The Elements of the People's Religion Tokelau were characteristic of the religions of Western Polynesia. The pantheon (the Tokelauan gods) consisted of a supreme deity who resided in the sky and a group of nature gods who resided in the world.
No marae or stone platform was erected for the gods. The ritual was very light and almost entirely confined to an annual ceremony to the supreme deity. Communication took place with the ancestral spirits. Nature spirits abounded in the woods and the sea.
The supreme deity was Tui Tokelau, or Tui Tokelau Sili (Tui Tokelau, the highest), who resided in the sky. The name does not appear among the gods elsewhere in Polynesia, and his title, Tui, is the Tongan and Samoan term for chief, suggesting that he was a deified chief. This is supported by an account written by the native Rarotongan teacher who visited Fakaofu in 1848:
The people erected their gods and gave them names, Tui Tokelau being the main and most powerful. His advent in Tokelau was seen by the people. He came down from heaven and his arrival was accompanied by thunder and lightning. He is a cannibal god and appears at night when all are sleeping, with a coconut leaf in his hand with which he tears the spirit of man from his body, and when day comes, this man who has been thus acted dies.
Wilkes states that Tui Tokelau was also called Tangaloa i lunga i langi (Tangaloa above in the sky). Tangaloa was a Samoan god who featured in the mythology of Tokelau but not in the pantheon of gods. It is likely that some of his attributes were attributed to Tui Tokelau.
Tui Tokelau controlled all nature and the people's food supply. He was appeased each year with offerings so that fish and coconuts would be plentiful and to send enough rain. A coral slab erected at Tui Tokelau in Fakaofu had certain supernatural powers, according to Lister:
Good and bad fortune and diseases were sent by the Tui Tokelau. Bad luck came as a punishment for failure in good observances in his honor.
Sick people were washed with coconut water, some of which had been sprinkled on the stone beforehand.
If a person wished to die, he would crawl to the foot of the stone and stay there. His friends could bring him food and he could eat it, but after two or three days he would die – and people were known to die this way, so great was the power of their belief.
If a good catch of fish was caught, some of it was offered in front of the stone by the king, and then it was distributed among the Taulaitu – the priests.
A sacred bird (manu sa) called talanga belonged to the Tui Tokelau. Its appearance was considered an omen that the god was approaching the island and, according to some, was the god himself.
Fire was sacred to Tui Tokelau, and only during the month of his worship were lights permitted after dark. At other times, three necessary exceptions were allowed: fish caught at night could be cooked in the kitchen shacks, otherwise it would spoil during the hot night; and lights could be lit at night during the care of a woman in childbirth and in honor of the death of the high chief, the priest of Tui Tokelau.
The Tokelau gods: the deities of Nature
The lesser gods were personifications of natural elements and resided in the world. According to Monfat, the second god was Te Moana, the son of Tui Tokelau. Te Moana was a sea god who took form in a waterspout. When Fakaofu was attacked, the priest of Te Moana begged him to create high waves and a strong wind to chase and drown the enemy fleet.
Nothing is remembered of Tonuailangi who resided beyond the horizon except his ability to prophesy. Through his priest, he predicted events that happened on the other atolls, which were later verified by visitors to those atolls in Fakaofu. Because the European ships came from behind the horizon, the natives at first believed that they were Tonuailangi ships.
Toikia was physically the strongest of the lesser gods. Little is remembered of him apart from his role in the wrestling match between Fafie and Leua, two semi-mythical characters. In the match, Fafie threw his opponent and held him down, but Vevea pulled Fafie by the hair. Fafie called the god Toikia to help him, and Toikia appeared and snatched Vevea. Although the other gods were present at the match, they were powerless against Toikia. When the King of the Gods saw that Vevea was defeated by Toikia, he ordered that Vevea be killed. The others threw him on a fire and burned him alive.
Fakafotu was the god of storms and hurricanes; the thunder was called the anger of Fakafotu. He also appeared in the form of a large tree. A coral slab was erected to him next to the slab of Tui Tokelau at Atafu, but in Fakaofu, his divine house and slab were separated from those of Tui Tokelau and Te Moana. Fakafotu is named after the main female relative of the gods and men of Tongareva, in New Zealand and in the islands of Eastern Polynesia.
The god Fafie took the form of a large canoe. He lived in traveling canoes and ruled the destinies of travelers as they traveled between the atolls and Samoa or neighboring island groups.
Te Lio appeared as a large mat and lived near the beach along the lagoon of which he was the god.
Mafola was a god of the sea. Requests made to him through his priest were always granted.
All kanava trees were dedicated to Na Tongaleleva and could never be used without the removal of the tapu by the high priest. Any man violating this tapu was killed by the deity. When it was necessary to cut a sacred kanava on one of the outer atolls, the high priest of Fakaofu would appoint a priest to go to the atoll and perform the rites. Tonuia, the leader of Atafu, broke this tapu and cut down a tree from Tongaleleva.
Later he went to Fakaofu and on his return he was swept away by the sea and lost. His death was reported by the priest of Na Tongaleleva, who attributed the cause to the breaking of the tapu. Tongaleleva also brought to her priest the song Tonuia sang when she died which became a popular ballad.
Ko taku sala ia e ko iloa
Ko te ulu o na Tongalelev
Na ko taia kupu kese lava
Fakaofu and kona and mamala.
My fault is known
The Chief of Tongalelev
The mature tree has been cut away
Fakaofu is poisoned and sick.
