The Folk-Tales of tite Kiwai Papuans. 223 



POOPOO. 



146. Poöpoo is akin to the ôrigorûso but is shaped exactly like an ordinary man. He 

 eats people, but his teetli are of ordinary length. His skin is full of knobs (po), which have given 

 him his name. 



Once when the Dibiri women were making sage in the bush, Poopoö came up from 

 beneath the ground, vvhere he lives, and stole all sorts of things from the empty house. The 

 next morning the women set a girl to watch the house while they were away. Poôpoô came 

 and carried off the girl to his place beneath the ground. He kept her there, and she bore him 

 a child. One day when Poôpo«) was in the bush, his wife ran awa\' with her child and returned 

 to the other people, and they all fled to another place from Po(')po(5. (Epére, Ipisfa). 



A. Poopoö had married the daugliter of a Dfbiri man. and she hore him a cliild. Shortly 

 afterwards he sent her to go and swim, and in her absence he killed and ate the baby. On retiirning 

 the woman learnt what had happened hut did not dåre say anything to Poopoo. Once she asked him 

 to go and hunt pig, and while he was in the hush she ran away to her old home. (Japia, Ipisia). 



THE PEOPLE FLEE FROM A MALIGNANT BEING. 



147. A Kubira man named Naräto used to roam about in the bush with his dögs, killing 

 pigs. He brought the pigs home, eut them up, and di\ided the meat among his people, forgetting 

 no one. He contented himseif with bad food only. 



Underneath the ground there lived an evil being, sugûiiui or öriogoriilio. Once the beast 

 dug a long passage underground opening underneath one of the houses. The sugûma then came 

 up and caught a hoy, carrjing him off into the ground where he devoured him. The Kubira 

 people, on returning from the bush, missed the boj', but no one knew of his fäte. The parents 

 wailed for him, thinking that he had been taken by a crocodile. The same happened again and 

 again ; for every day the stignma seized a boy or girl, or even more than one in a day. The 

 mothers and fathers in vain asked everybody, „Where my small boy?" and at last concluded that 

 the child had fallen the victim of a crocodile. 



Once a man and a woman, who had a very pretty little boy, asked a cripple who spent 

 ail his time at home, to look after the child while they were away in their garden.''^ „^^ou look 

 out that boy," they said, „alligator no catch him, me two fellow go bush." The baby could not 

 walk yet, only crawl („he walk about along fore4eg"), and the cripple tied a string round one 

 leg of the child, fastening the other end to his own wrist. After a while he feil asleep („you 

 savy — he one man (alone), nobody yarn"). The small boy wanted to go and play with the 

 other children and crawled along as far as his tether permitted, but when he came to the siigihna's 

 hole, he was caught by the beast, who dragged him into the ground. The cripple, awakened 

 by the pull of the tightened string, thought to himself, „Oh, that boy he been go play," He went 

 to see where the string led to, Walking „along four leg," and found the hole; „Oh," he exclaimed, 

 „he got hole hère! Something been dig that hole — that no alligator been catch that boy!" In 

 this way the people found out that the children had been carried off by the sugîînia. Sometimes 

 N:o 1. 



