‘0 le Susuga a Felela Feleti (Brother Fred Henry), ‘e lauiloa fo’i i lona suafa fa’a-Tusitala ‘o Lāfai, ‘o se ali’i faiā’oga ta’uta’ua ma le alofagia; sā ia a’oa’oina ni alo (taulele’a) o ni tupulaga e lua a Sāmoa, i ā’oga a Feiela Mālisi i Atu’u ma Leone, ‘Amerika Sāmoa. ‘0 ia ‘o se ali’i e maoa’e lona tomai i tala’aga o S5moa, ma ana aganu’u, ma ‘o se tusitala ta’uta’ua fo’i o le gagana Sāmoa.

‘0 lenei tusi, ‘o se fa’asologa o ni ana tusitusiga sā faia i le ga- gana Peretānia i le ‘amataga o ie 1930. Sā vave ona lolōmia mulimuli ane. Peita’i, sā faigatā ona maua ni kopi o ia lōmiga, ma ’i na ‘ua mavae ni nai tausaga, ‘o le tele o nei kopi sā lāiloa.

‘0 se fa’anoanoaga tele taluai lenei gāluega tāua sā le’i iloa ma fa’aaogāina e tagata Sāmoa i le tele o nei tausaga, ‘auā ‘o nei tusitusiga sā fa’avae i luga o tala-tu’u na vave ona mou mālie atu. ‘0 lea talatu’u sā ‘amata mai toetoe lava maua le afe o tausaga ‘ua mavae, ‘a e ta’uta’ua ma tāua tele taluai lona au’ili’iliga ma le māe’ae’a.

‘0 lenei fa’aliliuga e matuā fa’amāonia le gāluega a Felela Feleti, Lāfai. Peita’i, ‘e tatau fo’i ona ta’u atu e fa’apea, ‘o ni fa’ailoga vā’aia ‘ua aliali mai nei ‘e uiga ‘i le taunu’u mai o ulua’i tagata Pole- nisia, ‘e fete’ena’i ma le talitonuga o Lāfai, Felela Feleti. ‘E ui ‘i lea, sā lagolago lona talitonuga ‘i se tāofi sā fa’amoemoeina ma olaola e tusa ‘o le limasefulu tausaga ‘ua mavae. ‘0 le mea sili, ‘ua toe fa’a- manatu mai ‘i a ‘itātou.

‘0 lea ‘ua mātou talitonu ai ‘o le’ā ^avea lenei tusi ‘o se toe Fa’a- manatuga o se tasi o ali’i Felela Mālisi sā galue ma le mā’elegā, ‘e le gata mo tupulaga o Sāmoa ‘a e fa’apea fo’i ma le fa’amanatuina maumaututū o tala’aga, aganu’u ma aga’ifanua a lo tātou atunu’u Sāmoa ‘ātoa. Fa’a- moemoe ‘o le’ā manatua pea lenei ali’i Felela po ‘o Tusitala Lāfai e tupulaga faia’e o Sāmoa.

As Brother Fred Henry (“Lafai”) points out in the Lambie edition of History, (pp. 18) the Samoans believed Samoa was the whole earth.  Some philosphers emphasized the physical creation of the earth by focusing on its elements, others by focusing on the gods and others who engineered the creation:  He writes, citing George Turner, “There is a [Polynesian] tale of creation beginning with leai (nothing), followed in succession by nanamu (fragrance), efuefu (dust), iloa (perceivable), ele’ele (earth), papatu (high rocks), ma’ata’anoa (small stones), then mauga (mountains).  Turner, George, Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago and Long Before, Echo Library, (2006), pp 5-6.

Another school of philosophy focuses on the “ . . .cosmic genealogy, taking the form of married couples, beginning with the marriage of rocks which produced the earth, followed by phenomena connected with the sky. The marriage of ‘cloud-less’ heavens with ‘spread-out’ heavens gave birth to Tagaloa, the creator of men.” (pp. 17-18)

After Tagaloa made the heavens, he next made the earth. To form Savai’i and Upolu Tagaloa rolled two giant stones from the heavens.  According to other versions, they were drawn up from under the ocean with a fishhook. Tagaloa then created Fe’e the cuttle fish (elsewhere the octopus), and told him to go down under the earth to populate the  lower regions of sea which were called Sa-le-fe’e (sacred to the Cuttle fish). These fish brought forth all kinds of rocks, thereby creating the great rock on which we live. (R.W. Williamson).