The god Te Laumua lived with malicious spirits (ngaveve). He was very nice and made amends for the pranks of his fellows. When prayed to through his prophet, he restored the souls that had been stolen by the ngaveve.
The god Salevao had many characteristics and propensities of ngaveve spirits. He resided in the bush at the northern end of Atafu Village and flew over villages snatching souls with a flying fish net. The natives often heard Salevao's dragnet, which they interpreted as an omen of death.
He was very fond of pretty women, especially when they were pregnant. A very bad smell often indicated its presence in the house, but it was customary for anyone who noticed it to flatter the god, exclaiming, "What a delicious perfume I smell!"
Hale mentions another god, Atua Tafito, who was called "O Debolo", a word probably learned from shipwrecked sailors on the atoll.
Luafine was given as the name of another god, and in Nukunono the names Mona and Fenua were given as the local gods of that island. Thomson adds the name of a god, Aeooa, worshiped at Atafu, to whom a stone slab has been erected.
Tokelau Gods: Nature Spirits
Two bands of spirits, tupua maiuta (inland spirits) and tupua maitai (sea spirits), inhabited all the islands and the nearby sea. The tupua maiuta were friendly spirits of the Tokelau people and waged a continual war against foreign spirits (tupua maitai). When the tupua maitai were victorious, the troubles multiplied for the people.
Another group of elven and mischievous spirits (ngaveve or kaufiola) lived among the trees outside the village limits and in the plantations of the other islets. They spent their lives in merriment, laughing, dancing and playing pranks on human beings. Their greatest sport and their chief danger to mortals was their custom of fleeing with the souls of men.
Their thefts were temporary, but the soulless bodies of men spoke wildly and uncomprehendingly and were liable to go mad. These irresponsible leprechauns have also run away with children to confuse their parents. Tito, who is now an old man on Atafu, recounted his experience with ngaveve when he was a little boy:
His parents had left him in the middle of the long islet east of Atafu while they went torch fishing. Tito remembers being carried by the ngaveve to the northern end of the islet, then to the southern end of the islet, where they left him. All the while, he was unable to move his body but was aware of where he was moving. His parents found him where the ngaveve had dropped him off.
There is another well-known story of a girl who was carried from her home to one of the windward islets of Nukunono. For several months, her captor played with her and fed her food from the ngaveve. One day, the spirit took the girl home and placed her near a bowl in which a woman was cutting fala pandanus fruits.
The woman did not see the child eating the fruit from the bowl and cut off the girl's finger while her hand was in the wooden bowl. The ngaveve immediately flew with the girl to the windward islet, where he had taken up residence, and left her alone. Some people from Nukunono village found her with a lost finger from her hand.
The Tokelauan gods: the ancestral gods
The souls of men (aitu) were less powerful than the atua and had no influence over the forces of nature. The aitu advised their descendants and helped them in case of illness and trouble. An aitu, Fafie, whose name is fourth in the list of great chiefs, was a deified great chief of Fakaofu. He was revered even before his death, according to Newell:
Fafie mentioned here was the god (aitu) of the Sulu clan. He became on the death of Leua (king of Fakaofu) king of this island. But before that no less than two hundred people pledged allegiance to him and offered sacrifices to him.
A spirit named Fenu, who dwelt in Nukunono, is classified as an aitu, although his character is not typical. At one time, Nukunono had a fresh water well and Fakaofu did not. An aitu5 Fakaofu came to Nukunono and carried away the well in a coconut cup. Fenu chased after him, grabbed him at the islet, Motu Akea, and slapped his hands, spilling some of the stolen water he was carrying which formed a well.
The aitu fled to Fakaofu where he made wells on all the islets, but he used most of the water to create the big well on the village islet. In retaliation, Fenu flew to Fakaofu, stole the kie pandanus, and planted it in Nukunono. Today, Nukunono has only one small well, and the kie pandanus, although recently introduced, grows poorly in Fakaofu.
The Tokelau gods: the totemic gods
Certain forms of fish and sea life were worshiped as gods (kolinga) by all relatives. These were: a small striped fish (mutu), a flatfish (api) from the lagoon, squid (feke), and a variety of eels (pusi). Although these gods were not considered ancestors, they exhibit certain totemic characteristics. They were never caught or eaten by those to whom they were tapu. The eel, Te Pusi, was the most important.
He was classified by Atafu and Nukunono informants as an atua but was never worshiped by an entire community. On Atafu, Te Pusi was the family god of Tonuia, the first ancestor. It was possible for any member of a family holding Te Pusi sacred to ask him, through his prophet, to take revenge on an enemy. When the time was right, Te Pusi would bite this enemy and bring him a lingering disease from which he would wither away. Thomson says:
In the old days, each family had a spirit that lived in some animal life form – eel, turtle, fish or bird. The sons all took the totem of the father…. I doubt the truth. Other informants told me, in contradiction, that a son took, or received, a totem which differed, as a rule, from that of his father. During his father's lifetime, out of courtesy, the son paid homage to his father's totem, but thereafter the son had no reverence for him.
No family has been harmed, let alone eaten, the flesh of their family god. If the spirit of the god entered a man, his skin became scaly like that of a fish or any animal the god might be, and in time the man took on the form of the god. The visit from the spirit might only be temporary, however, and the man would involuntarily speak as the mouthpiece of his spirit, revealing the secrets of the past and the future. In each family, one member had the power to communicate with transformed spirits.
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