Hatana Island is considered the most sacred or "haa" islet of the Rotuma Group, Fiji, commonly featuring in various Rotuman Creation myths.
Hatana Island is considered the most sacred or "haa" islet of the Rotuma Group, Fiji, commonly featuring in various Rotuman Creation myths.
==Rotuman mythology== The island's potency is connected to the supposed founder of Rotuma, Raho. Legend maintains that Raho, a Samoan chief, after fleeing his home island, "planted" the island of Rotuma with two baskets of sand, and was subsequently tricked out of his newfound paradise by a Tongan chief named Tokaniua. In a fit of pique, Raho climbed up Rotuma's old volcano, Mamfiri, and dug a stick into its peak, the dirt flying off becoming the surrounding islets of Hafliua, Hatana, Hafhaveiaglolo, Solkope and the Haua islands. Thus, Raho left the main island of Rotuma and made his home on the island of Hatana, with a bevy of maidens. He is presumed to have died there, given that there is a site on the island referred to as his burial place. There remain two small boulders, said to resemble two crouching figures, marking the burial places of the sau he rua, Tuimanuka and Famafu. Around these stand 27 smaller rocks in a circle, supposedly symbolising the 27 sasina (maidens) whose deaths were mandated upon the death of the King, presumably to attend to him in the after world. There is a small umefe (eating table) upon which people have left gifts of garlands, coins, alcohol and any other offering deemed precious enough to appease the God-King and warrant safe passage on the return voyage.
Discovered by embedding cosine similarity (sentence-transformers MiniLM, 384-dim).