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Writer's pictureIosua Ioane Fānene

Was Manu’a’s Fo’isia Warrior actually Hoshea?

=================================== Was Manu’a’s Fo’isia Warrior actually Hoshea? Nu’utele, Nu’u-sila-e-lae Fiti-uta — Not away from Fiji, but Judah in Fiji ===================================

In Hebrew, the name הושע (Hoshe'a) means "salvation", and derives from the root ישע (yasha').


In the Old Testament at Numbers 13:16, Moses gives the spy Hoshea the new name Yehoshu'a (as in #JOSHUA), which means “YHWH saves”. It is also the name of the last king of Israel before the Assyrian captivity and expulsion of the legendary #Ten #Tribes into diaspora throughout the Assyrian empire and #frontier lands. This King Hoshea was accused by Shalmanaser the 5th (born Ululayu) of conspiring with Pharaoh Sō (Osōrkion) to revolt. Hoshea went to war, however the Egyptians reneged on their promise to reinforce Hoshea’s revolution for independence, and so the uprising failed and Israel was dismantled and scattered to the #Four #Winds. The Ten Tribes vanished and the Two remaining were allocated to Samaria and became Samaritans.


The Story of Fo’isia Warrior fits snugly within the framework of Hoshea on a near one-to-one basis in terms of the sequence of events and their outcomes. Fo’isia Warrior (Tu’i ‘Ofu, king of ‘Ofu) sent emissaries to the Fale Tolu (Sāmoan for “three houses”, also a multi-millennia old epithet of Egypt and the Pyramids in Giza). The Fale Tolu sent reinforcements to the first battles, however when ‘Olosega launched a second major incursion against ‘Ofu, the Fale Tolu reneged, or it became unsustainable to continue with the promised support.

It is an identical story. Even the names of the key players are glaringly alike. Manu’a is among the oldest of the Polynesian nations, and was the one time hub of a Pacific empire. The names of the places in the islands are homologous as well as analogous to the biblical events. Even a modestly well-read lay person acquainted with these histories and the tools of the field of historical linguistics can see (hear) these connections.


Using a standard transliteration protocol the name Hoshe’a transforms to Fo’isia in Sāmoan:

/H/ ה = /F/ /O/ ו = /O/U/I/ /SH/ ש = /S/ /E’A/ ע = /IA/


In Sāmoan, Fo’isia can mean “to desire to return”, or “I shall return”. I mean this jokingly—in a sense, it connotes the sentiment expressed by Schwarzenegger’s T-100: “I’ll be back” and General MacArthur’s famous last words.


This reading is supported by the Hawaiian equivalent expression HOI HIA:

HOI: “again” / “go back” HIA: “desire”


While this name may be interpreted also to mean “want to retreat”, the legend in Manu’a emphasizes that Fo’isia Warrior was strong and wanted to die standing up, so he threw himself into the sea and became a petrified monument, hence the peculiarly manlike stone figure atop Nu’utele island, sometimes perhaps erroneously referred to as “a giant”.


NU’UTELE and NU’U-SILA-E-LAE are the tiny islands off the shore from my paternal grandmother’s village of ALAUFAU on the island of OFU.

NUUTELE can mean “mighty nation” NU’U-SILA-E-LAE can mean “neighboring nation at the extreme end of the rainbow but from a different tribe”

ALAUFAU can mean “the second best mat worn by a bride over the anoi”, comes from LAU “leaf girdle” and FAU “to bind together”. FAU also alluded to “bound loosely in place only by laws”. In a sense it conveys the meaning of “house arrest”.

As ALA-UFA-U it could mean “backdoor”, literally way “path”+”rectum”+”to direct”.

As ALA-U-FAU it could mean “path for the anointed who are exiled”, literally “way”+”oil of atonement/anointment”+”to loosely bind (as if restrained by laws)”


The name of the island of ‘OFU where all these sites exist may mean “to don a garment” in reference to the ALAUFAU reading of “a loose binding of LAU leaves for a bride (as of a house arrest)”. Nearby ‘OLOSEGA suggests that a fortress was razed and the tribe was at last defeated after much rebellion.


The question has been raised again and again since American and European ethnographers first began study of Polynesia in the 19th century: are Polynesians from the Ten Tribes?

The longer I study the culture and the language, the more self-evident this conclusion becomes. Polynesians do appear to be brothers from different mothers to the Hebrews of Palestine and Israel, children of the Assyrian captivity. This only more deeply suggests that the path to Polynesia and possibly the Americas was already in the 8th century B.C. and earlier part of a well-known frontier geography of the ancient empires of Asia.

Perhaps the village of Fitiuta in Maīa means IUTA / JUDAH’s (יהודה) Fiji.

FITI = HIKI = “next”; “go back and forth”, "to arise" in Hawaiian So the name may also mean: NEXT Judah, or NEW JUDAH


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