[Note: this transcription was produced by an automatic OCR engine]
5 90 MALE KULA .
men—tl1e tree burst, the men came out and mairried with women
of other clans.‘ Again the people of Benaur are descended iron‘-i
themikakal plant. There are two stories as to how it brought
forth men. One records that a man urinated on a nikakal, and
that thereby it conceived and gave birth to human beings. The
other tells how a woman, the daughter of an octopus, dug up a
nikakal and put it in the yam house and that while lying there it
exuded men and women. The people of Ranmap, Mbwilrnet, and
Uraau are descended from individuals who were engendered 1 by
the sacred stones which are in the sacred places of these villages.
The legend concerning Uraau, however, may be said to provide
this village with two totems for the sacred stone Neva! Namai
opened and out of it grew a nivinu mbon tree. 'Later this burst
asunder and out of it came men who married women of other
places, and so founded the Uraau clan. The origin myth of the
people of Mbwilmbar is rather unusual, for they claim as ancestors
a tomes mar vanl (“ Ghost of a great warrior "). He is supposed
to be able to fly about in the form of the small bird‘ called nim
dizngndangï¬Å and therefore this bird is also spoken of as having
procreated the people of this village and is respected accordingly.
It is the ghost of Mor Vaal who resides in the sacred place of this
group. Another interesting tomcmic myth is that which tells of
the association between the village of Loom and the bush turkey.
The bush turkey (nztzw malau) bore a son. When this boy was
grown up he cohabitcd with a. woman belonging to a coastal
village of Seniangi On hearing of this his mother the bush turkey
was alarmed, since she feared lest the woman's husband should
come and kill her son. But the latter reassured her, saying:
" No, the’ woman is not married." Then he and the woman
made zi ï¬Åre, whereupon the bush turkey cried out 1 “ Oh, I smell
something which is bad." Her son told her that it was only
the ï¬Åre which she smelled, but she replied : “ Well, I don't like
the smell of that ï¬Åre; I shall go and live somewhere else." So
she departed, but her son and his woman built a house around
the ï¬Åre. They obtained pigs and other necessaries, and settled
1 It is noteworthy that it is deï¬Ånitely stated that there were no women in
h' A B D
e I! US8.— . . .
1 The word used in Chi! context is one employed mi both mon Efld women.
and ziiei-ems the translation "engendered" seems preiarable to either ~ pm-
created " or " gave birth to "._,i. E. D.
' Nifldzlngtldaflg = Nivzl (Ii: minng, translated in pidgin as '- all same i.s
equivalent to Mor Va:-1l.—A. e, D.