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In another version Tagaloa has two children- Moa and Lu.  When Lu asserted himself over the first born Moa, Tagaloa beat him, whereupon he ran away to earth which he named Sa-Moa (meaning without Moa).  This story is found in Talitongua Anamua,  the “Origin of the Name of Samoa.”

 

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Another version is that the rocks (Papa) married the earth (Ele’ele), and the earth became pregnant. Salevao, the god of the rocks, observed motion in the “moa” or the center of the earth. The rocks and the earth begged Salevao to give them some of the water, which he brought out from the rocks with a bamboo straw, and thereby made springs.  Later Salevao decreed that everything that grew on earth was “sa ia Moa” (“sacred to Moa”) until his hair would be cut. When his hair was cut, the restriction was lifted, but the rocks and the earth kept the name “sa ia Moa“, which, when shortened, became “Samoa”.   This is the version of the story that is told at greater length elsewhere in Talitonuga Anamua (“Origin of the Name of Samoa”).

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Other writers preferred geographical explanations.  

The  supreme god Tagaloa Fa’atupunu’u first created Manu’a and made this island his earthly headquarters.  He  next created Savai’i, then Fiji and Tonga, followed by Upolu and Tutuila.  The last two were made of small stones and pebbles to be used as stepping stones by Tagaloa when he travelled to Savai’i. According to this Manu’a legend, Manu’a was the beginning of everything, and the Tuimanu’a (Kings of Manua) were the direct descendants of Tagaloa. In this version Moa  is the eldest son of Tagaloa, and Moa became the family name of the  people at Manu’a.  Moa’s power extended over Samoa and alsoTonga, Fiji, Rarotonga, and Tahiti. The people of all of the islands had to send him a yearly tribute (umiti) consisting of fish and foods. This domination ended at about the year 900 when Upolu was politically organized by Pili and his 4 sons; Tua, Ana, Tuamasaga, and Tolufale.  

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For a popular version, here is a version written by the National Park Service in American Samoa:  

 

According to the National Park Service recitation of the story of how Tagaloa created the islands, (see here) https://www.nps.gov/npsa/learn/historyculture/legendpo.htm  he looked down from his place in the heavens to see only waters covering the earth, and thinking it would be good to have a resting place there, he created Manu’atele (Greater Manu’a).   Pleased with his work, he wanted more, and divided up the Manu’atele to make Savai’I, Upolu, Tonga, Fiji and all the others.  Evaluating this work, he decided it was too far a distance between Savai’I and Manu’a, so another rock was placed at the midpoint:  Tutuila (now American Samoa).  Just as in this story, human beings  were formed when vegetation turned to worms, and their final form was completed by Togaloa’s interventions  adding arms, legs, and so forth. He made woman out of man, and then assigned a pair to each island, naming the islands after each pair.   He then decided that a king above all the others should reside and rule from Manu’atele with the title Tuimanu’a Moaatoa.   

The above versions of the Samoan origin myths are offered to show the variety and differences of shorter versions.   Our favorite is the version found in Talitonuga Anamua.

But because Lafai deserves a scholarly version, and Brother Fred was clearly not interested in philosophy or cosmogeny, we offer one in place of his brief treatment.   

The abundant sources of Samoan origin and creation myths can be found in many places.  This reproduction and distillation of a distinguished scholarly work appears in no less a source than the Samoa History Page of Facebook, a superior and credible source of information for the interested which you are encouraged to investigate:  

https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/History-Museum/Samoa-History-Page-108218347189015/

There, the reader is referred to the original Journals of the Polynesian Society which first published the “The Samoan Story of Creation- a Tala.”  In that work they credit their indebtedness to Dr. John Fraser of Sydney for permission to reproduce in this Journal his paper originally published in the “Transactions of the Royal Society, N.S.W.,” 1891, on the “Samoan story of Creation.” followed by translation of the text from the Samoan language.

The work presents a collaborative effort of Rev. T. Powell [who first secured the story], the Rev. G. Pratt who translated it, and Dr. J. Fraser the annotator and editor.  It describes the exalted supremacy ascribed to Tangaloa in which is characteristic of the Western Polynesians.  

