Page:The Melanesians Studies in their Anthropology and Folklore.djvu/392

370 tied it with the vine of a wild yam. And Tagaro was still in the forest when he heard the noise, and he came back and found where the vine had been broken off, and he was exceedingly angry. So he cut out a canoe for himself, and carried all the things of this world into it, and put out the fire, but threw back a fire-brand. All the good things, they say, he took clean away. This is the story about Tagaro.

They say that he made the sea, and that in old times the sea was quite small, like a common pool upon the beach, and that this pool was at the back of his house, and that there were fish in the pool, and that he had built a stone wall round it. And Tagaro was gone out to look at the various things he had made, and his wife was in the village, and his two children were at home, whom he had forbidden to go to the back of the house. So when he was gone the thought entered into the mind of those two, Why has our father forbidden us to go there? And they were shooting at lizards and rats; and after a while one said to the other, Let us go and see what that is he has bid us keep away from. So they went and saw the pool of salt-water with many fish crowding together in it. And one of the boys stood on the stones Tagaro had built up, and he sees the fish, and he shoots at one and hits it; and as he runs to catch hold of it he threw down a stone, and then the water ran out. And Tagaro heard the roaring of the water and ran to stop it; and the old woman laid herself down in the way of it, but nothing could be done; those two boys who had thrown down the stone took clubs like knives and prepared a passage for the sea, one on one side and the other on the other side of the place, and the sea followed as it flowed. And they think that the old woman turned into a stone, and lies now on the part of Maewo near Raga.