Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/328

 3o6 The Poetry of the Khvai Papuans.

narrative. In many cases it was a fragment of a serial song referring to some particular incident in the tale, and sung by way of parallel to that episode. In other cases the song really formed part of a tale.

Some songs are said to have belonged originally to a folk-tale, but to have been afterwards adopted into some ceremony. Of this the following songs give an instance. In Mabuiag island in Torres Straits there lived a blood- thirsty warrior, Kuiamo or Kwoiam,^ who is well known among the Mawata tribe also, and when he has speared his mother and after her many other Mabuiag people the legend makes him sing : —

" Keda baiia keda baua figai Kniajiio ada Kuiaino." (" All same big sea I come now, I Kuiamo, fine man Kuiamo.")

Returning to Mabuiag after having fought many people in New Guinea, he sings in his canoe —

" Kupari inanu keke koibaruke Kuiamo^ (" I been kill man, I been clean him out all place, my name Kuiamo.")

And celebrating his victories with a dance, he sings —

" EJi, kiiti bii waimee, eh, knti bu ivaimee!' (" I sing out along trumpet shell [a signal of victory], I take head every time.")

" Ngai Kuiamo koibu gaj'ka." (" I Kuiamo, I been kill all people.")

All these songs from the legend of Kuiamo are sung by the people at the pipi dance which is held after a successful fight.

A rather similar instance is afforded by a song which the people sing when they plant bananas. According to a legend it was originally sung by the first man who found and planted a banana-tree, and that is why it is still thought to promote the growth of bananas, although the text has no direct reference to the planting.

The songs which belong exclusively to some folk-tales

^ Cf. Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits, vol. v., p. 67.