Page:Picturesque New Guinea.djvu/322

 tribes fighting, but often the Motu tribe being the stronger has helped the Koitapuan against their enemies, the Hulans, who come from Hood Point.

The Motu natives are the traders, theirs is the sea. Now it is interesting to go back to the origin of things. How interesting it would be to know to a certainty all origins. But we do know from out of a very distant past, so distant that all we have comes through cobwebs of many, very many generations, a kind of myth which many present day scholars accept before fact. Well, myth or whatever else, here it is. Away, far away, in those hoary ages, a canoe with several men on board went out fishing. They lowered their net and all dived; one, named Edae, near a large rock, in which there was a cave, and into which he looked, was seized by the spirit of the deep and kept, only his toes being left above water. His companions wondered what had become of him, and on looking around saw his toes, and at once tried to pull him up, but could not succeed. Letting go, he disappeared entirely, and they returned home disconsolate and crying all the way. When the sun was near its dipping hour, and the tide was low, they again returned and found Edae's whole foot above water, and had no difficulty in getting him on board, and laid him in the canoe, crying bitterly over him as dead until near the shore, when he opened his eyes, and told them what he saw, heard, and was told to do. It was a large cave in which a great spirit dwelt who caught him and kept him down, so that when they tried to pull him up by the feet the spirit just pulled him right in and told him not to fear, but to wait patiently and hear how the hungry north-west season might be got over—have a season of sacredness, then cut large trees, dig them out, and when finished lash them together, then get masts and sails, and when all is finished take all the pottery the wives and daughters have been making on board, and sail away to Eelema.

On his arrival at home he told the same tale to his wife, and at once he became sacred. His brother-in-law, Nohokinoboki, a Koitapuan, opposed his going and said, "Why leave? I have plenty of yams, some in the house for the North-West season, and some to plant, but Edae must go and get some sago?" He told his wife he should be