Tuvaluan · deity · Tuvaluan traditional religion; continuing · deity
Vau is the second of the two spirit-women, with Pai, who in Nanumean tradition held the sandbank of Nanumea before human settlement. The pair are always named together and share the same fate: when Tefolaha arrived and wagered the island on a contest of names, Vau and Pai could not name him, while he named them both, and so they were obliged to leave. The sand that spilled from their baskets as they fled Nanumea is said to have formed the small islets off the atoll.
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to spill sand from a fleeing basket and so form the small islets of Nanumea
Keith S. Chambers, Heirs of Tefolaha: Tradition and Social Organization in Nanumea, a Polynesian Atoll Community (Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1984).
Simati Faaniu et al., Tuvalu: A History, ed. Hugh Laracy (Suva: Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific; Funafuti: Ministry of Social Services, 1983).