NAMES OF THE ISLANDS.
_Illustrating Migrations, etc._
1. Of the group generally, it is said that a couple lived at Pulotu
called Head of Day and Tail of Day. They had four children--(1) Ua, or
_Rain_; (2) Fan, _Long grass_;(3) Langi, _Heavens_; (and 4) Tala, or
_Story_. The four went to visit Papatea. Pulotu is in the west,
Papatea in the east. The Papateans heard of the arrival of the four
brothers and determined to kill them. First, Ua was struck on the
neck; and hence the word _taua_, or beat the neck, as the word for
war. This was the beginning of wars. Others stood on the neck of Fan,
and hence the proverb in war: "To-morrow we shall tread on the neck of
Fan." Others surrounded and spat on Langi, and hence the proverb for
ill-usage, or rudely passing before chiefs: "It is spitting on Langi."
Tala was spared, and escaped uninjured.
Tala and Langi returned to Pulotu and told about their ill-usage.
Then Elo, the king of Pulotu, was enraged, and prepared to go and
fight the Papateans. This was the first war in history. They went,
they fought, they conquered, and made a clean sweep of Papatea; and
hence the proverb: "Like the rage of Elo." Also for a village
destroyed in battle they say: "Ua faa Papateaina"--_made to be like
Papatea._
All who fled to the bush were sought and killed, only those who fled
to sea escaped. A man called Tutu and his wife Ila reached the island
of Tutuila, and named it so by the union of their names. U and Polu
reached Upolu, and hence the name of that island by uniting their
names. Sa and Vaila reached Savaii, united their names also, and, for
the sake of euphony, or, as they call euphony "lifting it easily,"
made it Savaii instead of Savaila.
Elo and his warriors went back to Pulotu. Langi and Tala after a time
came to Samoa, but went round by way of Papatea,[3] and from them also
the people of Manono and Apolima are said to have sprung.
2 MANU'A.--This name embraces three islands at the east end of the
Samoan group. Manu'a means _wounded_. As the story runs, the rocks and
the earth married, and had a child, which, when born, was covered with
_wounds_; and hence the name of the said small group of three islands.
The story of Lu figures here again. He had a son who was named Moa,
after his preserve fowls, and this Moa became king of Manu'a. From
that time fowls were no longer called _Moa_ on Manu'a, but Manu lele,
or _winged creatures_, out of respect to the name of the king.
Fitiaumua, or _Fiji the foremost_, is also mixed up with Manu'a
history. He was said to have come from the east, was a great warrior,
conquered at Fiji, and in his lust for conquest came to Samoa. He
subdued all the leeward islands of the group, reached Manu'a, and
there he dwelt. All Samoa took tribute to him, and hence the place was
called the Great Manu'a.
(1.) _Taū_ is the name of the principal island of Manu'a. Its
principal village is also called Taū. It is said to have had its name
from the child of Faleile-langi--_House roofed by the heavens_, that
is to say, no house at all, and alluding to the remote tradition of a
time when people had no houses. This lady was the daughter of the god
Tangaloa, and had a child who was _dumb_, and from that child she
named the island Taū. Ū expresses the hollow unintelligible sound
emitted by the dumb.
_Fitiuta_, or Inland Fiji, is the name of a principal village. It was
formerly called Anga'e, or _Breathing hard_, from the hard breathing
at its birth of a child of Rocks and Earth. But the name was changed.
Moiuuoleapai, a daughter of Tangaloa, married the king of Fiji and
went and lived there. She was ill-used and sent to the backwoods of
Fiji. Taeotangaloa heard that his sister was being ill-treated, and
went off to Fiji to see if it was true. It was true. He stood by her,
cheered her solitude, and by a great yam and banana plantation he
turned the bush into a fruitful garden. The king of Fiji heard of it,
went and made up matters with his cast-off wife, as he much wished the
yams, which were scarce at the time, and hence the proverb: "Do you
call them friends who are but friendly to the _yam?_" The king named
the fertile spot Fitiuta, and when Taeotangaloa returned to Manu'a he
changed the name of the village from Anga'e to Fitiuta.
(2.) _Olosenga_ is the central island in the Manu'a group. This was
called the land of the god Fuailangi, _Originator of the heavens_. He
dug up the earth on the land of the chief Niuleamoa on Taū. The latter
pushed it off into the sea as a floating island, jumped on to it with
the god Fuailangi, together with a lady called Olo, and other two
chiefs named Puletainuu and Masuitufanga. Away they went to Tonga,
seeking some place suitable for the residence of a war god. They
returned to Samoa, touched at Savaii and Upolu, and then went to
Tutuila, but as the people there began to make a dunghill of their
floating island, they went back to Manu'a, and rested between Taū and
Ofu, as Fuailangi thought he could there fight at pleasure with the
people on either side of him.
Senga, the chief of Ofu, looked out, was surprised to see the new
island, went over to look at it, and soon after married Lady Olo. They
united their names, and called it _Olosenga_. The god Fuailangi in
after years was in repute, and dreaded. He was incarnate in the sea
eel, had an altar which the people carried about with them, and any
persons cooking or eating the sea eel had their eyes burned and their
scalps clubbed as a punishment. Another story is that some parrots
flew ashore from a Fiji canoe. Olo means _fort_ and Senga a _parrot_,
and hence the island was called Olosenga--the fort or refuge of
parrots.
(3.) _Ofu_ is the name of a third island at Manu'a. Ofu means
_clothed_. Faleile-langi, the daughter of Tangaloa, had another child,
and this one they clothed, and, in remembrance of the early tailoring,
the island was called Ofu.
