Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/74

68 the bamboo upi did it all. The bamboo stood up, the blood from the slain men ran down its leaves and dripped into a couple of melon-shells (alup = Cymbium) which were on the ground. The bamboo upi jumped up again, took the skin off all the men and put them in the place, and, cutting off their heads, deposited them close to the base ‘head’ of the bamboo upi. The leaves swept away the bodies of the men. To this day bamboos grow in clear spaces, with no bushes beneath them (4).

(I have something in my notes here about Upi getting outside the bamboo, and all the Dorgai coming and wanting to kill him, and a round house with a central post was mentioned, but this part is now illegible; round houses are characteristic of the Eastern tribe.)

The remaining men of the village went to look for Upi, and said to him, “You fight men belong to us?” “Yes,” he replied, “I been fight them fellow,” and he re-entered the bamboo, which jumped about and fought all the men, and the Dorgai too. ‘No one go home, all he dead.’ Upi still remained passive within the bamboo while the blood was again collected.

When Upi came out he returned to the skulls and told them what had happened, and asked them, “What you say, finish?” “All right,” they replied, “finish. You go and split all the upi, by-and-bye the women will come, you take them all, they belong to you.” When he had finished cutting up all the bamboos the women came, and he took them all and went home and told his foster-father, “You take all them women and put in your house, then you come on; we two go and look for my mother.”

They went to Upi’s mother’s house, and found that she was away in the bush making her garden, but they remained in the house, closed the entrance, and pretended to be asleep. When the mother returned she put down her basket outside and looked at the doorway and said, “Who shut my house?” She removed the obstruction and entered her house. Upi looked up and said, “You my