VIV. PEOPLE WITH GROTESQUE AND MONSTROUS BODIES 



(no. 365 — 313; cf. Index.) 



DAGI OF THE LONG ARM. 



365. At Sâsasâree, the old home of the Màsingâra people, there li\ed long ago a man 

 named D;igi. His left arm was of ordinary length, but the right one was enormously long, as long 

 as the distance from Mawåta to Dàru Island. Dâgi alvvays rem.ained in his house, but at night 

 he stretched out his long arm which crawled along the ground like a snake. and in this way he 

 stole food from other people's gardens. On finding a fruit tree the hand crept up to the top, 

 groping round for the fruit, and if therc was none, it came down and climbed another tree. At 

 length the hand returned home with its tind. Dägi lived in a house on the ground (not built on 

 piles) and slept inside a large drum, which the narrator had seen oncc before. Dagi's hair grew 

 all over his face and body, so he looked like a cassowary or pig. Ever\^ night before going to 

 sleep he called out, „Hddrilbi pAra ino Dagi no. — No man he stop (is nobody here)? Me Ddgi 

 here."55 He killed pigs and other spoil b\' winding his arm round them and crushing their bones, 

 and watei- and firewood too were brought home by the hand. D.igi broke down dead trees for 

 lirewood, but on finding a leafy tree he left it to .stand. 



At some distance from Dâgi lived two women, and he .stole from their gardens. His 

 finger-nails were like hooks, and in one go he brought home a kangaroo with the little finger 

 nail, a cassowary with the ring finger nail, a pig with the middle finger nail, .some fruit with the 

 index nail, and some other garden produce with the thumb nail. 



The two women noticed that someone had plundered their garden, but they thought that 

 some flying foxes or other animais were responsible. Dägi cooked his stolen food in the evening 

 and uttered his usual cry, but nobody heard him. „To-morrow I go bush," he then called out, 

 „another man gn kill kangaroo, another man gci kill cassowary, another man go kill pig, another 

 man go take fruit, another man go look out garden," — he meant his fingers. In the night he 

 sent out his hand, and it reached the two houses in which the two women lived. Feeling its 

 way about, the hand tapped at the walls of the two huts, but the women were asleep and heard 

 nothing. The hand passed into the house of the eider sister and stole a bunch of bananas and 

 a bowl of niäbusi which is a mixture of ma.shed taro, fish, and coconut milk, which the woman 

 had prepaied foi' her pig. Dägi brought home the stolen food, and eating the iiiähitsi he thought, 

 „Oh, good thing that, sweet; I think man he been make iiim. 1 lea\e him pig, kangaroo; every 



N:o 1. 