3. TUTUILA.--The prevailing story of the origin of the name of this
island is the one already referred to. Tutu the man and Ila the woman
came from the eastward, and dwelt on the island. They had a daughter
born to them there and called her Salaia. When weak and dying they
begged that after their death their names might be remembered.
After they passed away Salaia, or, as some call her, Sangaia, united
the names of her parents, and named the island Tutuila.
4. NUUTELE is a small island off the east end of Upolu. It is said to
have been so named from two men who came to seek a steersman for the
king of Fiji. Nuu was the name of the one, and Tele the other. The
union of their names became the name of the island.
5. UPOLU.--There are a number of diverse stories as to the origin of
this name, as is the case with all these ancient legends.
(1.) The most prevailing fragment is the one already alluded to of the
two called U and Polu who fled from Papatea. Their united names became
the name of the island. They had a son, and they named him king of
Upolu. He called his village the Malae, or meeting-place of Upolu, and
all the gods of the group assembled there at times. It was here they
met to discuss the question as to the duration of human life (see p.
9).
(2.) Upolu was said to be the capital of Pulotu. In a time of war a
number of people fled from Pulotu, reached this island of the Samoan
group, and called it Upolu, in remembrance of their native land.
(3.) Timuateatea, _Wide-spreading rain_, the daughter of Tangaloa of
the heavens, married a chief on earth called Beginning. They had a son
called Polu. The father, in thinking of some employment for his boy,
looked over to the mountains of Savaii, and it occurred to him that it
would be well to get a canoe and go over and see whether there were
people over there or only mountains. He called Polu, and told him to
go up to his grandfather in the heavens and fetch some carpenters,
that they might build a canoe, cross the channel and explore Savaii.
Polu refused, but at length yielded and went up. The carpenters did
not care about the job, but Polu was most urgent, and would take no
denial. U is the word for _urge_. His grandfather asked the name of
his island. Polu said it had none; and on this Tangaloa said: "Very
well, when you go down call it _U_polu, in remembrance of your being
so urgent on the carpenters."
6. MANONO, a small island, 3 miles in circumference, between Upolu and
Savaii, has the following historic fragments:--
(1.) Nono came from Fiji. He was the son of Tuiolautala, king of Fiji.
There came with him Sa'umā, the brother of the king, and Tupuivao, the
god of Fiji. A family quarrel about a fish led them to come away.
Their canoe made the land between Savaii and Upolu. The god Tangaloa
came down and stood on the bow of their canoe and told them not to go
to Savaii or Upolu, lest they should be trampled upon, but remain
where they were. Then Tupuivao vomited a quantity of land he had
swallowed at Fiji, and so made Manono and its neighbouring island
Apolima. He also appointed Sa'umā to live on the latter, and Nono to
take up his abode on Manono, which they so named from Mā and Nono.
(2.) The chief Lautala came from Fiji on a war expedition. He first
touched at Manu'a, and then came and conquered Upolu. After that he
lived on Manono. He made a net, fished, and hung it up to dry. In the
night a number of gods came and tore it to pieces. Lautala then
attacked the gods, and drove them off with great slaughter. He could
not count the number killed, but supposed them to be _Mano_, or ten
thousand, and hence the name of the island Manono.
(3.) Lautala was the name of an island at Fiji, and noted for war. It
broke away from Fiji, and was brought sailing along the ocean to Samoa
by the chief Nono, who came to seek a suitable place for carrying on
war. He first went to Manu'a, but did not like it. He then went to the
space between Tutuila and Upolu, but did not fancy that either. Then
he came to the space between Upolu and Savaii, and thought that would
do, as he could attack Upolu or Savaii, whichever he pleased. He
anchored his island there, where it now is, and named it Manono, after
himself. Hence it is said that Manono is not a part of Samoa, but a
fragment of Fiji, and that of old there was no land between Upolu and
Savaii.
7. APOLIMA is a small island three miles from Manono. Manono and
Apolima were two sons of the king of Fiji. One day Manono cooked an
oven of yams for his father and brother chiefs, but served it up
without a fish. His father was angry, and so off went Manono with a
spear and speared a fish and took it to his father. His father was
still angry, and hurled a spear at him. He fell, pulled it out of his
neck, and got up and ran off to Samoa.
Apolima remained still in Fiji, but after a time came in search of his
brother and found him where he now is. Before he left Fiji his father
told him to call himself Apo-i-le-lima, or Apolima, which means,
_Poised in the hand_, from the spear which he held when he speared
Manono. They have been often attacked, but never conquered, from their
impregnable island fortress. It is a great high hollow basin-shaped
island, inaccessible all round but at one narrow chip in the west side
of the basin, which can be easily defended.
8. SAVAII is the largest island of the group, and the name is
accounted for in various ways:--
(1.) The king who propped up the heavens had a wife called Flying
Clouds, and two children, the one was called Savaii the Great, and the
other Upolu the Great. Savaii dwelt on Savaii, and Upolu on Upolu, and
gave their names to their respective islands.
(2.) A couple came from Fiji, the one was named Sa and the other
Vaii, or Vaiki, according to some. They landed at the south-west side
of the island, and lived there. Vaii, the husband, died, and then Sa
put her name first and united the two, as Savaii, the name of the
island.
(3.) Two brothers, the one called Vaii, and the other Polu, with their
sister, Vavau, came from the east. The young woman, Vavau, divided the
land--told Polu to go to Upolu, and Vaii to remain on Savaii. Her name
is perpetuated in the word, which as a noun, means "ancient times,"
and, as an adjective, is used to express ancient, perpetual, and
everlasting.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 3: There is an island called Maatea in the Paumotu group.]