Page:The Melanesians Studies in their Anthropology and Folklore.djvu/390

368 did they know anything till they found the rind of the yams sticking to the roots of the trees along the path. These they picked up and planted; and on that account the Lo yams are not very large, but plentiful enough. Because the Mini people sliced their yams in half for the men of Hiw and of Tugua, and then passed on to Toga, and sliced again for them there, on which account the yams there are very large and long. Afterwards they crossed to Ureparapara, where the people sliced the yams in half and planted them. They did the same in all the islands that way; it was only at Lo that the people did not see and hear what was going on. The crowns of the yams remained and were planted somewhere. The Mini people went dragging the yams through all the islands, shouting and calling to the men of every place to come and slice the yams, and take their burden from them.

I have often heard them telling the story about it in this way. They say that in old times there was no fighting. But there was an old man whose name was Muesarava, who was blind and used to stay doing nothing in the house; and he heard a pigeon calling, and took a bow and broad-headed arrow and went under the tree; and the pigeon let drop a bit of the fruit it was eating, and that blind man shot at a venture into the tree, and hit the pigeon without seeing it. And he took it up, and went and put it into the oven together with the yams, and sat down and sang a song. But two young fellows came along and quietly opened that old man Muesarava's oven, and ate up his pigeon with some of his yams. Then they went to another place, and sang back a song to him; and he heard it, and went back to eat his pigeon, but found when he uncovered the oven that it was eaten up, and that something not good had been put in its place. Then he was exceeding angry, and plotted a fight against the people of the place whence the two young men had come who had