The Folk-Talcs of I lie Kiwai Paptians. 323 



fij^hting each other with their bows and arrows and stone clubs, and the afiray did not end before 

 half of their number were killed. ^" The two rats ran into a hole in a tree, and one of them 

 peeped eut and addressed the people, saying, *" „My naine gage. AH time I humbug coconut 

 belong you fellow. AU rat follovv me two, I beginning now." 



The people buried their dead and attended to the wounded. Later on they left Gùruru 

 and settled at.Àdrepupu. After many fights with the Irupi people some of them went to Màsin- 

 gâra and others to Edami. (Some Mâsingâra men). 



A. This version is very like the previous one. The bush-fowl called out in the night, „Ke'ko 

 knàio pur >uic-niie-?iiie." After a fruitless attempt Nue managed to kill the bird and buried it as in the 

 first version. A coconut palm sprang up, and Dàgi planted nuts ail over the country. Dågi and the 

 dogs „died" tor a while on first eating the coconuts, and white he was in this State two e'tengena came 

 to him and taught him what coconuts were. In order to silence the dogs which were begging for 

 nuts Dâgi passed his arm-guard on to their muzzles, and since then dogs have lost the faculty of speech. 

 They could only ask for nuts by whining, „U-ti-u,'' and „/a," and from their cry coconuts are called 

 iii in the Mdsingära language. The coconuts were distributed among the différent totemic groups of 

 the people. Wée and Dobäsi were left without nuts and took revenge as in the first version. Dâgi 

 was informed of their treachery in a dream, and there was a fight, after which the two men ran away. 

 (Some Mdsingdra men). 



B. This version begins with the story of Ddgi, the man with the enormously long arm which 

 eventually was shortened by two women (cf. no. vi65), He married them, and the eider of them bore 

 him a son who was named Nüe. The boy shot the bird which cried out his name. He was visited 

 in a dream by a spirit in the shape of a coconut palm and told to bury the bird, which he did. 

 When Niie opened the flrst coconut, his dogs licked up the milk which ran on to the ground. He 

 gave a little of the kernel to an inferior dog by way of triai, but the good dogs came and snatched it 

 away and ate it, and at last he tasted a little himself Nüe distributed coconuts among the people, and 

 each group was on this occasion given a totem. Nue had killed the bird with an arrow made of ose- 

 wood (in Kiwai pdruu, the „te" palm of which flooring is made), which became his totem, and he 

 called his group of people ösingere. Some of the bird's blood had been spilled on the ground, and a 

 bush vi'ith red blossoms called oben (in Kiwai, mi'imu or köpo) grew up there, and it was made the 

 totem of another group called öbeu-löpe. The bird had been perching in a r//a-tree which was given as 

 totem to a third group of people called riiengere. In the act of falling the bird had been caught by a 

 thorn of a certain creeper called ddro, and one of its claws had fastened in the fruit of a tree called 

 liaiia or /eka (this fruit looks like a bird's claw), and for this reason the lidro and liaiia became the 

 totems of two other groups of people. The two men who were left without coconuts transformed 

 themselves into rats (gc'noho) and provided themselves with a pair of large front teeth in each jaw. 

 They ruined ail the coconuts, and in the ensuing flght the people killed many of their own side as in 

 the first version. Once a man managed to catch the tail and hind legs of one of the rats, but the skin 

 stripped off, and since then the tail and hind legs of the gnwho are white. The rats ran up into a 

 tree which the men began to eut down, and when it feil the animais leaped into another tree, and 

 thus the chase went on for a while, but the rats escaped. Before disappearing, the two men who were 

 rats spoke to their pursuers, saying that the fault was not theirs but that of the people who had refused 

 them any share in the coconuts. (Ndmai, Mawâta). 



N:o 1. 



