m ill. The priest would then sit down with
some select members of the family around the bowl representative of
the god, and pray for speedy vengeance on the guilty; then they waited
the issue. These imprecations were dreaded. Conscience-stricken
thieves, when taken ill, were carried off by their friends on a litter
and laid down at the door of the priest, with taro, cocoa-nuts, or
yams, in lieu of those confessed to have been stolen; and they would
add fine mats and other presents, that the priest might pray again
over the death-bowl, and have the sentence reversed.

There is a story that the cuttle-fish gods of Savaii were once chased
by an Upolu hero, who caught them in a great net and killed them. They
were changed into stones, and now stand up in a rocky part of the
lagoon on the north side of Upolu. For a long time travelling parties
from Savaii felt _eerie_ when they came to the place--did not like to
go through between the stones, but took the outside passage.

Another fragment makes out that a Savaii Fe'e married the daughter of
a chief on Upolu, and for convenience in coming and going made a hole
in the reef, and hence the harbour at Apia. He went up the river also
at that place, and built a stone house inland, the "Stonehenge" relics
of which are still pointed out, and named to this day "the house of
the Fe'e." In time of war he sent a branch drifting down the river as
a good omen, and a sign to the people that they might go on with the
war, sure of driving the enemy.

3. In some instances the Fe'e was a household god only. If any visitor
caught a cuttle-fish and cooked it, or if any member of that family
had been where a cuttle-fish was eaten, the family would meet over the
case, and a man or woman would be selected to go and lie down in a
_cold_ oven, and be covered over with leaves, as in the process of
baking, and all this as a would-be or mock burnt-offering to avert the
wrath of the god. While this was being done the family united in
praying: "O bald-headed Fe'e! forgive what has been done--it was all
the work of a _stranger_." Failing such signs of respect and humility,
it was supposed the god would come to the family, and cause a
cuttle-fish to grow internally, and be the death of some of them.

9. FUAI LANGI, _Beginner of the Heavens._

A god of one of the small islands, and seen in the sea-eel, or
_Maraena_. If the sea-eel happened to be driven on to the shore in a
gale or by any tidal wave it