INTRODUCTION. 



The hère given collection of folktales were related to me by natives of New 

 Guinea during my two years' sojourn in the country, from April 1910 to April 1912. 

 All the taies originate from the territory of the Kiwai speaking Papuans, with the 

 exception of those from Masingåra (called by the local inhabitants Mâsingle), Dirimo 

 (Drimn), Djibu, and Bôigu. The folktales were told in pigeon English, or in Kiwai, 

 only those from Mâsingâra in the tongue of that village, which latter I imperfectly 

 understood, and therefore I was obliged to employ interpreters for noting down the taies 

 of those so called „bushmen". Ail my informants were men, but some of them had 

 learnt certain of the taies from women. Only one person at a time was allowed to be 

 present at ow meetings, as it was observed that the communicativeness of a native 

 suiïered from the présence of others. In a very few cases several persons took part 

 in the relating of a taie, which for instance was the case with some of those frora 

 Mâsingâra. 



On the whole the Kiwai Papuans were remai'kably good narrators, and when 

 they had accustomed themselves to my note taking, they told their taies with enter- 

 taining fluency, evidently themselves enjoying the telling. In many cases I had no 

 occasion to make a single question while a narrative was in jn'ogress, and if the teller 

 paused, it was as a rule sufficient simply to ask him to continue. Therefore the anthro- 

 pological incidents occurring in the taies came about spontaneously from the natives' side. 

 Many of the narrators had a great master}^ over their language, crude as it was, and 

 with regard to the modes of expression they could vary their taies in no small degree. 

 If during my writing it chanced that some interesting expression escaped me, it was in 

 most cases in spite of every effort well nigh impossible to make the teller repeat him- 

 self in the same diction, his phrases nearly always taking a new form. Sometimes when 

 a narrator related a legend which I had heard before I was able to notice that some 

 such circumstance as gathering darkness or an approaching meal time tempted him to 

 shorten his account in ordei' to bring the whole to a speedier conclusion, but one could 



