
arrow-root and another similar plant pushed up the heavens, and the
place where these plants grew is still pointed out and called the
Teengālangi, or heaven-pushing place; but the heads of the people
continued to knock on the skies, and the place was excessively hot.
One day a woman was passing along who had been drawing water. A man
came up to her and said he would push up the heavens if she would give
him some water to drink. "Push them up first," she replied. He pushed
them up, and said, "Will that do?" "No," said she, "a little farther."
He sent them up higher still, and then she handed him her cocoa-nut
shell water-bottle. Another account says that the giant god Ti'iti'i
pushed up the heavens, and that at the place where he stood there are
hollow places in a rock nearly six feet long which are pointed out as
his footprints.
2. Tradition says that in former times the people on earth had
frequent _intercourse with the heavens_. We have already noticed some
of these visits (pp. 13, 105). These stories are probably founded on
the old idea that the heavens ended at the horizon. They thought that
there was solidity there as well as extension; and therefore a distant
voyage to some other island might be called a visit to some part of
the heavens. When white men made their appearance, it was thought that
they and the vessel which brought them had in some way broken through
the heavens; and, to this day white men are called Papalangi, or
Heaven-bursters.
But imagination required something more circumstantial, and hence the
variety of traditionary schemes by which the people were supposed to
go up and down on these visits to the heavens. One story speaks of a
mountain, the top of which reached to the skies. Another says that a
very dense column of smoke took people up. Another tells of a tree
which, when it fell, was sixty miles in length. Another tree is
mentioned which formed a sort of ladder, but on different sections of
it there were repulsive or stinging insects, through which few but the
very courageous persevered in forcing their way. First there was a
part swarming with cockroaches; then a place full of ants; then a
section covered with large venomous ants; beyond that again was a part
of the tree overspread with centipedes, from which many turned and
went down again to _terra firma_. The centipede region cleared,
however, some finer branches were reached, and perched on them, the
tourists waited for a high wind, which swung them up and down for a
time, and then they were suddenly jerked in to the heavens.
3. Some curious stories are told about _the sun_. A woman called
Mangamangai became pregnant by looking at the rising sun. Her son grew
and was named "Child of the Sun." At his marriage he applied to his
mother for a dowry. She sent him to his father, the sun, to beg from
him, and told him how to go. Following her directions he went one
morning with a long vine from the bush--which is the convenient
substitute for a rope--climbed a tree, threw his rope with a noose at
the end of it, and caught the sun. He made known his message, and
(Pandora-like) got a present for his bride. The sun first asked him
what was his choice--blessings or calamities? "Blessings," was his
reply, and he came down with a store of them done up in a basket.
There is another tale told about this Samoan Phaethon similar to what
is related of the Hawaiian Maui. He and his mother were annoyed at the
rapidity of the sun's course in those days--it rose, reached the
meridian, and set, "before they could get their mats aired." He
determined to make it go slower. He climbed a tree in the early
morning, and with a rope and noose threw again and caught the sun as
it emerged from the horizon. The sun struggled to get clear, but in
vain. Then fearing lest he should be strangled he called out: "Have
mercy on me--spare my life--what do you want?" "We wish you to go
slower," was the reply, "we can get no work done." "Very well, let me
go; for the future I will walk slowly." He let go the rope, and ever
since the sun has gone slowly and given longer days.
The sun was the usual _timekeeper_ of the day. The night was divided
into three parts--midnight, and the first and second cock-crowing.
Then came the sun. There was the rising--the half-way up--the standing
straight overhead--turning over--making to go down--and, last of all,
sinking. They thought the blazing sun went down into the ocean, passed
through and came up next morning on the other side. The commotion
among the waves at the horizon as he went down was supposed to be very
great, and it was one of the worst curses to wish a person to sink in
the ocean and the sun to go blazing down on the top of him.
_Human sacrifices_ to the sun are spoken of in some of the more remote
traditions. In this connection Papatea in the Eastward again comes up
as the place where the sacrifices were offered. When the sun rose he
called for a victim, and the same when he set. This continued for
eighty days, and the population of the island was fast passing away. A
lady called Ui, and her brother Luamaa, fled from Papatea and reached
Manu'a, but alas! the sun there too was demanding his daily victims.
It went the round of the houses, and when all had given up one of
their number it was again the turn of the first house to supply an
offering. The body was laid out on a Pandanus tree, and there the sun
devoured it. It came to the turn of Luamaa to be offered, but his
sister Ui compassionated him, and insisted on being offered in his
stead. She lay down and called out: "Oh, cruel Sun! come and eat your
victim, we are all being devoured by you." The sun looked at lady Ui,
desired to live with her, and so he put an end to the sacrifices, and
took her to wife. Another story makes out that Ui was the daughter of
the King of Manu'a, and that he gave up his daughter as an offering to
the sun, and so end the sacrifices by making her the saviour of the
people.
4. Some of _the planets_ are known and named. Fetū is the word used to
designate all heavenly bodies except the sun and moon. Venus is called
the morning and evening star. Mars is the Matamemea, or the star with
the sear-leafed face. The Pleiades are called Lii or Mataalii, eyes of
chiefs. The belt of Orion is the amonga, or burden carried on a pole
across the shoulders. The milky way is ao lele, ao to'a, and the
aniva. Ao lele, means flying cloud, and ao to'a, solid cloud. Meteors
are called, fetū ati afi, or stars going to fetch a light; and comets
are called pusa loa, or an elongated smoke.
