The l'o/k-TaUa of lltc Ktwai l'upiians. ,, ,, 245 



I see you. [ liUe jnu thaï tiine. Vou corne back, I corne after you." „Where you corne tVom?" 

 lie asked her, „^'ou coma other island?" „No, I other kind woman, I stop down below along 

 vvater. Vou no make plenty yarn, you corne sleep along me." „You me (\ve) go shore," Gaibiri 

 said, „you me sleep along house. I got two woman, you make him three. You sleep along 

 house, nobody savy, and daytime j'ou stovv away along bush." 



So they went on shore, and the ùboûbi woman and Gaibiri's two wives slept on the 

 same mat. At daybreak the ébonbi woman went to the hush, and after a while Gaibiri folUnved 

 her thither. He spent all his time with her, strongly attracted by her, for she was a „devil 

 (spirit) woman". After a time she became pregnant. Gaibiri's two other wives said to him, 

 „You got other woman, nice woman, more better you take that woman along house, and we 

 stop three woman belong you," and the ôboi'ibi woman was laken to liie house, where she 

 bore a boy. 



W'hen siie had recovered, she was shown Uj the people, and soine nien said to Gaibiii, 

 „That nice, good woman, Gaibiri, more better you let me hâve him that woman." The woman 

 heard what the men said, for .she was no ordinaiy being and could iiear anything a long way 

 off. She beckoned Gaibiri to her and said to him, „W'hat naine (what was it) you speak along 

 people? 1 no come for seil me, I come for you. No good you seil me along people." „No, I 

 no been talk ail same," Gaibiri said. „No," she persisted, „you no can stow away (conceal it), 

 I devil-woman." She was ashamed and thought to herself, „I go my place now." She wept 

 bitterly in the night, saying, „No good Gaibiri go seil nie along othci' man." When everyiiody 

 was asleep, the woman took her child and went into the water, returning to her owii place. 



If she had not been treated badly, she would ha\e stayed on with Gaibiri; „and you and 

 I," the narrator said, „would ha\e seen her and lier boy hère." „This is not an old story," he 

 went on, „when I was a small boy, I saw Gaibiri." (Amûra, Mawâta). 



159. A woman living at Bi'jigu bore a child after the death of her husband, and shortly 

 afterwards she died herself. The boy grew up entirely by himself. One day he tried to husk a 

 coconut with a shell, but could not do it, and although there was no one near he called 

 oui for fun, „Who come skin out my coconut.'"^* He amused himself by calling out like that 

 for a while, and then went to roast some sweet potatoes dug from a garden which his parents 

 had left him. 



In the morning he saw some dugong in the water. and although he was really afraid of 

 them, he pretended not to be and calIed out to them, „My mother, father he dead long time (long 

 ago). I no come catch you, I come catch small tish." And he went back. 



Inside a large tree there lived some girls called buhére-buhcre (cf. no. 133). The youngest 

 of them heard the boy's voice one day when he was trying to husk a coconut and called out, 

 „Who man come skin out my coconut? My mother, father he dead long time." When the boy 

 was away catching fish she came with ail her sisters into his house where they hid themselves. 

 After a while the boy returned, put down his basket, and began to roast sweet potatoes. He 

 took a coconut and as he tried to husk it cried out, „Man he no stop along ground, man he no 

 stop along tree (nobody is hère any where). Who skin out my coconut?-' The girls ail came 

 out of hiding and caught hold of the boy. The youngest of them said, „That man belong me, 

 N:o 1. 



