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.