Salenga is a name which embraces a considerable part of the south-west side of Savaii.  Three Fijians came to Samoa, viz.  Utu, Taua, and their sister Lenga.  Utu took up his abode, as we have already noted, at Matautu.  Taua went to a district farther west, now called Sataua, and Lenga went to the south-west side, and from her it is still called Salenga.  A rock a short distance from the shore was the principal god of the place.  An unusually hollow sound, from a change of wind and current, was a call from the god for offerings; and for a time the fish were untouched and sacred to this Samoan Neptune.

A story is told of a chief in this neighbourhood called Ato, who once saved his people from the wrath of Malietoa.  Malietoa and his retinue, when on a journey, called at the place, and as usual had a day’s entertainment.  Some of the people were heard grumbling over the quantity of food necessary for the royal visitors.  This was noted, and on reviewing their travels at the end of the journey they decided that the grumbling indignity must be punished.  An armed party was selected, and off they went to plunder and burn the settlement, and kill all belonging to the place who fell into their hands.  In the midst of the panic which the news of the projected attack threw the people into, the chief Tuato ordered all to be quiet, and do what he told them.  He called for cocoa-nut leaves to be plaited, as if for the baking of a pig, lay down on the top of them, told them to enclose his own body in the leaves, sling him on a pole, and carry him and lay him down in that state on the road at the entrance to the village.  When the Malietoa troops came up they found, to their astonishment, the chief Tuato done up in leaves and lying across the road all ready to be killed as a sacrifice and put in the oven, to avert the wrath of the king and save the lives of the people.  This was sufficient amends to the king.  Tuato and the settlement were spared, and his name handed down to posterity as the saviour of his people.

Another story is told of a man of this district who had been long on Tutuila, and wished to return to Savaii, but was always refused a passage when a canoe happened to be going.  He implored the god Moso to pity and help him.  “Come on my back,” said Moso; and away Moso went with him, and after a swim of a hundred miles set him down in the evening on the rocks at his own place.  “Go and bring me a bunch of cocoa-nuts, that is all I want,” said Moso; but the ungrateful man went on shore, and when he got among the houses and the people forgot all about his benefactor, who was waiting patiently for the cocoa-nuts.  Moso could bear it no longer, and, when close upon daybreak, went on shore and searched from house to house, feeling for a man whose body had not been freshened by a bath the night before but was rough with saline matter from the ocean.  He found him, dragged him away, killed him, and smote at the same time all the people of the place.  In the morning they were found dead with their heads on their pillows just as they went to sleep, and hence the phrase “long on the pillow” was used to express sudden death.