The Follc-Tales of thf Kiivai Paptiaus. 307 



Iree, and leaving the basket on the ground, she climbed the tree to pick the fruit. In the tree was a 

 large hole, and there 11 ved two litiimu (spirits of people whose heads have been eut off, cf. no. 134), 

 a male and a female. They dragged the woman into the hole, killed and ate her. 



Her husband wondered where she had gone and asked everybody whether they had not seen 

 her. In vaiii the people called her by name. When it became dark they had to give up searching for 

 her but the next day they started again, tracking all the différent paths which she might have taken. They 

 carried their trumpet-shells with them and said, „Suppose you find him that woman, you sing out, 

 make tüture (sound the trumpet-shells). When they were tired they rested, cooked some food, ate, and 

 smoked, and then resumed their search. But in the evening the différent parties relurned without having 

 Seen anything of the missing woman. 



The litumu had thrown the woman's bones outside the tree. At length one of her baskets was 

 found, and the people eagerly foUowed up the ciue. Next her second basket was found, whereupon the 

 people came to the large tree, and found the third basket there. „That basket he no been All him up 

 yet," thought the people, ,he got truit there, he been go knock him down, I think." On the other 

 side of the tree they came across her bones. „That bone belong that woman," they said, „that no 

 bone belong pig, bone belong cassowary, no, that bone belong man." The people brought them home 

 and said to the woman's husband, „I find him bone, I think lUiintn been kaikai him." The leading 

 men seized their stone axes and other arms and went to the place. One of them climbed the tree. 

 „Oh, litumu he been catch him true," he said, ^/liiimn stop inside tree, stink he come up." The man 

 who had climbed up came down, and they started to feil the tree. At length it was hewn, and the 

 male i'itiimii came out and was killed. A man went to look into the hole, and there was the female 

 litumu. „Oh, you no kill me fellow," she wailed, „1 no litumu ('she gammoned,' said the narrator), 

 more better you catch me, keep me," but she too was killed, and the heads of the two litiimu were 

 eut off. The bodies were eut in pièces and burnt, and the bones of the woman were carried home 

 and buried. The people held a mourning feast. (Cf. no. 137; Biri, Ipisia). 



PARENTS WHO KILL THEIR CHILDREN 



(no. 233 — 254; cf. Index, The Family). 



253. The child of a certain man and woman in Waboda cried incessantly, preventing 

 the parents from sleeping night and day. „No man, no woman help me fellow carry tiiat picka- 

 ninny," the mother complained, „me tired, me all time carry that pickaninny." Then she put it 

 in a basket which she wrapped up in a mat, and placed it on a tree lying on the beach. It was 

 then low water, but after a while she saw how the rising tide carried the tree away. *^ Then 

 she returned to her husband, and he asked her, „Where pickaninny belong you?" He had to repeat 

 the question before she answered, „Me tired; me been throw him away, big water take him go." 

 „He all right," said the man. (Duäbo, Oromosapiia). 



254. A certain Ki'wai man had not received payment for his daughter whom he had 

 given in marriage to another man, and he was very angry. „You look out, two fellow, some 

 time I make givdri (sorcery)," said he. Shortly afterwards the girl was about to bear a child. 

 The father took a certain stone, shaped it to resemble the head of a man and painted it red, 

 black, and white. Then he buried it at the ladder of the house where his daughter lived, and 

 Said, „You man, you kill my girl. You ga inside, shut him road, no pickaninny come." On 

 N:o 1.- 



