FOOD--COOKING--LIQUORS.


_Animal and Vegetable Food._--Bread-fruit, taro, yams, bananas, and
cocoa-nuts formed the staff of life in Samoa. The lagoons and reefs
furnish a large supply of fish and shell-fish, of which the natives
are very fond; and occasionally all, but especially persons of rank,
regaled themselves on pigs, fowls, and turtle. A detailed account of
the flora and fauna in this and other groups in Central and Eastern
Polynesia will be found in the published volumes of the United States
Exploring Squadron of 1838-1842.

Taro, cocoa-nuts, and 'ava were said to have been brought from the
heavens by a chief called Losi. When on a visit there he was pleased
with the taste of taro, and tried to get some to take down with him.
He found a young shoot about the cooking-house, concealed it under his
clothing, but the Tangaloans were on the watch. They made him take off
his roundabout, snatched the plant from him, pulled his hair,
scratched and cut his skin, and back he came to the earth in a great
rage.

He engaged six of the gods to go up with him again and be avenged on
Tangaloa and his people. He proposed to take up a present of fish.
They caught ten, and were up before daybreak, and laid down a fish on
the doorstep of ten of the houses. When the people came out of their
houses they stumbled over the slippery fish, fell and cut their
foreheads. They cooked the fish, but ate it with bruised heads. And
hence the proverb in times of difficulty, "To eat with a bruise."