and laid down with offerings of fine mats. The priest went out and
stroked the diseased part, and recovery was supposed to follow. At
this place Salevao was declared to be a good god in raising a
plentiful supply of food, and also noted for his power in keeping away
other gods. A story is told of a party of gods from Upolu who were on
a journey, but on coming to that place left the public highway along
the beach and took a circuitous course far inland, owing to their
dread of Salevao. He was generous, however, to travelling parties of
mortals. When the chiefs laid down a previously arranged number of
cooked pigs and other food to visitors, there was an odd one over and
above found among the lot, and this they attributed to the special
favour of the god (see 11).

A story of his kindness to Nonu, one of his worshippers, relates that
when Nonu was on a visit to the King of Tonga, he and the king had a
dispute about the age of the moon. Nonu maintained that it was then to
be seen in the morning, the king held that it was not visible in the
morning. Nonu said he would stake his life on it; and so it was left
for the morning to decide. In the night Salevao appeared to Nonu and
said to him: "Nonu, you are wrong; the moon is not now seen in the
morning. But, lest you should be killed, I will go and be the moon in
the horizon to-morrow morning, and make the king believe you were
right after all, and so save your life." In the morning Salevao, as
the moon, was seen, and Nonu was saved. Such stories added alike to
reverence for the god and to the treasury of the priest.

3. Salevao was the name of a family god also, and incarnate in the eel
and the turtle. Any one of the family eating such things was taken
ill; and before death they heard the god saying from within the body:
"I am killing this man; he ate my incarnation."