Vau

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.

Domains

• spirit beings
• islets and landforms

Powers

• to spill sand from a fleeing basket and so form the small islets of Nanumea

Relations

• sibling: PaiVau and Pai are the paired spirit-women who jointly hold Nanumea before Tefolaha and are always named together.Keith S. Chambers and Anne Chambers, Tuu mo Iloga: The Nanumea Ethnographic Archive. (secondary)
• enemy: TefolahaVau loses the contest of names to the settler Tefolaha and is driven from Nanumea.Keith S. Chambers, Heirs of Tefolaha (Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1984). (secondary)

Sources

• Vau is one of the two female spirits (aitu) who held the atoll of Nanumea before the arrival of Tefolaha, by whom she was outwitted in a contest of names and forced to leave.: Keith S. Chambers, Heirs of Tefolaha: Tradition and Social Organization in Nanumea, a Polynesian Atoll Community (Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1984). (secondary); 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). (secondary)