Folk Tales of New Caledonia — Part 1: Idara · The Legend of the Cyclones · The Genie Ondoue · The Young Girls of Owie · The House of War · The Bed of the Ancestors · Guardian of the Cemetery · The Kouindio · Night Tales
Part One opens a new shelf: Kanak legends and tales as collected by Louise Michel (Paris, 1885), gathered from Kanak tellers in New Caledonia and heard here in fresh English renderings — an ancient healer's song of the white men's coming, a mother who shelters her sons through the great cyclone flood, a seer who trades her breath to a genie for power, and girls singing the fishing song above the canoes.
Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices.
In this part:
- Idara (the Heather) — Idara, healer and teller of the oldest cycle, sings the song of the white men: how the tribes received them as brothers, and what was taken.
- The Legend of the Cyclones — when the mountains split and the sea and sky merge, Paila bends over her sons like a cave, and will not watch them die.
- The Genie Ondoue — Keidee the seer refuses every suitor and learns the genie's price: power now, and the breath taken in exchange.
- The Young Girls of Owie — white feathers in the sun above the fishing canoes; the girls of Owie would rather hear the waves thunder than see the blood of friends.
- The House of War — a young chief plots a war for sport, and the old men shut him inside the little war hut until the wind teaches him.
- The Bed of the Ancestors — on the mountain of the dead, Thei, whose name means to weep, sings to the sleeping fathers and refuses every offer of the valley.
- The Guardian of the Cemetery — old Nechewa keeps the spark of life among those who sleep under the earth and in the branches.
- The Kouindio (The Reef) — the reef that stands higher than the chief's houses at low tide, and sings in the evening of an old man and of Moiek the flower.
- Night Tales — under the coconut palms, half in a dream, the storyteller explains why no one whistles beneath the rocks: it is not the whistling that draws the mountain down; it is happiness.
The tales:
02:10 — Idara (the Heather)
06:43 — The Legend of the Cyclones
11:45 — The Genie Ondoue
14:38 — The Young Girls of Owie
16:51 — The House of War
21:03 — The Bed of the Ancestors
25:17 — The Guardian of the Cemetery
27:28 — The Kouindio (The Reef)
30:47 — Night Tales
Source and rights: Kanak legends and tales as collected by Louise Michel in Legendes et chants de gestes canaques (Paris, 1885), in fresh in-house English translation from the French for this performance. Michel died in 1905; the book and its maker are in the public domain. Screened for this part and not read: The First Ouainth (meal) of human flesh, set aside by class, as were The War as told by the Kanak of Noumea, The Daughters of the Chief of Belep, The Breaths, and Medieval Customs in Caledonia, each read in full and set aside under this shelf's content screen. Passed and held for Part 2: The Rat and the Octopus, collected by Charles Malato (1857–1938, death year re-proved from authority records at this build), the tale of the takata Bohendiou, and Michel's essays The Cyclone and Kanak Music and Dance. No completeness for Kanak folklore is claimed; this is Michel's collection, billed as her book presents it.
Narrated by Silas.
Music: Blazing Fire — opening and closing theme, with a short instrumental separator between stories, and no music under the narration.
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