Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before by George Turner
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page 13 of 222 (05%)
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the bird Turī, a species of snipe, _Charadrius fulvus_. She flew
about, but could find no resting-place, nothing but ocean. She returned to the heavens, but was again sent down by Tangaloa to search for land. First she observed spray, then lumpy places, then water breaking, then land above the surface, and then a dry place where she could rest. She went back and told her father. He again sent her down; she reported extending surface of land, and then he sent her down with some earth and a creeping plant. The plant grew, and she continued to come down and visit it. After a time its leaves withered. On her next visit it was swarming with worms or maggots, and the next time she came down they had become men and women. 8. The ants and the small coral made the small stones. The small and large stones caused the loose rocks, and from the loose rocks and the fire sprang a man called Ariari, _to appear_, and from him and a woman sprang the cuttle-fish and the race of men. 9. Man is formed from a species of mussel. If made of the hard mussel he lives long--it is difficult for him to die. But if he happens to be made of the poisonous mussel, he is fragile, easily upset, and does not live long. The soul of man is called his angÄnga, or that which goes or comes. It is said to be the daughter of Taufanuu, or _vapour of lands_, which forms clouds, and as the dark cloudy covering of night comes on, man feels sleepy, because his soul wishes to go and visit its mother. 10. All the gods had a meeting at a public place on Upolu to decide what was to be the end of the life of man. One god made a speech and proposed that it should be like the extinction of the cocoa-nut-leaf |
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