It was also very common to pray with an offering of "flaming fire,"
just before the evening meal. Calling upon some one to blow up the
fire and make it blaze, and begging all to be silent, a senior member
of the family would pray aloud as follows:--

"This light is for you, O king[2] and gods superior and inferior!
If any of you are forgotten do not be angry, this light is for you
all. Be propitious to this family; give life to all; and may your
presence be prosperity. Let our children be blessed and multiplied.
Remove far from us fines and sicknesses. Regard our poverty; and
send us food to eat, and cloth to keep us warm. Drive away from us
sailing gods, lest they come and cause disease and death. Protect
this family by your presence, and may health and long life be given
to us all."

It is related of an old chief in Savaii, that one night at the evening
meal he ordered a sea-crab to be reserved for his breakfast. In the
night some lads of the family got up and ate it. Next morning the old
man was in a great rage, rose, and said to his daughter that he was
going off to commit suicide, he could bear no longer the unkindness of
the family. He seized his staff and went off to the mountain, where
there is a deep ravine. When he reached the edge of the precipice he
called to his daughter, who had followed him, that he would jump over,
and cause a storm to arise and destroy the place--and over he went.
The daughter thought it was of no use to go home, and so she lay down
on the edge of the ravine, and became a mountain to shut up the storm
and save the people from the threatened wrath of her father.

FOOTNOTES: