Page:Papuan Fairy Tales.djvu/154

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PAPUAN FAIRY TALES

wood, and lit a great fire. Then one who was strong and brave went into the potuma and brought out the pillow and cast it into the heart of the fire. The pillow writhed as though it were alive, and it groaned, "A-ge-ge-ge-ge-ge! A-ke-ke-ke-ke-ke!" until it was burned to ashes. And the ashes flew on the wind over the trees and over the hills to a mountain village, where sat the man from the hills who had thus taken vengeance for the ill done to his little son.

Now, if thou climbest the hills and comest to the village where dwells the hill man, sleep not in his village, else may thy pillow slay thee as it slew the three who died in the old days.


THE UNLUCKY MAN.

There were once two brothers, and they lived in peace until a woman caused strife between them. The elder brother married a wife, and soon after set out for the island of Iriwavo to buy a boar's tusk to hang round his neck, for so would he show that he was a chief. Now when he went he left his younger brother to care for his wife. But she was a wicked woman, and because her brother-in-law would not give her everything she wanted, she made a plan that she might punish him. Therefore when her husband came home she took him apart and told