VIII. TALES OF AGRICULTURE (no 26I-271; et index) 



THE FIRST BULL-ROARER. 



261. An old Bôigu woman nained Méte was once cutting up an otôro tree into firewood. 

 Suddenly a large splinter whirled up into the air with a vvhizzing sound, „Bign-bigu-bigu,'' and 

 feil down close to the woman, one end sticking into the ground. The woman picked it up and 

 on her return home said to her husband, „That thing hère, I been hit him along firewood. That 

 pièce he been fly, he make noise all same drum, ' Buuu-bigu-bigu-bigu'. He corne down, close 

 up hit me." „You keep him," the man said, and he thought to himself, „By-and-by he come 

 speak along dream." At sunset the woman was made „lazj'", and soon she feil into a heavy 

 sleep. The splinter of wood came to her and said, „Mother, that me, that my name bôigu (or 

 bigu, for it called out its own name when whirling round). You go bush, eut him skin belong 

 one wood slvirivari, make him rope. You make hole along me close to nose, make fast rope. 

 That time you plant him umämu (yam), you spit him out medicine along garden. You make 

 medicine along woman belong you, rub me along kasävo (semen) and åe-gcidi (sécrétion from the 

 vulva), you sling me round. I make him that medicine fly all över garden, I make noise too, 

 bîgu, bigu. That me make altogether garden move, make him grow. What side wind, you go 

 stand up that side. That me proper thing for umämu, medicine"go all över garden, belong banana, 

 taro, sweet potato, too. You make (swing) me along nigori too (the turtle-breeding ceremony), 

 make him water lucky. You learn (teach) him people, you stow away along (from) woman, hy- 

 and-by no more kaikai." 



In the morning the man and woman let the people first go to their gardens whereupon 

 they followed them and hid in the bush. The woman told her husband her dream, and they 

 prepared the buU-roarer as she had been taught, and attached a string to it. The woman swung 

 it round first, and it produced such a sound that the man nearlj' ran away in terror. Next he 

 swung the buU-roarer, and the ground moved, and the noise resounded like thunder from one end 

 of the Island to the other. The Bôigu people could hear the noise and were so frightened that 

 some of them shrieked out and fulfilled their vvants involuntarily, for the buU-roarer was a stupen- 

 dous thing. „What name (what is) that noise?" the people shouted. „What place he come from? 

 from ground? from heaven?" 



The man summoned all the other men, but the woman, Méte included, and the children 

 were sent away to Kåwamiido. He donned all his ornaments and sat down in the middle and 



Tom. XLVll. 