5. Tradition in Samoa, as in other parts of the world, has a good deal
to say about _the moon_. We are told of the visit to it by two young
men, the one named Punifanga and the other Tafaliu. The one went up by
a tree, and the other on a column of dense smoke from a fire kindled
by himself for the purpose. We are also told of the woman Sina, or
_white_, who with her child has long been up there. She was busy one
evening with mallet in hand beating out on a board some of the bark of
the paper mulberry with which to make native cloth. It was during a
time of famine. The moon was just rising, and reminded her of a great
bread-fruit, looking up to it she said, "Why cannot you come down and
let my child have a bit of you?" The moon was indignant at the thought
of being eaten, came down forthwith, and took her up, child, board,
mallet, and all. At the full of the moon young Samoa still looks up,
and traces the features of Sina, the face of the child, and the board
and mallet, in verification of the old story.
The moon was _the timekeeper of the year_. The year was divided into
twelve lunar months, and each month was known by a name in common use
all over the group. To this there were some local exceptions, and a
month named after the god, who on that month was specially worshipped.
It is said that of old it was universal to name the month after the
god whose worship at that particular time was observed. Among a people
who had no fixed astronomical dates intercallation was easy, and the
names of the twelve moons kept uniform.
JANUARY.
1. This was called Utu va mua, _first yam digging_. And so named from
their then digging wild yams before the cultivated ones were ripe, and
also from early yam digging.
2. Others say that the origin of Utu va mua was in two brothers, the
one called Utuvamua and the other Utuvamuli, who, when there was war
in heaven, and their party beaten, fled to the earth and brought the
January storms with them.
3. A third account says that Utuvamua was the elder brother and
Utuvamuli the younger, and that during a great war on earth they
escaped to the heavens. That the hills are the heaps of slain covered
over by earth dug up from the valleys, and that when the two brothers
look down upon them their weeping and wailing and maddening
exasperation occasion the storm and the hurricane.
4. The month was also called Aitu tele, _great god_, from the
principal worship of the month. At another place it was named Tangaloa
tele, for a similar reason.
FEBRUARY.
1. This month was called Toe utu va, or _digging again_, and so named
from the yam crop.
2. The name is also explained as the further digging up of the winds
to raise storms.
3. Aitu iti, or _small gods_, is another name, from the worship of the
inferior household gods in that month.
MARCH.
1. Called Faaafu, or _withering_, from the withering of the yam vine
and other plants, which become coloured "like the shells."
2. Taafanua is another name of the month, which means, _roam_ or _walk
about the land_, being the name of a god worshipped in that month.
3. Called also Aitu iti, or small gods, from the household gods then
worshipped, and who were specially implored to bless the family for
the year "with strength to overcome in quarrels and in battle."
APRIL.
1. This month was called Lo, from the name of a small fish which comes
in plentiful shoals at that time.
2. Called also Fanonga, or _destruction_, the name of a god worshipped
at the eastern extremity of the group during that month.
MAY.
1. Called Aununu, or _stem crushed_, from the crushed or pulverised
state of the stem of the yam at that time. Others say it was so named
from multitudes of malicious demons supposed to be wandering about at
that time. Even the fish of the sea were supposed to be possessed and
unusually savage in this month. May is often an unhealthy month, being
the time of transition from the wet season to the dry, and hence the
_crushing_ sickness and superstitious vagaries.
2. Called also on one island Sina, or _white_, from the worship of a
goddess of that name there.
JUNE.
This month was called Oloamanu, or _the singing of birds_, it was thus
named from the unusual joy among the birds over a plentiful supply of
favourite buds and berries. The bright scarlet flowers of the
"_Erythrina indica_" begin then to come out and attract a host of
parrakeets and other happy chirpers.
JULY.
Called Palolo mua, or _the first of Palolo_. This is the first month
of the half year, called the Palolo season in contradistinction to the
other half, which is called the Trade-wind season. Palolo (_Palolo
virides_) is that singular worm which swarms out from certain parts
of the barrier reefs for three days in the course of a year, of which
the natives are very fond, and all the more so from its rareness. If
the last quarter of the moon is late in October palolo is found the
day before, the day of, and the day after, that quarter. If the last
quarter of the moon is early in October palolo does not come till the
last quarter of the November moon. The middle day, or the day of the
quarter, is the principal day for gathering these swarms of marine
worms.
AUGUST.
This month was called Palolo muli, or _after Palolo_. Pa means to
burst, and lolo, fatty or oily, and hence probably the origin of the
name in the fatty or oily appearance of the worms as they break,
burst, and are mixed up in the heaps directly after they are taken.
They are only found for about half an hour before sunrise, after
sunrise they disappear.
SEPTEMBER.
1. Mulifā was the name given to this month which means _end of the
stem_ of the talo, or "arum esculentum." The month being unusually dry
and parching, the scorching rays of the sun left little of the talo
stem but a small piece at the end.
2. The _end_ of the season for catching the fish called _Fā_, is
another derivation of Mulifā given by some.
OCTOBER.
This month was called Lotuaga, or _rain prayers_. It was so called
from the special prayers which were then offered to the gods for rain.
NOVEMBER.
Taumafamua was the name of this month, _the first of plenty_, that
means, fish and other food became plentiful, and then followed what
were called the palolo and fly-hook feasts. Public dinners in the
houses of the leading men of the village were the order of the day.
DECEMBER.
This month was named Toetaumafa, or _the finish of the feasting_. Food
now was less plentiful, and after some of the December gales or
cyclones there was a great scarcity.