The Folk-Tales of ihe Kiivai Papuans. 211 



Gibüma, vvho couid not run avvay as his legs would not move. At last he got up and rushed 

 on top of some people, who were sleeping heside him in the house, and they woke him up. If 

 Gibüma had caught hold of the snake, he would have acquired the faculty of transforming himself 

 into a snake. (Gibüma, Mawâta). 



126. A Mawâta man named Ddbu dreamt that he was hunting in the bush and saw 

 there a large iguana with two wings and four legs. . Having flovvn up into a tree, the iguana 

 closed its wings and walked on ils legs. It was an etengena (cf. Introduction to no. 102) who 

 in the night assumed the shape of a man. This being taught Gibüma many things. He was 

 forbidden to eat the méat of tame pigs but not that of wild pigs. The etengena also forbade him 

 to taste dugong méat without first eating a pièce of a star-fish, but as that fish is considered a 

 „poison", Gibüma never dared to eat either the one or the other. Some men have died from 

 neglecting the food directions given them by an etengena, and therefore Gibüma was careful that 

 the same fate should not befall him. He was also taught how to find pigs when hunting in the 

 bush and how to cause pigs to destroy an enemy's garden. In order to prevent pigs from 

 ruining a garden he was to put a star-flsh underneath the fence, for thèse fish have a mouth 

 like a man and frighten pigs away by calling out to them, although nobody eise can hear their 

 voice. (Däbu, Mawâta). 



127. \ man named Wâboda dreamt this. He saw a large snake in the bush, and when 

 he addressed it, the snake answered him by beating the ground with its tail. The man went 

 home and asked the people to come and kill the snake, which they did. They cooked the dead 

 reptile, and ate it, although some men were afraid to do ,so, lest the snake should have been an 

 evil being. All those who had partaken of the snake's fiesh died, and Wdboda saw how they 

 were buried. He was so terrifled that he woke up. (Biri, Ipisi'a). 



128. Some wild pigs had destroyed Samâri's garden. The ne.xt night he dreamt that a 

 man came to him from the bush. The stranger carried his bow and arrows, he was painted 

 with mud and held the tail of a pig in his mouth. Samari did not know who the man was. 

 The new-comer handed him the pig's tail and a pièce of earth, and told him to chew a little of 

 the latter together with a small pièce of a young taro root and spit the juice on the digging stick 

 which he used when planting taro. This would give him a rich.crop. If he wanted to destroy 

 somebody's garden he was to chew a fragment of the pig's tail and spit in into the garden, telling 

 the pigs to come. Samâri still kept these „medicines", which he had found on awakening. 

 (Samäri, Mawâta). 



129. Bfdja, one of the leading men of Old Mawâta, once saw a wallaby while he was 

 working in his garden. The animal did not allow him to come near but constantly kept at the 

 same distance. Bidja tried to catch it but feil and hurt himself so that he fainted, and while he 

 was unconscious some substance from the wallaby passed into him. He went home and his 

 wife prepared him food, but he could not eat and soon feil asleep. The wallaby came to him 

 and put in his hand a stone, which was a „medicine" to be used when shooting fish with a bow 

 N:o 1. 



