Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/330

 3o8 Tlic Poetry of the Kiwai Papuans.

produced by these wailiiigs, weird and disconsolate past description, reminding one of' the moaning of the wind or the howhng of an animal in distress, and interrupted by the sobs and tears of the singers. Even quite a long time after a death some relative or friend of the dead man or woman may again begin to wail, if something reminds him of the departed person. It also happens, if a man has had a very narrow escape from death, that his mother or wife in her anxiety wails over him as over somebody dead, covering him with caresses.

The words of the death songs vary principally according to the relation in which the mourners stand to the deceased. On the whole these laments embody a very limited number of conventional thoughts and phrases which are repeated over and over again, and for many of the villagers the wailing is more or less a formal concern. But to some extent the mourners may give expression to their sorrow in words of their own, adapting the text and tune to each other. I give here a few short texts of mourning songs. A widow sings at the death of her husband, —

" Uraviue uraniu bomdoveario madi overe tirainue!'. (" Hus- band belong me, good fellow yarn he make all time, you me [he and I] sit down one place every time.")

A widower sings over his dead' wife, —

" Orobora (pronounced almost as rubra) oroborae bo?ti- dovearie madi ivodi bari gem gem oroborae bonigoveario." (" Good woman, good wife belong me, good nose [good looks] he got, all time sit down one place.")

A child laments over a father's death, —

" Baba 7iiriuiagarc rere baba dovearic madi overa abera dovearic." (" Good fellow father, that's why I sorry, good fellow yarn he make all time, you me one place all time.")

The different songs mentioned above represent the only kinds which I have found among the Kiwai people. As