Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/180

174 number of Ergan men went to Goba's resting-place and hid themselves. When he was ready to start the women gave Goba his turtle, and he set out for home with his burden. Arriving halfway he sat down and feasted on the turtle and on the biiu which he had previously put on one side. The Ergan men stealthily came close to him, and having no weapons, they armed themselves with sticks and stones. Goba kept on eating, and, when gorged, fell asleep. Seizing this favourable opportunity, they attacked him. Goba called out, "You, no good you kill me," and he did not know how to fight. After explaining the reason for their conduct they killed him. Then they erected a cairn of sticks and stones over his corpse (4).

The Ergan men commissioned two young men to go to Wakaid to tell the people there all about it. The Wakaid men said, "Very good job you kill him."

Bia, a native of Badu, one day walked to leeward of his village to the mangrove swamp; there he made an earth oven, amai, and cooked himself two portions of mangrove biiu, which he put into a basket, and walked on till he came to a creek—"zeza." Finding a nice stretch of sand, he cut himself a small javelin of the hard dukun wood; when finished, he threw it vigorously with his kobai (throwing-stick), and it penetrated some distance into the ground. On pulling it up water gushed forth, and there is still a permanent water-hole at the spot (1). For sport Bia kept on throwing the spear, till at length he accidentally transfixed a man through the chest who was lying on the sand, and whom he had not observed. The wounded man, Itar of Gradz, a small island south of Badu, immediately ran into the bush, the blood streaming from him. Bia followed and caught him, and threw him into the sea, saying, "A hole in the rock is your house," and straightway Itar swam away as a small dogfish ("Itar"—