The people of Savai’i, the largest of the islands of Samoa
in the Pacific Ocean, tell a story about an eel named Tuifiti and a beautiful
girl called Sina.
Tuifiti was enchanted by Sina’s beauty and he swam to where
she was so that he could admire her all day. She caught him in a calabash gourd
and fed him so that he grew bigger and bigger. Indeed, he could not stop
growing, and grew so large that he eventually became a nuisance to her and she
tried to get rid of him.
Tuifiti went to a gathering of the island elders and told
them that he loved Sina so much that he could not live without her. He
therefore knew that he was going to die, but he did not want his death to be in
vain. He told the elders that, when he was dead, they should cut off his head
and bury it in the ground in front of Sina’s house. A tree would grow that
would be a blessing to her, because its leaves could be woven together to provide
shelter when the sun was too hot and its fruit would provide drink when she was
thirsty. Every time she did this she would be kissing him.
And that was how the first coconut tree came to be!
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