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Updated: May 15, 2025
"We were three days in Vaiee, during which we were entertained by dances of the village girls, war and knife dances by the manaia and his young men, and, besides being furnished with good food all the time, we were honored with one grand feast, which was attended by the whole village.
In the morning there was but the open sea, and the waves were white and angry, and all that day and the next Manaia kept the boat to the wind, hoping that it would change and let us sail back to Uea.
The manaia and the taupo had each written songs and composed music for the dances in our honor, and copies of them, written out neatly by the schoolmaster, were presented to us. Our friend, the English captain, made a great hit with the young men by exhibiting feats of strength, which they all copied, being highly delighted when they beat the Englishman, but cheering generously when he beat them.
For many, many days we sailed on, and then, although we had much rain and so suffered no thirst, our food began to fail, and had not Manaia one day caught a sleeping turtle, we should have perished. Some time about the fourteenth day, we saw the jagged peaks of an island against the sky, and steered for it.
Then she called out to him, "Ola, Manaia," and he looked at us and laughed as he spun his small hand-net into the pool. We sat and watched him and admired his strength and skill and the clever way in which he dived and took the fish from his net. In a little while he had caught seven beautiful fish, such as are in all the mountain streams of Samoa.
Still there was naught for us to do but go on, and so we leapt and sprang from sea to sea, and Manaia bade us be of good heart, as he turned the head of the canoe toward the land. * A large native-built boat "If this taumualua and the boat seek to stay us, I shall run ashore," he said, "and we will take to the mountains.
"Ho, ho!" and Manka's voice again mocked, "did I not say 'twas a dog that bit?" There was great commotion in the taumualua for a moment or two, but Tamavili shouted to his men to go on; he would have ordered some of them to cease paddling and try and shoot Manaia, but feared to hurt or perhaps kill me, and that would have meant war between Tufa and Mulifanua.
In all the many years that I had spent on Manono, I had not once seen the boy Manaia he who had taken me from the water though I had heard of him as having been tattooed and grown into a tall man. He was sitting with the other young men, and like them, dressed in his best, and carrying a musket and the long knife called nifa oti.
The old dotard Tamavili and I race together for a bride, and the bride is for neither of us, but for the man who saved her from the sea. Ha, ha! Thou art a fine fellow, Manaia, and I bear thee no ill will, even though the girl hath my good golden money."
When we were within a mile of the village we were shown a pool; then the men retired and we women took a swim, after which we put on our 'silika' dresses and started on. At the entrance to the village my mother got out of her chair and we walked on. The manaia, or beauty man of the village, accompanied by two magnificent looking aides, came forward to meet us.
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