Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/195

Rh Next morning they started for Mer, and slept in the evening on the Kerget sandbank. The following morning they sailed for Mer with a fair wind.

One old woman stayed by herself at the village of Werbadu, on the west side of Mer. The other women sat on the seashore, and bewailed their men-folk, deeming them to be lost; and they cried over the things belonging to the men (8). The old woman went to root up the tubers of a kind of yam, known as kĕtai. She followed the root in the ground, but could not find the tuber. Right along the length of the island the marvellous root extended; right over the high hill of Zaumo, across to the opposite side of the island at Korkor. Being tired, she sat down under a big tree, on the beach she sat down. Then she espied the canoes, and she told the women that "Canoe come from deep water". So the women sang and went to get food and roasted yams. The first canoe landed on the sand-beach at Meuram. The men took a paddle, went to the bush by the beach, and thrust the paddle into the ground; returning to the beach, they picked up a long stone, and, taking out the paddle, put the stone in the hole and covered the stone with a mat. They waited for the next canoe, the men in which repeated the process (9). The crews of all the canoes did the same. The middle canoe carried the Babat, and the crew also erected a stone; finally, the friend of Mairuer hung up on to a tree the mat containing the Babat. Thenceforth the Meuram-le and Komet-le had the zogo in common.

Some Erub men were staying at Mer, and they asked that this zogo might be given to them. This was not done, but they were given instead two long coco-nuts, the "eyes" of which were painted red, to be their zogo (10).