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| Samoan Turtles |
In Folk Tales and Fables of the Americas and
the Pacific, Robert Ingpen and Barbra Hayes retell the Fijian story of the
Giant Turtle. The story is told by Fijians to explain how people from Tonga
came to live among them. A fisherman from Samoa named Lekabai saved from
drowning in the rough sea had managed to climb a rock into the realm of the Sky
King. The Sky King helped Lekabai return to earth on a turtle.
Lekabai left with the mighty turtle back to
Samoa with the instruction that he is not to open his eyes at anytime. Through
the journey to Samoa Lekabai was teased by dolphins and sea birds for being
foolish in closing his eyes. This was the instruction from the Sky King. A
feast was staged to celebrate Lekabai’s return from the dead. Hungry fishermen
speared the turtle when it returned to the reef to feed after it got tired of
waiting for Lekabai. On learning this Lekabai told the villagers that they
would be punished. The villagers got scared and buried the turtle in a deep
hole with a coconut and a mat of woven coconut leaves. In the process the Sky
King sent a bird to find out what was happening. The bird touched a young boy
called Lavai-pani, who would live in perpetual youth for generations to tell
the story to a group of young men from Tonga sent by their king to find the
shell of the turtle. The Samoans laughed
at the Tongan men and said, ‘We all know that old legend,’ smiled the Samoans,
‘but it is only a legend. No one knows where the turtle was buried, or if there
was a turtle at all!’
The Tongan men returned home, only to be sent
back by the King. It was Lavai-pani who
helped them dig up the turtle shell.
They found thirteen turtle shells, but gave only twelve turtle shells to
the King. The King sent them back to Samoa to get the thirteenth shell. The
young men set sail again, but decided against returning to Samoa, so they set
sail until they arrived in Kadavu, one of the Fiji Islands, which was then
ruled by King Rewa. He was kind to the weary young men and gave them land on
which to live. They built houses and took wives and were happy. These were the
first people from Tonga to settle in Fiji.
This folktale reflects the relationships
between Tongans, Samoans, and Fijians, as well as those between humans and
their supernatural worlds. The volatile relations, the differences between
various groups, and their historical indifference or friendship to one another
are highlighted. Inter-island travels and cultural items of value like coconut
and mats woven with coconut leaves are items featured in this folktale. This is
a remarkable folktale that resembles those told from elsewhere in Polynesia,
but features turtles, coconuts, coconut strewn mats, whales, dolphins, and sea
birds. In documented evidence, the oral
literature of western Polynesia supports the Fiji-Tonga-Samoa-Futuna-Uvea
interconnection: “Interaction continued even when people had acquired a sense
of Island-centred identity, as oral literature shows occurred” (Scarr 1990,
66).
In the Melanesian region Imanuel Nigira writes
a folktale about a turtle and eagle in the Zia language group of Waria River in
the Morobe Province of Papua New Guinea. The story involves a young girl
tricked and abandoned to die out in the sea. She swam to an island. To survive
she ate fruits and nuts on the island. One day she hit her hand with a stone
when attempting to crack beach almonds. Blood came out from her. She collected
the blood in a shell and covered it with another shell. From the blood two eggs
were formed until they hatched, giving birth to an eagle and a turtle. She
looked after the eagle and the turtle until they matured. The turtle and the
eagle helped her catch fish, bring fire, clay pot, and a house to the island.
The eagle brought the first and second items. The third item was carried on the
turtle’s back to the island where the woman lived. The shared relationship
between the first man or woman and animals in the folktales are the bond that
ties them together in a symbiotic relationship. Usually in this type of
relationship the animals serve as the link between the human world and the
spirit world.
Blood from a cut from the woman in the Waria
story gives birth to the eagle and the turtle, legitimating her as the original
birthing human spirit. Sakarepe Kamene writes that to the Zia of Waria River “living
means being aware of, and having knowledge of, and the ability to manipulate
the relationship between other living persons, the dead (the spirit world) and
the eco-and aqua-systems of the surroundings thus reassuring the renewal or
continuation of life. The significance of the interdependence of part and whole
of the cosmos is clearly manifested in the social structure of the Zia
community”.
Kamane explains the four totem names used in
Zia: “The bego is associated with the hornbill, the yewa the bird
of paradise, the sakia with the white cockatoo, the wapo with the
eagle. These clans form the recognizable social badges that cement the extended
kin affiliations of each village, which in turn gives its distinct communal
sense. This thus gives rise to mutual and reciprocal respect between villages
and within individual members which enhance and furthermore, maintain internal
social cohesion and harmony in the Zia community” (1996, 88). The Zia are also
centered on the community (dubu) and
work at strengthening the interdependent relationship through various social
activities such as fishing, gardening, feasting, dancing, and storytelling.
We must do more to document and capture our
folktales in writing and film.
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