and no one would step over such a thing, supposing the god might be in
it. Hence, also, if in going to fight they fell in with a
newly-plaited cocoa-nut-leaf basket turned upside down it was a bad
omen, and sent them back. If, however, the basket was an old one, and
not lying _across_ the road, but to the one side, and "fore and aft,"
it was a good sign, and encouraged them to proceed.


11. LA'ALA'A--_Step over._

1. A village war god in Savaii. Supposed to go before the troops, but
invisible. When the people turned out, according to hospitality usage,
to take food to a travelling party, they would arrange to lay down ten
pigs. If the visitors, in recounting and shouting out in public, as
they do, what they had got, said that there were _eleven_ pigs, it was
supposed that the god had added _one_. Then they would compare notes,
and say: "Oh yes, it must have been that old woman we saw with a dry
shrunk leaf girdle." There were other instances of the "devil's dozen"
in Samoa.

Once, when the people were driven by a war fleet from Upolu, the god
became incarnate in a _yellow_ man, went and lay down in a house, and
there they killed him to please the Upolu people and stop the war,
which the latter agreed to do in return for killing the god. Out of
respect to the god the people of that village never used the word
la'ala'a for _stepping over_, but sought a new word in soposopo, which
is still a current synonym for la'ala'a.

2. La'ala'a was also the name of a god who took care of the
plantations. He guarded them by the help of the god _thunder_. They