Myths
According to legend, Samoa shares the common Polynesian ancestor of Tagaloa; according to many legends, Samoa was Tagaloa's first creation. Oral traditions trace Samoan ancestry back to pre-history.
Samoa is recognized as the center of Polynesia, from where people migrated eastward to the Marquesas, southward to Niue and the Pukapuka islands of Rarotonga, and northward to the Tokelau and Tuvalu island groups; in all these islands, oral tradition is maintained of ancestral voyages from the Samoan islands. These migrations reflect the extraordinary courage of these seafaring people in navigating without instruments to sail throughout the vast Pacific Ocean.
Read more about this topic: History Of Samoa
Famous quotes containing the word myths:
“We “need” cancer because, by the very fact of its incurability, it makes all other diseases, however virulent, not cancer.”
—Gilbert Adair, British author, critic. “Under the Sign of Cancer,” Myths and Memories (1986)
“The myths about what we’re supposed to feel as new mothers run strong and deep. . . . While joy and elation are surely present after a new baby has entered our lives, it is also within the realm of possibility that other feelings might crop up: neediness, fear, ambivalence, anger.”
—Sally Placksin (20th century)
“The poets were not alone in sanctioning myths, for long before the poets the states and the lawmakers had sanctioned them as a useful expedient.... They needed to control the people by superstitious fears, and these cannot be aroused without myths and marvels.”
—Strabo (c. 58 B.C.–c. 24 A.D., Greek geographer. Geographia, bk. 1, sct. 2, subsct. 8.