Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/184

178 not there, but had probably stopped at Kulkwoi. Aukwŭm at once proceeded to Kulkwoi, and found the men playing at throwing the spear. On seeing Aukwŭm they were much alarmed, thinking she was a dorgai; she assured them as to her identity, and showed them Tiai's bones. They informed her that Tiai was not there, but they thought he might be at Zauma. She travelled northward to Zauma, where the men were also practising spear-throwing, but with the same result as before. Following her directions, she went on to Bokŭn, and thence to Tulo, the most northerly point of Badu. In both places the spear-throwers could give her no information.

From Tulö Aukwŭm walked over the sea (3) to Sipunga on Mabuiag, thence she walked along the beach to Bau (the present village), and lastly went to Dabonai, where the water-hole is on the northern side of the island. Her search was as bootless in Mabuiag as in Badu. She then walked across the sea to Dauan, but with no result; finally she arrived at Boigu.

The men at Boigu were playing at spear-throwing, and Aukwŭm stood watching them. When the old men looked round and saw her they called out and said she was a dorgai, but Aukwŭm maintained her humanity and made her usual inquiry. It so happened that Tiai was standing close by, and he looked at the bones slung round his mother's neck, and spoke to himself, "I think I am a spirit, and not a man, though I took myself to be one," but he said nothing, and kept on thinking. When all the men had retired to the men's quarters (kwod), Tiai, having fully considered the problem, said to them, "Well, old men, you must cut four wooden posts for a sara and carry them to a clear space, and not one of you must speak. When the wood is ready you must dig four holes and raise all four posts into them at the same time, then put sand round the base of the posts, and press in tightly, and mind all four are done at the same time. The sara posts are to be painted red round the middle and black above