Moso, one of the high gods of the land/earth in Samoan religion — the counterpart of Tagaloa of the heavens — and among the most widely-invoked village aitu, incarnate in the pigeon and the fuia starling and symbolised in one village by the shell-decked tanoa (kava-bowl). No genealogy is attested in the corpus used here — see SOLITARY flag. Documented by Turner and Stair (secondary).
Domains
the land and earth
village tutelary protection
Powers
Become present and answer prayer through incarnations (the pigeon, the fuia starling, and other forms)
Guard the village and its people as their tutelary god
Sources
G. Turner, Samoa, a Hundred Years Ago and Long Before (1884), the gods invoked by the Samoans, Moso among them
J. B. Stair, Old Samoa (1897)
G. Turner, Samoa (1884): Moso, high god of the land opposite Tagaloa of the heavens