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In the evening Virembo and Karambule came to receive the hongo for their chief, demanding 60 wires, 160 yards merikani, 300 strings of mzizima, and 5000 strings of white beads; but they allowed themselves to be beaten down to 50 wires, 20 pretty cloths, 100 strings mzizima, and 4000 kutuamnazi, or cocoa-nut-leaf coloured beads, my white being all done.
All the gods had a meeting at a public place on Upolu to decide what was to be the end of the life of man. One god made a speech and proposed that it should be like the extinction of the cocoa-nut-leaf torch, which when it goes out can be shaken, blown, and blaze up again, so that man after sickness and death might rise again in all the vigour of youth.
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. LA'ALA'A Step over. A village war god in Savaii.
A god of one of the small islands, and seen in the sea-eel, or Maræna. If the sea-eel happened to be driven on to the shore in a gale or by any tidal wave it portended evil, and created a commotion all over the place. GA'E FEFE, Breathless fear. A war-god in some of the villages, and seen in a cocoa-nut-leaf basket.
It is said that during a battle between the gods of Samoa and those of Tonga the former crouched about the trunks of the cocoa-nut trees; but Ga'e fefe hid in a cocoa-nut-leaf basket, and escaped while many others were killed. Hence the basket became a sign of the god, and no one would step over such a thing, supposing the god might be in it.
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