That was my father's way. That was his hard, hard heart, which knew neither pity nor remorse. This is how my mother died:
When I was seven days old, she took me, as is customary with a woman of chiefly rank, to the fale siva (town dance house), where I had to be shown to the people, who brought fine mats and tappa cloth, and many other presents. Now my father was filled with anger that my mother had not borne him a male child, for a male child would have meant richer presents—not only from his own people, but from towns and villages far away. So when he saw that instead of such gifts as a new canoe or some very old, rare mats, or muskets, or such other things as would have been given were the child a boy, there were but the usual presents for a girl-child, his lips turned down with scorn, and he muttered a curse. My mother heard him and the tears flowed down her cheeks.
“It may be that my next child will be a boy,” she whispered, and then she held me up to my father. “See, Pule, though a girl, she hath thy features, and thou wilt come to love her.”
“Tah!” said my father in angry contempt; and without another word he rose and went away.
Then my mother wept silently over me for a long time, for the shame put upon her was very great, and not to be endured. So, with some of her women, she took me to a place called Falema'a, where the cliffs rise up straight from the sea. Her hair was then oiled and dressed, and then she made gifts of her rings of gold and tortoise-shell to her women, and bade them farewell. Then she took me in her arms, and leapt over the cliff into the sea.
It so happened that half-way down the cliff, which is twelve fathoms high, there was a boy named Manaia. He was collecting the eggs of the sea-bird called Kanapu and his canoe was anchored just in front of the base of the cliff. He was a brave boy, and being of a very poor family, had clambered up the steep side of the wall of rock, so that he might find the kanapu eggs in the clefts and holes, and sell them to people in exchange for food for his mother and sisters. As he clung to the jagged face of the rock, he saw my mother falling through the air, and in an instant he sprang after her. When she came to the surface, I was still clasped tightly in her arms, and Manaia cried to her to swim to the canoe.
“Nay,” she cried, “but take my babe.”
And so Manaia took me, and my mother threw up her arms and sank and died.
When my uncle heard of this, he sent a party of his people over from Manono for me, and I was taken to live with him. My father did not interfere, for the manner of my mother's death had made the people murmur, and he was afraid that they might rise in rebellion, and kill or banish him. But yet he tried to get another rich wife, and sent a deputation of his chiefs to Seu Manu of Apia asking for his daughter Sina; and Sina sent him back a piece of wood carved in the semblance of a woman, together with a stone shaped like a heart, with this message—
“This is a good wife for Pule-o-Vaitafe. If she displease him, he can sink her in the sea with a heart of stone.”