Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/64

58 All the dead men were then immediately transformed into flying foxes (“sapura” = Pteropus) (4), who wheeled round and round and flew away to the north.

As they passed over the island of Murtai a twig of a piner tree tumbled off one of the flying foxes, and subsequently took root and grew into a tree which is there now, for the Boigu men had previously ornamented themselves with bunches of leaves and small twigs of the piner (coral tree, Erythrina) and of the ubu tree (5).

As they flew over the island of Widul another piner twig fell down and took root; on the point of Auboit on Mabuiag an ubu twig fell, and a piner branch was dropped at Dabungai, in the same island, as witness the trees now growing. Once more the flying foxes sped northwards and wheeled above their native island of Boigu; the women, looking up, recognised them and wept, for they then knew their husbands had been murdered at Badu.

The flying foxes passed on to Daudai and came to a hollow zunga tree; all entered it except Mutuk and the chief, who sat on the top of the tree.

Shortly afterwards a man named Budzi, who possessed a large family of daughters, came along with a basket looking for crabs (gĭtŭla) and “iguana” (karum = monitor); as he was stooping to pick up a crab the flying foxes in the hollow tree looked out and laughed. In great surprise, he looked up, saying, “Who laughs?” and proceeded to catch another crab; again the flying foxes laughed, and Budzi once more looked up and said, “Who laughs?” This time he saw the flying foxes in the hole, and jumped up and caught all of them and put them in his basket. Then he sat down at the end of a log, and taking the flying foxes out of the basket, he bit off the head of Mutuk and threw the body on one side. Mutuk immediately resumed his proper form and, unknown to Budzi, sat down on the log beside him; all the rest were served in the same way until only two flying foxes remained. Budzi, thinking to himself, “I’ve got plenty kaiki now,” turned to look at his heap