Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/183

Rh she erected a light framework (noi) over the fire on which to dry and smoke the remainder. This done, she slept.

During the night "Wauwa's inside tell herself, 'Why she no give me fish—I sister?

At daybreak, after Tiai was suspended from the tree, Aukwŭm again went on the reef, and speared plenty of fish, and brought them home in a basket. On her return she cleaned the fish, and put most of them on the noi to dry; the remainder she boiled in the shell she used as a saucepan, and ate them; but did not give any to Wauwa.

Next day Aukwŭm once more started for the reef, and Wauwa, being "wild inside", took an arrow, and thrusting it through one of the eyes of Tiai, killed him. Meanwhile Aukwŭm was vainly looking for fish. At last she said, "It's a bad day for me, there's something wrong somewhere." When the tide turned she ran home, anxious to get back to Tiai, as she had left him for so long. "Ulloa," she exclaimed, on reaching home, "my boy is dead; I think Wauwa has killed him."

The mari, or spirit, of Tiai went to the island of Boigu, and having the appearance of a man, he stopped along with the grown-up men. When Tiai mari arrived, the Boigu men were playing with small spears, which they heaved with both hands, and they received him kindly.

Aukwŭm having prepared the bones of Tiai, hung them in front and behind her, and rubbed her body all over with mud (1). Leaving Boigu, she went to Dabu, a place where the channel between the islands of Moa and Badu was at its narrowest. On the opposite shore of Badu resided a man named Baigoa, who was possessed of more than human powers. Aukwŭm called out to him to ask him to help her to cross the strait between the two islands. At this spot it is a little over a mile wide, and she had no canoe. By his assistance she crossed the channel (2). Baigoa is still to be seen on the shore of Badu, but now he appears as a long rock close to deep water.

In reply to Aukwŭm's inquiries, Baigoa said Tiai was