Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 2, 1891.djvu/518

hear]?" The man said, "It is caused by the cruelty of the conquering party." The women asked, "How so?" The man answered, "The state of the conquered party is very grievous. They kill people, and raise the finger-nails of others."^[1] The ladies wept, and told the man that he should go to the place where the conquering(?) parties were defeated and raise themselves from subjection.^[2] The man said, "Ladies, pray do not make use of such words, lest the conquering party should hear." The man suspected that they would be ill-used. The women still continued; great was the discussion.

Then all the people of the town collected together to show this thing. The people were distressed, because if they were again defeated they would not live. The women said, "Do not be distressed, but leave the matter with us two." The people agreed to this. Then they drove away the persecutors belonging to the conquering party, saying: "You go; we are going to revolt." The conquering party heard of it, and called a council. They were angry. The troops for the war collected; all Aea-sasae came. Aea-sisifo^[3] said to the women: "How about this war?" The women answered thus: "When you fight, all of you confine yourselves to the inland [side] of the road, and we will confine ourselves to the seaward side of the road. Let none of you pass over to the sea side of the road, and neither of us will cross over to the land side of the road; we will not pass to and fro. You fight first and we will come after." They fought and [the] Aea-sisifo were defeated. The two women saw they were defeated,

1. In a story about Nafanua, it is said she came from Pulotu at a time when the ruling power was so oppressive as to compel the people to climb cocoa-nut trees with their feet upwards, their heads downwards, and to pluck the nuts with their toes. . {Turner, p. 39.)
2. The sentence is unintelligible. It should rather run, "and told the man he should go to the place where the conquered parties, were defeated, and induce them to raise themselves from subjection".
3. See note i, p. 2.