Part 20 (1/2)
(3.) _Iva_, as already referred to, is one of the three divisions of the Faasaleleanga. It is the name of a village to the south of the capital which, with some neighbouring settlements, takes the place in battle of the advance or attacking party. Iva means _tall_. It is said the name originated in a man who undertook to build a house without scaffolding, and from his continued stretching upward added to his stature, and gave a name to the place.
(4.) _Amoa_ is the name of a district in a northeasterly direction which protects the capital on that side. Some say its name originated in the fort of the chief Moa which was there during the Tongan invasion; others trace it to a foreign courts.h.i.+p. Of old, they say, the women courted the men, but now it is the reverse. A lady from Fiji called Moa came to seek a husband, and found one in a chief called Nonu, and hence the place was called Amoa, or the settlement of Lady Moa.
2. O LE ITU TAOA, the side of Taoa, was the name of the north side of Savaii. Latterly it has been called _the side of men,_ from their bravery in the war against Aana in 1830. But before that it was called the side of Taoa, after a chief of that name of Fijian descent. Tao means a _spear_, and was regarded by the people as an emblem of their heroism as well as their name. When they went to Manono to fight for them in avenging the death of Tamafainga, they laid down a heap of spears in token of their alliance.
(1.) _Saleaula_ had its origin in a chief called Aula, of the ancient house of Lafai, who, having distinguished himself in battle, was invited to live there, and take the lead in politics and war; and hence it became the name of the village, and the princ.i.p.al place for public meetings on that side of the island. He had a brother called Tufunga, or _carpenter_, who acted as premier in the Faasaleleanga district.
(2.) _Lealatele_, or ”the great road,” is the name which embraces a number of villages to the east of Saleaula, and had its name from the ten-mile stretch of level road there.
(3.) Matautu is to the west of Saleaula, and is the district which takes the lead in the attack wherever war is determined on. They trace the origin of the name of their place to Lautalatoa of Fiji, whose son, called Utu, resided there.
(4.) _Safotu_ and _Safune_ were named after Fotu and Fune, the children of Lafai already referred to. The people of Safune once fought at Faleata on Upolu. Many of them were killed, and the place where their bodies were buried was afterwards called Safune, in remembrance of the slain. Fune had the epithet feai, or _savage_, added to his name, from the habit which he had of biting his finger-nails when he went to battle.
(5.) _Aopo_, a small inland village, was named after a chief called Aopo. It is said that the G.o.d Tangaloa of the heavens once gave the people there a choice of two things. First, a heap of whales' teeth, or, secondly, a stream of water. They chose the former. The G.o.d said, ”No; you had better have the water.” They still persisted, however, in wis.h.i.+ng No. 1, and got it, but it turned out to be a heap of _stones_!
They repented and wished the stream, but it was too late. The stream was given to Saleaula, and is called Vaituutuu, or ”Given water,” to this day.
(6.) _Falealupo_, or the ”House for Lupo,” is a settlement in the west end of Savaii. A couple from Tonga lived there. They had a son who was lame, and who could only sit on a rock with a fis.h.i.+ng-rod and catch small fish called Lupo. They built a house for him there, into which he threw the lupo as he caught them. The G.o.d Salevao and his travelling party in pa.s.sing there one day admired the house, and called it Falealupo, or a house for lupo; and hence the name alike of the fish-house and the settlement.
There were two circular openings among the rocks near the beach at this village, where the souls of the departed were supposed to find an entrance to the world of spirits, away under the ocean, and which they called Pulotu. The chiefs went down the larger of the two, and the common people had the smaller one. They were conveyed thither by a band of spirits who hovered over the house where they died, and took a straight course in the bush westward. There is a stone at the west end of Upolu called ”the leaping-stone,” from which spirits in their course leaped into the sea, swam to Manono, leaped from a stone on that island again, crossed to Savaii, and went overland to the _Fafa_ at Falealupo, as the entrance to their hades was called. The villagers in that neighbourhood kept the cocoa-nut leaf blinds of their houses all closely shut down after dark, so as to keep out the spirits supposed to be constantly pa.s.sing to and fro. There was a cocoa-nut tree near the entrance to those lower regions, and this tree was called the tree of Leosia, or the _Watcher_. If a spirit struck against it that soul went back at once to its body. In such a case of restoration from the gates of death the family rejoiced and exclaimed, ”He has come back from the tree of the Watcher.”
Luao, or Luaoo, which may be translated ”Hollow pit,” is another name for the place down which the spirits of the dead were supposed to descend on the death of the body. ”May you go rumbling down the hollow pit” was the common language of cursing. At the bottom of this pit, according to the tradition which describes it, there was a running stream which floated the spirits away to Pulotu, the dominions of Saveasiuleo. When they touched the water they were not to look to the right or to the left, or attempt to make for either side. Nor could they come back, as the force of the current rendered that impossible.
There was a continued and a promiscuous company of them. Those who had died of various diseases--the good-looking and the unsightly, the little children and the aged, chiefs and common people--all drifted along together. They were, however, little more than alive, and this semi-conscious state continued until they reached the hades of Pulotu, where there was a bathing-place called Vaiola, or ”The water of life.” Whenever they bathed here all became lively and bright and vigorous. Infirmity of every kind fled away, and even the aged became young again.
It was supposed that in these lower regions there were heavens, earth and sea, fruits and flowers, planting, fis.h.i.+ng and cooking, marrying and giving in marriage--all very much as in the world from which they had gone. Their new bodies, however, were singularly volatile, could ascend at night, become luminous sparks or vapour, revisit their former homes and retire again at early dawn to the bush or to the Pulotu hades. These visits were dreaded, as they were supposed to be errands of destruction to the living, especially to any with whom the departed had reason to be angry. By means of presents and penitential confession all injurers were anxious to part on good terms with the dying whom they had ill-used. In one place there was a hadean town called _Nonoa_, or Bound, where all the spirits were dumb, and could only ”beat their b.r.e.a.s.t.s,” expressive of their love to one another.
Saveasiuleo, or ”Savea of the echo,” was the king of these lower regions. The upper part of his body was human, and reclined in a house in company with the chiefs who gathered around him; the lower was piscatorial, and stretched away into the sea. This royal house of a.s.sembly was supported by the erect bodies of chiefs who had been of high rank on earth, and who, before they died, antic.i.p.ated with pride the high pre-eminence of being pillars in the temple of the king of Pulotu.