Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/81

Rh the skulls, “plenty men come. When you are tired go inside the bu-shell.”

After breakfast four rows of men came, one for each village, and Sesere changed himself into a bird and pursued the same course as before. When two rows of men had fallen, Sesere grew tired and flew into the shell, creeping round and round until he reached the apex of the spire. The men began breaking the shell at the large end, and when they came to the extremity of the shell, Sesere in his bird-form was discovered. The latter, emerging from the shell, jumped away into the bush, and, still covered with the remnant of the shell, ran up a small hill as a human being, and said, “I am here,” and again became a bird. “All right,” shouted the men. “Your name is ‘Sesere’. Now you will always remain in the bush, and when you see men, you will always call out your own name.” For the moment regaining his own form, Sesere replied, “All your women from henceforth are ‘Kobebe’, and will live in the bush, and all your men are “Dri.”

The men and the women who had accompanied them went to Sesere’s house, took his dugong harpoon, stuck it in the ground, and it grew into a large tree, the dart similarly developed into another tree, and the rope flourished as a creeper. They said that in future these would not be found ready to hand, as in Sesere’s case, but men would have to hew the dugong harpoon out of the tree, cut and fashion their own darts, and plait their ropes from the long creepers. No sooner had they taken Sesere’s dugong-meat and burnt his house than the charm began to work. The women found themselves turned into birds, the men flew away screeching as cockatoos, and Sesere took flight as the black and white bird which, flitting from bush to bush, still may be heard chirruping out “Sesere, Sesere, Sesere.”