24 Gunnar Landtman. 



SESERE OF MABUIAG, THE FIRST HARPOONER OF DUGONG. 



61. Sésere lived hy himself at one end of Aldbuiag, and the people lived at the other 

 end. His tvvo brothers-in-law came and seized the fish which he had caught. Sésere dug up the 

 skulls of his parents and slept close to them, and in the night the two spirits taught him to spear 

 dugong. He caught a number of the animais. His brothers-in-lavv turned themselves into tvvo 

 dögs and came and stole the mat. Another åay .Sésere killed the dögs. The Màbuiag people 

 came to take revenge, but Sésere repelled all their attacks. He was at tirst equally successful 

 against some other people who came to fight him, hut in the end he had to change himself into 

 a bird, and the people fought and killed each other in tlieir attempts to hit the bird. When the 

 fight was över the Mäbuiag vvomen who.se hushands had been killed came to Sésere, and he kept 

 them all. 



III. SPIRITS OF THE DEAD (62-101 ) 



A. TALES OF PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN TO ADIRI, THE LAND OF THE DEAD. 



62. A spirit in Adiri sent a cassowary to fetch a certain boy. The latter pursued the 

 bird and was again and again on the point of shooting it, and was thus enticed to run after it 

 as far as Adiri. There he feil down in a faint, but was recalled to life. He was given two spirit 

 girls in marriage, and they bore him two children. One day when the wind was blowing from 

 the direction of his own home he longed to go back, and his children wanted to go with him. 

 In order to find out the best means for him to return the spirits arranged a i-ace between some 

 canoës, a cassowary, and a clump of bamboo trees, and the latter won, for they streched them- 

 selves high up from the ground and bending down their tops reached the goal straight off. The 

 bamboos carried the man and his family home. 



63. A certain Mawâta man who had died returned to life and told his people about 

 Adi'ri. He related how he had been recei\ed there and what he had seen. He was offered a 

 young: girl, and if a new-comer cohabits with a female spirit he cannot return to life any more. 

 But the man was so absorbed in regarding the place that he neglected the girl, and therefore he 

 was sent back, hurled through the air. 



I 64. Another description of Adfri is given by a woman who had been there and then 

 returned to life. 



65 — 67. Some men who have been to the spirit land in dreams teil vvhat they have seen. 



68. Some Mawâta people once saw how the spirit of a man who had ju.st died came 

 back after having gone some distance towards Adiri. The dead man came to himself and related 

 how he had determined to come back when thinking of his family whom he had left hehind. 

 At the. .place where he turned back he had broken off the branch of a tree for a mark, and the 

 spot was afterwards found by the people. 



Tom. .KLVII. 



