Folk Tales of Papua New Guinea continues with five more tales of the Kiwai Papuans of the Fly River, in what is now the Western Province of Papua New Guinea. They were collected by Gunnar Landtman, who lived with the Kiwai people from 1910 to 1912 and recorded the tales from named Kiwai narrators, and published in his The Folk-Tales of the Kiwai Papuans (Helsingfors, 1917). They are read here in Landtman's own English text, lightly normalized, by Benedetto.
Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices.
In Bárberi and the Mosquitoes, told by Gibúma of Mawáta, the Másingára people, desperately troubled by mosquitoes, send their head-man Bárberi to find a place where they can sleep — and he tries shore after shore until he sits down at Másingára and hears silence. In The Origin of the People of Dudi, told by Námai of Mawáta, the Kátatai, Páráma, and Ubíri peoples begin as worms in the fruit of an ubúra-tree at Wíraro, until Sáisu brings them out into the open and teaches them the use of fire and how to make gardens. In The Beginning of Páráma Island and People, told by Gaméa of Mawáta, the Kíwai man Kóvinóro buries a stone-fish in a flooded sandbank and raises a whole island from it, and the people paddle over to name it Páráma and build their houses there; the tale closes with their first dugong hunt, told in a single summarising clause. In How the Mawáta and Gúrahi People Met, told by Námai of Mawáta, two peoples who had never seen each other meet — a heron is shot for its feathers, a feast pig is killed for the meal — and part as friends. And in The Mawáta People Move to Their Present Village, told by Gaméa of Mawáta, Gaméa plans a raid and is talked out of it by Kábai — and the move is made in peace, sealed with the exchange of friendship branches.
Chapters
0:26 Bárberi and the Mosquitoes
1:31 The Origin of the People of Dudi
2:13 The Beginning of Páráma Island and People
5:06 How the Mawáta and Gúrahi People Met
7:22 The Mawáta People Move to Their Present Village
From The Folk-Tales of the Kiwai Papuans (1917) by Gunnar Landtman — public domain. Music: gentle instrumental bed under the narration.
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