Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/303

 The Religion of the Andaman Islanders, 263

the north-east. Before he went, he warned the people against doing certain things, saying that, if they were done, he would be very angry. He told them not to dig up yams, or cut barata {Carjota sobolifera) or chakaii {Etitada scandens), during the rains, and not to burn beeswax."

Here again we have the ancestors living at one place and Puluga living on a small island near by, to the north-east.

Here is the legend of the origin of fire given me by an old Kede man. "The ancestors had no fire. Bilika had fire. Lirtit (kingfisher) found out. He went one night, while Bilika was asleep, and stole fire. Bilika awoke and saw him. She threw a Ba shell at him, which cut off his wings and his tail. Lirtit dived into the water and swam with the fire to Bet-ra-kudu, and gave it to Tape (a bird). Tape gave fire to Alita (the bronze-winged dove, Chalco- phaps indica). Mita gave it to the others {i.e. to the other ancestors)."

Lirtit seems, by the loss of his wings and tail, to have become a man. The Ba shell which Bilika threw at him is the mother-of-pearl shell which the Andamanese women use for slicing yams and seeds, — their kitchen knife, in a word. The incident is an important one, as I shall point out. Otherwise the tale is essentially similar to the Puchikwar one already given.

The same Kede man gave me further information about Bilika. She had a husband named Porokul, and they lived together in Kede country at a place called Purum-at-chop. One day Porokul was hunting. He was returning with a pig he had killed, and came to the creek on the other side of which was his home. Laden as he was with the pig, he could not swim across the creek. Bilika was asleep, but her children were playing and saw their father on the other side of the creek. They ran and awakened their mother, and told her that their father could not get across the creek with the pig. Bilika went and lay down on the bank of the creek, and stretched out her leg so that it reached the