Mythology Book

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 and

the 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 Toku

See also: Fire and rice 226–27 ■ The killing of Luma-Luma 308–09 ■ Maui of a thousand tricks 320–23

OCEANIA

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 Tikopia

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