Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before

by George Turner

(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 courtship. 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 principal 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 god 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 god said, "No; you had better have the water." They still persisted, however, in wishing 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 fishing-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 god Salevao and his travelling party in passing 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 Fafā 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 passing 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."