By way of introduction, they write:

Here is the distillation of their original article:

Like every other society, the Polynesian[s] of the Eastern Pacific have 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. 

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, [there is]no doubt that this is a genuine and uncorrupted record.

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.’ 

Now as to the meaning and derivation of the name Tangaloa, [the name] 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.  

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. 

The word păpă, in Samoan, means ‘rock,’ but in other dialects it also means ‘foundation,’ ‘anything level or flat,’ and pala, means ‘mud.’ [Here the myth indicates] 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 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.

[F]irst 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.

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. 

The Cosmos had been, to some extent, arranged already as Land, Sea, and Sky, but now that Man is to dwell on earth, Tangaloa proceeded to make him comfortable; and so he sent 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!

The wedded pair, Immensity and Space, that had [shortly] before been removed from the earth to the sky, now brought forth children— Night and Day, and these two, by their united action, produced the Sun and the Stars; 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.

Our myth now turns to the creation of the other gods; every one of these, however, is a Tangaloa, and, since he is therefore not a separate and independent 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[he can be everywhere at once]. [O]f 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.

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.  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.’  [In other] Polynesian legends, 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.

But the newly-created islands are, as yet, rough and rugged and unfit for the occupation by 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 by using the vine Fue. This Fue must represent some echo of the original creation of mankind by God, for our myth says, at its close, 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.’ 

Tangaloa cuts and shapes the vine-worms ‘into membered forms. . . .[then] declares himself well pleased with his handiwork. . . . Tangaloa gives spirit and heart to animate man . . . . 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.

Here is the text of the Translation of the story from the Samoan version.

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.

Then Tangaloa said to the Rock, ‘Be thou split up.’ 

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 Tangaloa turned to the right side, and the Fresh-water sprang up. Then Tangaloa spoke again to the Rock, and the Sky was produced. 

Tangaloa spake again to the Rock[and brought forth a boy and a girl . . . . then came Man; then came the Spirit; then the Heart; then the Will; then Thought.

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.  Then Tangaloa made an ordinance to the rock and said:—

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. Then he said to Lua-‘o and Lua-vai, ‘Come now, you two, that the region of fresh-water may be peopled. [Then he peopled] the sea.

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; The masoa and the teve were the first plants that grew, and the other plants came afterwards. 

The Creation of the Nine Heavens

In the immensity and space above, Tangaloa ordained the creation of night and Day, the ‘Eye of Sky,’ [the Sun] in the first Heaven, and peopled the eight heavens above with other deities, until the creation of the Ninth Heaven. 

The Creation of Other Gods:

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, who were the creator, the chief in the heavens, the messenger who would be ambassador from the from the First Heaven to the Eighth, where Tangaloa, ‘the immoveable,’ was chief in the heavens.

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.’

All the stars also were their offspring, but we do not have the names of all the stars, for they are forgotten now, because they dropped out of use. The last injunction of Tangaloa, the creator, to Night and Day was that they should produce the Sun (the Eye-of-the-Sky). 

Then answered Night and Day, ‘Come now; there remain four boys that are not yet appointed,—Manu‘a, Sāmoa, the Sun, and the Moon.’

These are the boys that originated the names of Sāmoa and Manu‘a; these two were the children of Night and Day. 

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. Then they all gathered together in the Ninth Heaven [at the malae named] ‘the council ground of Tranquillity.’

 Then various decrees were made in the Ninth Heavens; 

Then Tangaloa, the messenger, went to and fro to visit the land; his visit began in the place where are (now) the Eastern groups; 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; so he [prayed] to Tangaloa, the creator, and Tangaloa, the immoveable who, looking down, created the Tongan group, and then again looked down, and caused Savai‘i to spring up.  

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.

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.

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.

Then Tangaloa, the messenger, came back to this Manu‘a, to Le-Fatu and Le-‘Ele-‘ele and their children;the command of Tangaloa, the creator, [had gone forth] from the heavens, that Le-Fatu and Le-‘Ele-‘ele should 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.

And Tangaloa, the messenger, went again to this Manu‘a; then he stood and faced the sky, as if he were making a prayer; 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.

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.

Fue, the son of Tangaloa, that came down from heaven, had two names, Fue-tangata and Fue-sa; he peopled the two flat lands.

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.