v. COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE (no 194-216; et index) 



CHANCE MEETINGS OF BOYS AND GiRLS AND THEIR MARRIAGE 



(no. 194 — 202; ef. Index, Courtship). 



194. A long lime ago thei-e were many unniarried boys in Kiwai but no girls, and tliey 

 saw Ihe smoke rising över Düdi where a nuniber of girls li\'ed by themselves. One day the 

 boys said to their eldest „brother", „Oh, brother, v\'here me find road? Me see all lime smoke 

 along Düdi, me fellovv want go look." Then the eldjst boy decorated a trumpet shell vvith 

 leaves, making it look like a bird, and it became very large. The b03's all passed into it, and 

 in the night it llew with them över the water to Düdi where it perched in a riccre tree and 

 stai'ted to eat the fruit. In the morning the girls came out of their house and found that somef)ne 

 had eaten their fruit. Tliey discovered the bird and started to thröw pièces of wood at it to kill 

 it, but the bird flew away into the bush. The next night it came back and alighted in the same 

 tree, and one of the boys camc out, climbcd dovvn the tree and went into the girls' house. One 

 of the girls \yoke up and asked him, „Who man? Where you come?" „Yesterday you think 

 that pigeon (bird)," answered he, „I no pigeon, I man." She asked him whether he was alone, 

 and he lied and said that he was. Then he stayed with lier in the night. 



The next morning the bird flew away, leaving the bo\- behind. The girls got up and on 

 seeing him exclaimed, „Where he come that man?" „I no see that time he come," the one 

 girl replied. She was very afraid that the other girls should take the boy from ber. 



The bird i'eturned in the night, and another boy came tiown and was reecived by one 

 ol the girls exactly as his bmther had been the preeeding night. This went on night after night 

 till all the boys had found their way into tlie house where they met the girls and married them 

 (abbrev.). The boys remained in Düdi, and so did the bird whieh also was a trumpet shell. 

 (Månu, Ipisia). 



195. On one side of Boigu lived a very handsome man named Bdidam with his liltle 

 brother Avdti, and on the other side of the Island lived a number of girls. Bdidam used to hear 

 the drums of some people living on Daninikdva Island not far off, and ornamenting himself with 

 gay leaves he danced alone to the accompaniment of the sound. One day the girls on their way 

 home from fishing came lo Bdidam's abode and picked up the lea\es vvhich he had used when 

 dancing. They stuck them inside their grass-petticoats and went home to sleep, and from 

 Bdidam's „smell" they all became pregnant.^* Bdidam wantcd to go and see the people who 



Tom. XL VII. 



