|
|
|
|
|
[This story was adapted by Vili Hereniko from M. Titifanua and C.M. Churchward, 1995, Tales of a Lonely Island, Suva: Institute for Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific (pp. 15-23). Hereniko's version appears in his 1995 book, Woven Gods: Female Clowns and Power in Rotuma, Honolulu: University Press of Hawai'i (pp. 107-115).] Two sisters married two brothers who were fishermen. Their husbands told them never to cut down two banana plants near their homes, but did not explain that the plants were their grandparents. One day, while the brothers were away fishing, the two girls were overcome with hunger; they cut down the banana trees and helped themselves. As the two sisters sat down to eat, they wished out loud for some meat or fish to go with their bananas, only to be frightened out of their wits when a voice from under a rock said, "Yes! if only one could be given a torn pad of lepa leaves to eat!" The two sisters rushed back to their homes in fear, chased by their husbands' grandparents. The ghosts of the grandparents entered the elder sister's house and devoured her and her son, in retaliation for cutting the banana trees and for the elder sister's failure to deliver fish to them when she was supposed to. The younger sister, on the other hand, was spared because she had faithfully delivered fish to her husband's grandparent. When the two brothers returned from fishing, the husband of the elder sister was devoured by his grandparents. The younger sister and her husband fled instead to live somewhere else. As time went by, the husband of the younger woman went fishing again, only to have his canoe capsized by a huge fish. The fish ate the man but spared one of his knees which managed to make its way back to its owner's home. The wife, whose name was Sinetearoia, had by this time given birth to two children and had named them after her sister and her son, Rakitefurusia and 'Aeatos respectively. Sinetearoia turned around from her daily chores to find her husband's knee rolling on the floor next to her before it jumped into a mat. In her fear, she fled and left her two children behind. Finally she arrived at a place called Lulu, a favourite haunt for ghosts. There were ten ghosts, the first with one head, the second with two, and so on. As the ghosts were about to eat Sinetearoia, she begged them to spare her but to go and eat her two children whom she had left behind. The two children continued playing, not realising that their mother had fled, and that she had offered them to the 'atua of Lulu. A kind man who learnt about the impending disaster told the two children how to destroy the knee which was still inside the mat. To get rid of it, he told the children what to do. They carried the mat to the end of the cliff and uttered the words "Lift it, support it, hurl it!" before they threw it into the sea, thus getting rid of their father's 'atua. But the two children, with the help of a kind man, managed to scare all ten 'atua who arrived in turn to eat them. When each of the 'atua arrived and asked them what they were doing, they said, "We are weaving a net to catch the one-headed [then the two-headed, and so on] 'atua from Lulu." "If that is the case, all right!" replied the 'atua. "But you wait for me, and then you will get it!" But immediately the two children beat their drums, and rattled the sinkers of their net, and blew their conch-shells, and the two hens [which they had captured] cackled as loudly as ever they could. And as soon as the 'atua heard the noise of the children's things, he was scared out of his wits, and with a terrible whirr he flew back to Lulu. |
|
|
|