The origin of tapu things

/ told by: Erewo, Nikaura, Epi

A man walking by the sea saw a snake on a stone and he spoke to it. The snake said,

“My grandfather, you stay here and I will go home”

The man went along the shore, and the snake became a fish and a swam by sea. But the man seeing a fish, shot it with an arrow, and when he went to take it he saw it was a snake that was on his weapon. He knocked off he snake into the sea, and he fled along the shore, but the snake followed after him as he went. He went home, but it still followed, and the man walked on and on until he could go no further. He spoke to his friends and said,

“Gather together the turbo shells that I may go into the hold of one of them.”

They did as he said. When they had gathered them up he went into the hold. The snake ate up the turbo shells one by one until only one remained, the one in which the man was. He cried to his friends and said,

“Hear ye my voice for the last time,”

and the snake bit through the turbo shell and bit him to death. His friends took it and buried it. They smote the snake and buried it, but I came to life again, and it fled because it was a tapu snake.

Now, when we smite a thing and it comes to life again, we are afraid, for it is a sacred or poisonous (tapu) thing.