Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/182

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176
Legends from Torres Straits.

into a hillock, and explained fully his method of setting yams; but the men forgot everything on their way home. On their return they wereasked, "You fellow got him?" (i.e., "Know how to do it"). "No," they replied, "we forget again."

In the following year a third party was sent, consisting this time of six men. Yawar said to them, "How many times am I to teach you?" and again he carefully instructed them. The men forgot all the information as they were travelling homewards.

Lastly, all the Madub men set out for Gizö, each carrying his throwing-stick suspended from the collar-bone by its hook. Yawar did not notice them; they came like spirits. On their arrival they hooked Yawar, and dragged him along the ground, he crying out, "Very good, you leave me now, I got woman and children, no kill me." First they took him to Moa, where they informed him they would transport him to Mer, and Yawar said, "No good you kill me, I got woman and children. I learn you good to make garden, and you forget; no fault along me." But the men paid no heed to him, and dragged him along the ground, and took him in a canoe to Mer. On their arrival at Mer they dragged him, raw and bleeding, up the steep, smooth side of the hill Gelam.


xin. How Tiai Inaugurated Funeral Ceremonies.

(As told by Kirer of Badu.)

On a small sand-beach named Boigu, amongst the mangrove swamps on the western side of Moa, lived a married woman named Aukwŭm, and Wauwa, her unmarried sister.

One day Aukwŭm put her baby boy, Tiai, into a basket and hung him up on a tree outside her house whilst she went to spear fish, it then being low tide. She found a pool on the reef full of big fish, so she soon filled up her basket and returned home. After cooking and eating some fish