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Overview
Turner's Laloata account begins with a small eel brought home as a plaything for Sina. It grows and bites her. The family leaves, but the eel follows overland despite barriers raised by her parents. Communities fear to shelter her until one chief offers protection and arranges the eel's death. This telling starts with an eel, without naming it as a disguised king.
The dying creature asks Sina to bury its head. A coconut palm grows, offering shade, leaves for useful objects and nuts bearing the eel's eyes and mouth. The story thus moves from pursuit to a continuing, changed relationship. Samoa Tourism's Mataolealelo Pool page locates the story at Matavai in Safune and describes an eel arriving from Fiji to marry Sina. The National Park of American Samoa separately tells a royal-eel version: Tui Fiti transforms himself, later loses the power to return to human form, and asks for his head to be buried. These versions are retained as local witnesses, with the park's royal transformation distinguished from Turner's Laloata eel and the tourism page's brief place account.
Origins & earliest records
Turner's 1884 Laloata episode is the selected historical witness, inspected through the 1984 reprint. Samoa Tourism publishes the Safune place association; the National Park of American Samoa supplies a separately published royal-eel narrative. Neither publication date establishes oral beginnings. The profile distinguishes a named story's individual creature from an eel species or a universal Polynesian version.
Records & interpretation
The Laloata text directly supplies pursuit, the eel's final request and the coconut's useful gifts. The tourism authority identifies a contemporary public place connection. These document storytelling and cultural landscape, rather than botanical experimentation or zoological verification; the Fijian-king detail is supported by the park's narrative, rather than the tourism page.
In the literature
“it will grow up a cocoa-nut tree for you”
Chapter XXI, Laloata; eel’s final instructions · Turner’s historical English rendering
The dying eel explains the result of burying its head.
Selected bibliography
Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.
- 01
Samoa, a Hundred Years Ago and Long Before
Chapter XXI, Tuamasanga, Laloata episode: pursuing eel, protective chief and coconut origin.
Family & connections
A source-supported family tree or inspiration record has not yet been compiled for this profile. Related reading below indicates a connection in subject matter, not a proven lineage or creative influence.
Located primary passages
Specific passages supporting details in this entry, grouped by their published witness.
Primary source witness
George Turner, first printed London 1884; selected hosted text explicitly identifies the Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific 1984 reprint. Chapter/numbered-section locators used because printed page numbers are not retained. Historical missionary-mediated accounts; differing village and household traditions remain distinct.
- Sina’s mother brings home a small sea eel in a water container; it grows and bites Sina. The family flees, and both parents try to block it with mountains, but it continues following their daughter.
- A chief shelters Sina and gives the pursuing eel poisoned drink. Dying, it requests burial of its head; the resulting coconut palm supplies shade, leaves and nuts whose markings preserve its eyes and mouth.
Chapter XXI, Tuamasanga §2(5), Laloata; death and coconut origin
Specified numbered sections and complete episodes read; this is not a claim to have read the whole book. Turner’s missionary judgments and comparative labels are not adopted as contemporary Indigenous testimony. Prayer/song formulas omitted; no universal morphology or current practice inferred.
Encyclopedia background
An additional attributed reference, separate from the editorial profile above.
Read the open encyclopedia overview
Sina and the Eel is a myth of origins in Samoan mythology, which explains the origins of the first coconut tree.
In the Samoan language the legend is called Sina ma le Tuna. Tuna is the Samoan word for 'eel'.
The story is also well known throughout Polynesia including Tonga, Fiji and Māori in New Zealand.
Different versions of the legend are told in different countries in Oceania. The coconut tree (Cocos nucifera) has many uses and is an important source of food. It is also used for making coconut oil, baskets, sennit rope used in traditional Samoan house building, weaving and for the building of small traditional houses or fale. The dried meat of the coconut or copra has been an important export product and a source of income throughout the Pacific.
The legend of Sina and the Eel is associated with other figures in Polynesian mythology such as Hina, Tinilau, Tagaloa and Nafanua.
Sina is also the name of various female figures in Polynesian mythology. The word sina also means 'white' or silver haired (grey haired in age) in the Samoan language. There is also an old Samoan song called Soufuna Sina based on a Sina legend.
Text from Wikipedia contributors, “Sina and the Eel”. CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted introduction; formatting changed. Retrieved 5 October 2026. The source article may have changed since retrieval.
References
Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.
- Primary textGeorge Turner: Samoa, selected 1984 reprint of 1884 textResearch access: 2026-10-05
- CommunitySamoa Tourism Authority: Mataolealelo PoolResearch access: 2026-10-05
- Official public narrativeSina and Her Eel (tuna) — National Park of American SamoaResearch access: 2026-10-05
Image credits
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