Tlie Folk-Talcs oj llic Kiwai Papuans. 59 



THE BOY WHO CRIED AFTER SEEING A GIRL NUDE AND WAS SENT 



AWAY WITH HER. 



468. VVhile playing with a girl on the heach a little boy happened to see her with her 

 petticoat aside and began to cry, asking for something red. The people did not knovv what he 

 wanted and offered him various red things. At length his meaning was found out, and the 

 disgusted people placed him and the girl in a canoë, provided them with food, and sent them off, 

 and they drifted to a distant place. The girl did not want to hâve anything to do with the boy. 

 He had no fîre, and she refused to lend him hers, and thej' lived in différent huts. Once the 

 boy met a woman and her daughter who lived in the neighbourhood and took them to his home. 

 On seeing them coming the first girl went into the boy's hut and iighted a fire there. After a 

 quarrel between the two girls both became the boy's wives. 



BOYS WHO WERE BORN AFTER THEIR MOTHERS' DEATH. 



469. While fishing a pregnant woman was jammed up between the shells of an enormous 

 shell-fish and was drowned. After a time her decaying body floated away and got stranded in 

 another place, where it opened, and the baby came out, a boy. He was taken care of by some 

 people. His mother told him in a dream of his birth and he obtained a canoë and paddled to 

 his right home. 



470. A pregnant woman was killed in a fight and her head was eut off. Shortly after- 

 wards her child, a boy, was bom and he remained alive and was found by the people. When 

 he had grown up he avenged his mother's death. 



THE MAN WHO PRETENDED TO HAVE BEEN IN A FIGHT AND WAS PURSUED 



BY AN EVIL BEING. 



471. A man on seeing a tlock of birds pretended that the}' were people sailing in their 

 canoës. He discharged his arrows at a tree, eut oft the bow-string, and ran home calling out to 

 the people that he had been in a fight. When this was repeated, a hiwai-abére (wicked mythical 

 being) came and ran after him. She feil over him and was transfixed on his penis which 

 killed her. 



HOW TWO MEN WERE TURNED INTO ANIMALS. 



472. Two hunters who killed and ate an c'terari (mythical lizard) v\'ere transformed into 

 such animais. They took refuge underneath a stone but after eating the pith of a palm they 

 changed into two pigs. The people came to hunt them but were fearfully mangied by the beasts. 

 The surviving people fled and settled down in another place. 

 N:o 1. 



