Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/329

 The Poet7'y of the Kiwai Papuans. 307

represent almost the only Kiwai songs which are not con- nected with a dance or ceremony. Thus utterances occasion- ally take the form of songs ; the personages of the tale sing instead of speak. Again, the characters when in distress sometimes express their emotion or fear in a song. This is the case in the following songs taken from folk-tales.

The Daru people, once defeated by the Masingara people, sing on their way back to Daru, —

" Eh, iviri kutaigo, ch, samdi kntaigo djodj'i viiraja, eh, djodji kntaigo." (" Oh, altogether my good brother, alto- gether poor people he dead now.")

" Iviri maivari uugiii'uda kazvariiiia sabn sabu sacbar ("That time me come, me plenty people, this time come short, no much people."')

In another tale a little girl, who has been separated from her brother and left alone in the bush, weeps and tries to tell him how he may find her —

" Vazuana, no nati ibodoro ?i(iiiiii arbipuai burn dinonioro ota uru valouonii.' (" Yawana, brother, you follow m.y track, I here alone empty country, I stop close to big tree.")

A man once climbed a coco-nut tree to steal the fruit, and the tree calls out in a wailing voice to its proper owner, a mythical being, —

" Man, mo scpate datnke, man ! " (" Mother, he pull my ear now ! ") by ear meaning bunch of nuts.

G. Death songs.

The laments over the dead constitute a particular kind of songs. Immediately a death has occurred the wail usual on such occasions is started by those present, and the loud, sorrowful sounds inform the whole village of what has hap- pened. In general several persons, men and women, wail together, but with a total lack of unison ; both tunes and words vary, and the same singer keeps on modifying his wail. It is difficult to give an idea of the strange impression