Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/63

Rh not hers; then she looked up and saw her brother in the tree. She asked if it was really he, and assuring her of his identity, he explained how he got there, and implored her to persuade her husband to take him back to Badu, as his wife and piccaninny were crying because they thought he was dead, and the people would perform funeral ceremonies for him (“make him devil”) (2). She told him to wait where he was till the evening and she would then take him to her house; she went home and brought him good dugong meat and yams and a bamboo knife, upi, to cut the meat with. At night time Mĕtalăp brought Mutuk into her house, and sent a boy to her husband, who was away, to tell him to come home; he sent back word that he would not come unless told for what he was wanted; she replied through the boy that he must come, and then he returned.

On hearing the whole matter Piti decided that Mutuk could not be sent home then, but must wait a month; to enliven his term of exile three wives were given him, and his hair began to grow again.

At the expiration of the month the chief took Mutuk in a canoe full of Boigu men back to Badu. When the canoe was sighted by the Badu men they said, “It is a Badu canoe no,—it is from Mabuiag—no, it is from Badu.” On the canoe nearing shore they recognised Mutuk standing up, and were much astonished, as they thought him dead; at first they could scarcely believe it was he, but, when sure of his identity, they felt much chagrined at having held the funeral ceremony for a live man. They prepared to receive their guests by taking all the bows and arrows out of a house and by hiding a stone club under a mat near at hand, some one sitting upon it. The Boigu chief said that he and Mutuk would go to the village, but that all the rest of the men were to stay in the canoe. When these two were seated Mutuk’s wife identified her husband, and then both he and Piti were killed with the stone club, and the men in the canoe murdered (3).