77^«? Folk-Tales of thc Kiwai Papuans. 237 



Once Ki'ba's wife went to catch lish and crabs carrying her little boy in a basket. While 

 engaged in her work she hung up the basket vvith the baby in it in a tree cluse to the water. The 

 boy were kept on crying and was heard by the hlwaiabérc who came and passed into his body. 

 After a while the rising tide reached the basket, and the water closed over it. The two legs of 

 the boy were transformed into a dugong's tail, his head turned into that of a dugong, and he was no 

 longer a boy but a dugong. The boy's voice was choked by the water, and this is why nowa- 

 days the snorting of a dugong resembles the sobbing of a child. Thus the tirst dugong was made. 

 When the mother came back, she found her basket empty, and she wailed and thought, „Alli- 

 gator been catch him boy, I no been hang him on top proper." 



The dugong swam away, and after a while it came to the place where the boys and girls 

 were swimming in the water. It lifted its head out of the water and snorted, and the children 

 called out, „Ki'ba, you corne! Dugong there he come!" Ki'ba came to the place and put a har- 

 pooning platform up there, and ail the while the dugong was swimming to and fro in the neigh- 

 bourhood. When Kiba mounted the platform, it came straight to him and was speared. But Ki'ba's 

 head became entangled in the harpooning Une, and the dugong towed him far away until they 

 came to Bôigu. There the dugong lifted up its head, looked round and said, „No good I go hère, I go 

 other place." The animal swam to Davâne, dragging Kîba behind, but on seeing the place it said, 

 „No good I leave him hère." Then it went to Büru between Davâne and Mdbuiag but did not 

 like that place either as it was so near home. At Mâbuiag the dugong got strandcd, and Ki'ba 

 who was still alive got up and sat on the animal's back. „Oh, where Bûdji, my place.?" he 

 wailed. 



When the Mâbuiag women came to catch fish they saw him and said, „What thing 

 water he been take him float?" Two girls who were sisters went nearer to him and said, „I 

 think that man dugong been take him. What place that man he come.' Oh, that good (good- 

 looking) man he stop." The elder sister said, „That man belong me." „No, more better my 

 man," said the younger. Kiba who was sitting with his head bent down remained silent. The 

 dugong which at first had been a boy lay there dead, and the hlivai-abére had left the body and 

 passed into a hole in a rock. 



The girls summoned the people to.come, „Man hcre, he got dugong!" they cried. Kiba 

 said in the language of the islanders, „You no kill me, more better you take me go along shore." 

 One man after another said, „AU right, you iicina (friend) belong me. No good you kill my 

 pana."" And they brought him home and hauled the dugong on shore. There they eut up the 

 animal and distributed the méat, but they did not know that it really was a boy who had been 

 transformed into a dugong. Kiba was very well received, and the two girls who had seen him 

 first were given him in marriage. He remained in Mâbuiag and taught the people there to spear 

 dugong. He had learnt the art at Bûdji by himself without having been taught it by anybody. 

 But the Bûdji people do not any longer know how to harpoon dugong. (Nâmai, Mawâta). 



A. This version begins with telling how tbe wite of Kiba, a great Boigu man, was outraged 

 by two young men when Kiba was out spearing dugong (cf. no. 55 C). Once when sailing from 

 Bôigu to Bûdji, Kiba saw a dugong which had been made in the same way as in the previous ver- 

 sion. A certain „bushwoman" while catching crabs had hung up her baby in a basket in a tree, and 



N:o 1. 



