ubstitute for a rope--climbed a tree, threw his rope with a noose at
the end of it, and caught the sun. He made known his message, and
(Pandora-like) got a present for his bride. The sun first asked him
what was his choice--blessings or calamities? "Blessings," was his
reply, and he came down with a store of them done up in a basket.
There is another tale told about this Samoan Phaethon similar to what
is related of the Hawaiian Maui. He and his mother were annoyed at the
rapidity of the sun's course in those days--it rose, reached the
meridian, and set, "before they could get their mats aired." He
determined to make it go slower. He climbed a tree in the early
morning, and with a rope and noose threw again and caught the sun as
it emerged from the horizon. The sun struggled to get clear, but in
vain. Then fearing lest he should be strangled he called out: "Have
mercy on me--spare my life--what do you want?" "We wish you to go
slower," was the reply, "we can get no work done." "Very well, let me
go; for the future I will walk slowly." He let go the rope, and ever
since the sun has gone slowly and given longer days.

The sun was the usual _timekeeper_ of the day. The night was divided
into three parts--midnight, and the first and second cock-crowing.
Then came the sun. There was the rising--the half-way up--the standing
straight overhead--turning over--making to go down--and, last of all,
sinking. They thought the blazing sun went down into the ocean, passed
through and came up next morning on the other side. The commotion
among the waves at the horizon as he went down was supposed to be very
great, and it was one of the worst curses to wish a person to sink in
the ocean and the sun to go blazing down on the top of him.

_Human sacrifices_ to the sun are spoken of in some of the more remote
traditions. In this connection Papatea in the Eastward again comes up
as the place where the sacrifices were offered. When the sun rose he
called for a victim, and the same when he set. This continued for
eighty days, and the population of the island was fast passing away. A
lady called Ui, and her brother Luamaa, fled from Papatea and reached
Manu'a, but alas! the sun there too was demanding his daily victims.
It went the round of the houses, and when all had given up one of
their number it was again the turn of the first house to supply an
offering. The body was laid out on a Pandanus tree, and there the sun
devoured it. It came to