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92 made at the back of the house, and set out for the bush. Then was her husband’s heart hot within him for anger that his wife should flout him thus, and he caught up many of the stones she had heaped in the doorway, and cast them at her. But she ran swiftly, and though he threw after her many stones, yet did none reach her. And she was soon hidden from his sight in the bush. There was she changed, and became a cassowary. The bristles under her arms became the quills which are under the wings of the cassowary, and which we use for ornaments in the day of battle. Her rough skirt was turned into feathers, and her legs, to which she had fastened the weeding sticks, were now as strong and to be feared as are the legs of the cassowary, which with one kick to the rear can slay a man. And she remained ever in the bush, and for her sake no woman to this day must eat of the flesh of the cassowary, else will their children have faces on which no man will love to look. And this is bare truth I tell thee and no idle tale.



was a time, so our fathers have told us, when no coconut grew throughout the land, and in those evil days men drank water to quench their thirst, and