tokelauan words that don’t have the letter f in them

there are many reasons to read this harrowing account of three teenage boys lost at sea for 51 days (their only provisions were moldy coconuts and a mason jar of vodka which they consumed almost immediately; they survived in the open ocean in a pontoon boat made for lake fishing; the location of their polynesian island is one of the most remote on the globe) but the biggest reason for reading the article is to soak up some unusual vocabulary from their exotic language (especially tagavaka):

lelea—a boat that has been blown off course.
palagi—a foreigner
tagavaka—a boat that has purposely sailed away—for love, adventure, or suicide.
tautai—a master fisherman, the highest honor a tokelauan man can receive.
ulu—the leader of all of tokelau. the position rotates every year among the heads of each individual atoll.

June 9, 2011
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