Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/196

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The interest in this story lies in the illustration it affords of a systematic exchange of commodities between two villages: one people exchanging a vegetable product for the turtle caught by the inhabitants of a more favourably situated village. We also see the death of a man for double perfidy by men of another village would not be avenged, as the punishment was just.

(i) Biiu is a slimy paste made from the buds of a species of mangrove; these are baked and steamed, then beaten between two stones, and the scraped-out pulp is ready for use. (2) Sections of bamboo, consisting of one or several segments, were commonly used as vessels for holding and carrying water or oil. (3) The wild fowl crow at daybreak, thus the one comes to be the common synonym of the other. (4) The only other account of a cairn being erected is in the case of Kwoiam. That for the latter—which, by the way, is still to be seen—was raised to his honour; in the case of Goba it was evidently raised to his dishonour.

This short story cost me a good deal of trouble, and there were several small details of Bia's wandering across the Straits that I could not make sense of. I gather that Bia was the introducer of the gapu, or sucker fish (Echeneis naucrates) as a means of catching turtle, and his journey possibly indicates that the Queenslanders learnt this art from the Papuans. This method of fishing is as follows: A gapu is caught, and a long fishing-line is fastened to and through its tail, the fish is further suspended in the water by means of a short string, which is passed through the mouth and out at the gills of the fish. When a turtle is sighted the latter cord is slipped, and away the gapu swims, dragging the long cord after it, till it finally adheres to the carapace of the turtle. One end of the long cord is fastened to the canoe in which the fisherman is; the latter ties a rope (uru) round his right arm, and dives into the water, using the gapu cord as a guiding line. As soon as he reaches the turtle he lies on its carapace, passing his arms below the fore-flippers from behind, and his legs below the hind-flippers from in front. The gapu has by this time shifted its position to the underside of the turtle. Both man and turtle are then drawn up quickly by the crew of the canoe; usually