Toa and Pale, or Hero and Helper

The King of Fiji was a savage cannibal, and the people were melting away under him. Toa and Pale were brothers, they wished to escape being killed for the oven, and so fled to the bush and became trees. It was only the day before a party were to go to the woods to search for a straight tree from which to make the keel of a new canoe for the king. They knew this, and so Pale changed himself into a crooked stick overrun with creepers, that he might not be cut by the king's carpenters, and advised Toa to do the same. He declined, however, and preferred standing erect as a handsome straight tree.
The party in search of a keel went to the very place, liked the look of Toa, and decided to cut it down. They cut, and Toa was felled to the ground, but Pale, who was close by, immediately raised him up again. The carpenters were confounded--cut again--but it was just the same. They persevered, and the cutting, falling, and rising again, went on till night fell, when they gave it up. After they left Toa said to Pale, "What a Toa (trouble) I have been to you!" and hence the proverb to this day, when a person or thing has been a trouble to another, he says to the sufferer in a sympathising or apologetic tone: "What a Toa it has been to you!"