Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/73

Rh In the morning the men once more played and speared Upi; at noon they went into the bush, but in the afternoon they cast their javelins at the boy. Afterwards the foster-father went to have a look at Upi, who by this time had grown up into a big boy; the latter said, “You take rope off me, when you sleep I will go away.” The man did so, and when all the men slept the boy went.

Whilst running through the bush Upi came to a small house, and, entering it, found two corpses (merkai) inside. He took their skulls, washed them, and put ‘bushes’ on them, and placed them together on one side and spoke to them, saying, “All men spear me, you two give me good road” (3). They told him to go in a certain direction, where he would find a particular kind of bamboo (upi) growing. He was to go up to it and kick the base of the stem with his heel, and the bamboo would split, and he was to go inside the bamboo, and “by-and-bye upi sorry for you”. Upi replied, “All right, you two finish telling me? I go now”—‘him, he go.’ All happened as the skulls had foretold, and after entering the bamboo Upi came out again and made a fire close by.

The men at the village looked round the next morning, and, finding Upi had vanished, told his adopted parents that they suspected them of taking him away, to which they replied, “We no take him out, he did it himself.” The men took their bows and arrows and went into the bush to look for Upi. They tracked him by the blood-spots to the house where the dead bodies were; on going inside they saw that the skulls had been used for divining, and resuming their search for Upi, they ultimately found him.

Manalboa and Sasalkadzi said to Upi, “You see us, we kill you.” “All right,” replied Upi, “you two kill me.” All the men came close. Upi struck the bamboo, went inside, and it closed up. The cane then jumped about, and its leaves ‘fought’ all the men and killed them; no man went home. The boy Upi remained passive inside;