The Folk-Tales of lite Knvai Popiiaiis. 305 



you boy, me small girl, me no got no dmo (breast). No good j'ou send me go other man." 

 The woman went back crying. 



She met a certain man vvhose wife had died, and on seeing him she thought, „Oh, man 

 belong me he corne." She seized the bananas and coconuts which he was carrying, and on 

 being asked why she did so she replied, „I want you, that's vvhy I take him." „You no single 

 woman, you married finish," said he. „No, you single man, I single woman," said she, „that's 

 why I want you." She gave him sago and crabs, and they sat dov\n on the same place and ate. 



Her right husband returned from the bush, and on seeing the two he thought, „VVho 

 tliat man there?" The people remained silent, but his second wife said, „Oh, he (she) like 

 another man, that's why she take him. Two fellow kaiRai one place." But he only said, „Oh, he 

 good." He went up to the other man and said, „I no wild along \'ou fellow, I no want talk. 

 I got wife. Good you take him that woman." (Bi'ri, Ipisîa). 



THE MOTHER WHO TOOK HER SON'S FRUIT. 



t 



252. A certain woman in Dâru named Bibi was once roasting a kind of bad fruit named 

 bio. The children were balhing in the sea, and presentiy Bi'bi's little son found a beautiful dniulie 

 fruit in the water which he brought to his mother asking her to roast it for him. Then he went 

 back, and in his absence Bibi ate the fruit and finding a bad ämttlic on the beach roasted it for 

 him instead. After a while the boy returned and asked for his fruit. „Oh, pickaninny, that dtnulte 

 you bring him, he bad, no good," she said and showed him the bad fruit. The boy looked at 

 it and said, „No, that no àmulie I been bring him. I think that one you find him on sand-beach." 

 Whereupon he started to weep and could not be comforted but kept on crying tili late in the 

 night. The same night u-hen all the people slept. an old woman ^ named Wäsido sat up on her 

 verandah making an ätiara or sisa, a basket in which new-born children are kept. She saw a 

 hiivai-abcre (malignant female being, cf. no. 148) approaching who was all white. „What name (what 

 kind of a) thing that?" thought Wäsido, „I think some people been take (deck themselves with) 

 bushes, go make fool that boy he cry." The boy sat on the ladder of another house, and pre- 

 sentiy the hiivai-abére came up, seized him, and carried him away into the bush. There she knocked 

 his head against a tree and killed him, tore off the difterent parts of his body and swallowed 

 them, and finally she retired into a hole in a stone. 



In the morning the boy was missed. His niother asked everybody whether they had 

 not taken the boy to sleep with them, but none of them had. She sent word to the neighbouring 

 villages, but the boy had not been seen. At length Wäsido came out of her house and asked 

 the people what they were doing. „Oh, me look round that boy he been cry yesterday," was 

 the answer. Upon which she said, „I been look one hhvai-abére he take that boj' go along bush," 

 for now she realised that it had been a hiwai-abére. The young men all ran off in the direction 

 indicated and found the abode of the monster. -^U-u-ii!'' the hiwai-abére cried out. The young 

 men returned and said to the boy's father, „Oh, me been find him, hi-vai-abère been kaikai you 

 (your) pickaninny." The people armed themselves and went to the place, and as the back of 

 the hiwai-abére could be seen in a crevice they harpooned the monster, puUed it out, and killed 

 N:o 1. 39 



