Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/78

72 went sniffing all over the house and round about outside, and it was not long before he discovered choice pieces of meat hanging up. When Sesere was not looking, as much of the latter as could be carried was surreptitiously hidden beneath the skin of the false dog, who then decamped, heedless of the whistling of Sesere and deaf to his reproaches for its deserting him.

That day Sesere made the neĕt in another place, and at night he harpooned four dugong, two males and two females. The Badu men employed the day in making another dog, and the following morning two dogs went to Sesere, who received them kindly and gave them meat. When they had eaten their fill they began to steal the best meat, and Sesere exclaimed, “Why you take it? It belongs to all of us; if you stop here it is your meat as well as mine”; but the dogs ran off with all they could carry.

The next day another dog was constructed, and Sesere re-erected his neĕt. That night five dugong were captured, and going ashore with his prey, he cut them up, and so busy was he that daylight surprised him at his task. Then the three dogs came to his house and were well treated by Sesere, who was repaid with the same treachery as before.

On the following occasion Sesere harpooned six dugong, and four dogs came to thieve. He now began to turn matters over in his mind, and soliloquised: “What name that [what is it], that a dog? I think he man. Dog sometime he come he steal, not all time.” Once more he took some scented leaves, and after washing the parental skulls he anointed them with fragrant herbs, and spoke to them, saying, “Please, father and mother, tell me whether they are dogs or men? If they are men, and you tell me to, I will kill them.” “Yes,” they replied, “Badu men inside, outside is coco-nut, the bones are wood. Suppose you like to kill them. Take your bow and five poisoned arrows (taiek kimus), and put them handy in a corner. When the dogs come to-morrow morning you give them a little food, not too much, or they will run away with it.” “Go away,”