Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before — John Shaqi
Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long BeforeTurner, George
History
Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before
Turner, George
Islands of the Pacific -- Social life and customs; Samoan Islands
May was the usual month for feasting and prayers to Nonia, for the
removal of coughs and other ailments usually prevalent during that
time of transition from the wet to the dry months. On the days of
worship the people went about with bundles of cockles, and through
them prayed to Nonia.
19. O LE NIFO LOA--_The long tooth._
This was the name of a disease-making god, said to have come from Fiji
and taken up his abode about the south side of Savaii. People, canoes,
or property of any kind belonging to that place, were supposed to be
media by which the long tooth might be conveyed and cause disease and
death. One day the tooth was visible to an old lady, and struck by
some scalding greens which she threw at it, and ever after it was
crooked and not so deadly. If a person recovered it was said that the
tooth must have had the crook running _outside_ of the wound, and
_vice versa_ in a case of death.
To this day the long tooth superstition is a nuisance. A few years ago
some people went to that part of Savaii to buy a canoe. They did not
get it, but, from a number of deaths soon after at their village, they
believed that the tooth had followed them. After a battle ten years
ago a man from the long tooth district in Savaii who had been killed,
was buried in a village in Upolu. After a time a young chief died
there rather suddenly. The tooth was suspected by some of the old
people, and so they dug up the bones of the man who had died in battle
four years before, and threw them away into the sea, far off outside
the reef, so as to rid the land, as they supposed, from the long tooth
enemy. Like the celebrated tooth of Buddha at Ceylon, visited by the
Prince of Wales in 1875, about which kings fought, the attempt to burn
which burst the furnace, and, although buried deep in the earth and
trodden down by elephants, managed to come up again, so the long tooth
god of Samoa continues to come up every now and then after a sudden
death or a prolonged disease of the knee joint, or other deadly
ailment.
20. PAVA.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account