Then we will take bow and arrow, Then we will carry our nets, Then we will stop in the fishes And gather them properly up.
We will kill them dead with poison, All and every kind of fish, We will gather and lay them in baskets, What a glorious tasgoro!
The _tasgoro_ I have before described. Part of beach enclosed, tabu’d, and after lapse of time opened again to the public.
This evening we have sung this chorus with grand effect, and high as I was previously in popular estimation as a poet, I have gone still higher now. What a little thing wins popularity, how little is a thing so easily purchased worth the having! One other song goes very prettily and smoothly to “Home sweet Home,” and is much appreciated. It is, as far as I could adapt it, the reproduction of the English song into Maewo. “Dream Faces” supplied me with another very pretty little song, which runs very well, the theme of which is the “moonlight.” “Our Jack’s come home to-night,” lent me the music of a fourth song, which is peculiarly native in expression, and slightly more comic than the two above mentioned.
The production of this last was received with such peals of laughter, that for a time confusion and merriment took the place of composure and perfect gravity. It would lose its charm and half its meaning if I were to attempt to translate it into English. Here, however, is the Maewo:--
Ta disava qarik Isei ni tau na as? Eh? Ro[¨n]o lolora va! Ki isei qa ni sawu? Wa sagoro ta sagoro Ki gida, sem, ta lai ra[¨n]ai! Ro[¨n]o lolora va! Toli sagoro rik!
Da! ta sagoro da! Ge riri betigag! Ta sagoro tei rik Ga laia ra[¨n]ai sag! Kare mawmaw, tei riki vak! Ge wosawosa limamu! A wula marama! Tolina rik ka sem!
Nan ligo asik suri marama, --I’ll make my song about the moonlight, Tolina rik sem a wula marama, --Charming indeed is the light of the moon,
Osoos ti rasu mera na maran, --Darkness has flown, it is light as the day, Non eteete ti lita soun na --His brightness chased the night far away. qo[¨n].
Nan ligo asik suri marama, --I’ll make my song about the moonlight, A[¨n]eisa tea le isi Tamada, --Some day I ween in our great Father’s land,
Ala na maran vagatewa tau, --There day unending for ever will be, Qon tigai ala, moa marama, --Night is unknown there, light only endless.