77««' Folk-Tales of lite Kiiuai Papuans. 325 



THE FIRST TARp. 



266. An unmarried woman named Opae vvho lived alone at Djibu one da\- ate some 

 swamp-fish, and as they contained certain „eggs" she became pregnant. After a time she bore a 

 boy vvithout knowing what it was. „Wiiat kind thing I born him?" she thought, „more better I 

 Icave him here." She did not knovv hovv children shoukl be carried and suckled, so she left the boy 

 and went to i\uru. '1'liere she savv some people and at once thought to herself, „Oh, bad thing 

 (that) I been chuck away that thing. All woman belong this place carry him that thing, give 

 him dino (breast), I got dmo too." And looking at the men who went about nude she thought, 

 „üh, that all same stick he hang down. That pickaninny belong me same stick he got. I think 

 that's boy I been born him." 



But the boy who had been abandoned by his mother did not die, although nobody looked 

 after him and he remained l>'ing on the ground. .A bird called giini used to fly every day 

 between Abdniu (near the Oriömu river and Àberemiiba) and a large swamp at the source of 

 the Binatüri river, and on seeing the baby, it thought, „Oh, something stop underneath, I think 

 that small boy. Poor fellow no got no bed." On returning from the swamp the bird carried in 

 its beak the leaf of a plant called sibara-kikopii which grows in the water, and dropped it on the 

 bo3', who roliing about on the ground lay down on the leaf. The next day the bird brought the boy 

 another leaf, both of which fastened to his arms and made them look like the two leaves of a taro- 

 plant. Another time the bird brought him the dry skin of the same plant, and it stuck to his 

 body and covered it entirel\'. Lastly it brought him a root of the plant which fastened lo his 

 head and fixing itself in the ground began to grow. The bird thought, „Oh, head he down along 

 ground now. On top twn hand (arms), two leg he stop, hand he got leaf, leg he got leaf." The 

 boy's eyes had become transformed into two tubers of the root, in the end a genuine laro-plant 

 was growing there. 



One moonlight night a Kiiru man, while hunting in the bush, came to the place where 

 the taro was growing, and on seeing the plant he thought, „What name (what is) that? I no 

 see him before what kind wood he grow, grass (the leaves) come up along ground. I think that 

 oge (in Mawata,, ånlii, a kind of wild taro)." But looking closer he said, „Oh, that no oge;' 

 and went away. 



One night the new plant appeared to the man in a dream and said, „Vou take me, I 

 (am) kaikai, that my name idje. That small thing alongside me (the tubers) you plant him." In 

 the morning the man went and puUed up one of the roots which he placed in his armguard with 

 the leaves standing up. He prepared gåiiioda which he dränk hy himself, and afterwards lay 

 down to sleep with the root lying close to him. The plant said to him again, „That thing you 

 been take him, that name idje-tnoinro, that pickaninny he come out from kije; 3'ou plant him. 

 Where you plant him you si'tsn (make water) on top. make him good along ground. Little bit 

 he grow, you sûsii again. Vou go take him out pickaninny, plant him again." And it went 

 through the names of the (supposed) différent kinds of taro, fifteen in all, and taught the man 

 what „medicines" to use when planting them. The man was told to rub his digging stick and 

 the fîrst taro to be planted with a mixture of swamp-water, urine, and beeswax. While the taro 

 was growing he was to prépare a „medicine" of water, urine, and burned feathers of a giiru 

 N:o 1. 



