Note 47 — Chapter I · TABOOED DAYS AT CRITICAL EPOCHS

In Samoa the second half of the year was called the palolo season, from the appearance of this singular worm for three days in the course of a year. If the last quarter of the moon is late in October, the palolo is found the day before, the day of, and the day after that quarter. Should the last quarter of the moon be early in October, the worm does not come till the last quarter of the November moon (Turner, Samoa, p. 207). The palolo, it may be noted, is not an entire animal, but only the “propagation-body” of a sea-annelid (apparently Eunice Viridis Gray), which lives in holes in the coral stone and comes to the surface for the act of fertilization. It is found in various parts of Polynesia, including Samoa, Fiji, and Tonga, and also in Melanesia (New Hebrides and Banks Islands). See A. Krämer, Die Samoa-Inseln, Stuttgart, 1903, ii, 399-406, and B. Friedländer, “Notes on the palōlo,” Journal of the Polynesian Society, 1898, vii, 44-46.