te Pusi (the Eel)

te Pusi, the Eel, is one of the two primal beings of the Tuvaluan creation account recorded across the islands. In the story the Eel and the Flounder, once close friends, test their strength against a huge stone and fall to quarrelling; the Eel is struck in the belly and grows ever thinner until it can hide in a hole, its long round body becoming the model for the coconut palm so central to atoll life. By tossing the stone repeatedly into the air the Eel separates night from day and sky from sea, and finally breaks the stone into eight pieces, the eight islands of Tuvalu, whose name means 'eight standing together'. The association of the Eel with the coconut and the sky-prop is reflected in the traditional respect (tapu) attached to the moray eel.

Domains

• creation of the world
• sky and firmament
• coconut palm

Powers

• to lift the stone repeatedly and so make night, day, the sky and the sea
• to shatter the world-stone into the eight standing islands

Epithets

• te Pusi

Relations

• twin sibling: te Ali (the Flounder)
• rival: te Ali (the Flounder)

Sources

• Talakatoa O'Brien, 'Genesis,' in Tuvalu: A History, ed. Hugh Laracy (Suva: Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific; Funafuti: Ministry of Social Services, 1983).
• D. G. Kennedy, Field Notes on the Culture of Vaitupu, Ellice Islands (New Plymouth, N.Z.: Thomas Avery & Sons, for the Polynesian Society, 1931).