Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before by George Turner
page 27 of 222 (12%)
page 27 of 222 (12%)
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supposed to have left the one party and gone to join the other, and
therefore a calamity. 2. At the beginning of the annual fish festivals, the chiefs and people of the village assembled round the opening of the first oven, and give the first fish to the god. 3. A dead owl found under a tree in the settlement was the signal for all the village to assemble at the place, burn their bodies with firebrands, and beat their foreheads with stones till the blood flowed, and so they expressed their sympathy and condolence with the god over the calamity "by an offering of blood." He still lived, however, and moved about in all the other existing owls of the country. 6. FAAMALU, _Shade._ 1. The name of a village god, and represented by a trumpet-shell. On the month for annual worship all the people met in the place of public gatherings with heaps of cooked food. First there were offerings and prayers to the god to avert calamities and give prosperity; then they feasted with and before their god, and after that any strangers present might eat. At the same settlement a marine deity called Tamauanuu, or _Plenty for the land_, was worshipped at the same time. On that day no one dared to swim on his back off the settlement, or eat a cocoa-nut. Any one transgressing would have to go to the beach and beat his forehead with stones till the blood flowed, so as to prevent his being devoured |
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