“ What a truly enlightening read too Professor Maui-Tava-He-Ako! Your creative and reflective elaboration and articulation on Tangaloa as your subject of historico-cultural ('ilo moe poto) and linguistic (tala, lea) investigation having socio-ecological (fonua, kakai-moe-'atakai) significance are well-taken. It surely provides more food for further critical thought.
The word Tangaloa (literally meaning "long-jawbone," that is, "long-mouth" or "long-tongue") symbolically points to the deified ha'a Tangaloa clan as the actual "speakers/ orators/ tellers-of-the-future" (kaha'u/ kahoko, "kuongamui"), which is put behind people in the present (lotolotonga/ hoko, "kuongaloto"), informed by the past (kuohili/ kuohoko, "kuongamu'a"), also situated in front as guidance.
This runs parallel to the deified ha'a Lo'au clan -- who were considered as tufunga fonua (material artists of social architecture/ social engineering) -- as well as having "long-eyes" (namely, toka-i-Ma'ananga) -- thus symbolising their being "seers-of-the-future" (where the past and future are commonly yet constantly mediated in the present).
It is said in oral/ spoken history that the common place of abode of the deified ha'a Tangaloa clan was the Langi (Sky), as in Maama (Earth) and Lolofonua (Underworld) as the common abode(s) of the deified ha'a Maui clan and Pulotu, the Ancestral Homeland and Afterworld of Moana hihifo (western Moana) as the abode of the deified ha'a Hikule'o clan.
The deified ha'a clans of Tangaloa, Maui and Hikule'o were merely differentiated by their respective fatongia (functions), which represented different major departments of culture (coordinated differently in terms of their totality), as in the Langi (Sky) above, Maama (Earth) below, and Moana (Ocean) at their interface, as well as the Lolofonua (Underworld) down under and Pulotu as repositories/ depositories of refined 'ilo (knowledge) and poto (skills) of the past (and of the dead).
As for the ha'a Tangaloa clan, the political and ceremonial duties were assigned to Tangaloa Langi, priestly and godly duties to Tangaloa 'Eiki, funereal and death duties to Tangaloa 'Eitumatupu'a, artistic and land-based (kaifonua) duties to Tangaloa Tufunga, diplomatic and social duties to Tangaloa 'Atulongolongo and oceanic and marine-based (kaimoana) duties to Tangaloa Mana. ”