329
Chiefs of Tikopia meet with officers
from the French ship Astrolabe. The
explorer Jules Dumont d’Urville and his
men visited the islands of Polynesia in
an expedition from 1826 to 1829.to build the Kafika temple. Saku
felled a great tree to create the
temple’s supporting post and dug a
deep pit to set it in. He jumped in
and asked Te Samoa to lower the
base of the tree into the pit. Saku
had worked out how to escape
between its roots to avoid being
crushed, and was able to climb out.
Now it was Te Samoa’s turn to
jump in and dig, but Saku promptly
moved the trunk so that his rival
was trapped. Te Samoa begged to
be released, but Saku rammed in
earth around the post, burying him.
Saku’s strength was legendary.
When his mother’s relatives in the
village of Faea asked him to cut
palm fronds for thatching their
roofs, he uprooted a whole sago
palm—a tree that stands around
82 ft (25 m) tall. Another time, he
asked the people of Faea if he could
take some seedlings of taro, a root
crop, to plant on his own land. They
agreed, but instead of seedlings, he
seized the entire plantation of taro.Rising to the heavens
When Saku tried to appropriate his
neighbor’s land and plant crops
there, however, the neighbor’s
family joined forces against him.
Saku was killed by the youngest
son—Te Sema—whose name
means “the left-handed one.”
According to the myth, Saku’s
death was divinely ordained. His
spiritual mother, the goddess Atua
Fafine, had advised Saku to leave
the earth rather than use his great
strength to kill Te Sema. She andthe deity Atua i Raropuka were the
ancestral gods of Tikopia. In the
earliest times, when the island
was pulled up from the sea, the two
deities were already sitting on the
ground. Atua Fafine was weaving a
mat of pandanus leaf, while Atua i
Raropuka braided a mat of coconut
fiber—both traditional island crafts.
Just as Atua Fafine had planned,
Saku’s acceptance of death meant
that he arrived among the gods
unpolluted. As a result, he could
say to each god, “Give me your
mana”—that is, their supernatural
powers. After this, he was renamed
Mapusia and became the most
powerful of the gods, feared and
appeased by the people of Tikopia.Supreme power
The name Mapusia was taboo
except in certain rituals invoking
the god’s help. “When I utter his
name he hears in the heavens and
bends over to listen to what is
being said,” runs one traditional
Tikopian song. He was called Te
Atua i Kafika (“the Deity of Kafika”)
by the clan as a whole, or TokuSee also: Fire and rice 226–27 ■ The killing of Luma-Luma 308–09 ■ Maui of a thousand tricks 320–23OCEANIA
Ariki Tapu “My Sacred Chief” by
the Ariki Kafika (head of the clan).
He was also Te Atua Fakamataku,
“the Fear-Causing Chief,” who
created thunder by clattering his
staff from side to side in the sky.
Mapusia was regarded as the
god above all others by the people
of Tikopia. As the anthropologist
Raymond Firth was told, “No god
can come and supplant him; he is
high because he is strong.” The ❯❯Because [Saku] had
power below here,
when he died he
went to the gods
and was lofty
among the gods.
History and Traditions
of TikopiaUS_326-331_Work-of-The-Gods.indd 329 05/12/17 4:17 pm