Folk Tales of Papua New Guinea continues with nine more tales of the Kiwai Papuans of the Fly River, British New Guinea (now the Western Province of Papua New Guinea). They were collected by Gunnar Landtman, who lived with the Kiwai from 1910 to 1912 and recorded the tales from named narrators, and published in his The Folk-Tales of the Kiwai Papuans (Helsingfors, 1917). They are read here in Landtman's English text, as printed — his period wording stands, including his word "pickaninny" in one tale's gloss — by Scratch.
Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices.
In The White Men and the Spirits of the Dead, told by Námai of Mawáta, the Kiwai explain where the white men's goods come from: not made by white hands at all, but brought by the spirits of the dead from Adíri. In The Resentment of a Dead Man Whose Grave Had Been Neglected, told by Námai of Mawáta, the people of Old Mawáta deck their canoes and tend the graves before the turtle ceremony — and one grave is forgotten. In A Reappearing Spirit Who Brought Dugong to Harpooners, told by Gaméa of Mawáta, the drowned Máiva comes back swimming like a turtle to the harpooners' platforms and drives the dugong to them — until the men forget the food that is his due. In Gabia Gored by a Pig, told by Gaméa of Mawáta, Gabia is gored by a pig and dies — "he proper dead," the narrator says — meets the earlier-dead Wäidubu among the dead, and comes back to life. In The Pig-Men in the Garden, told by Gaméa of Mawáta, two pigs in the garden rise up as men with pigs' heads, to the gardeners' fright. In The Spirits Clearing the Burying Ground, told by Sáibu of Mawáta, Sáibu sees the spirits clearing the burying ground in a dream, and his dead father takes him for dead as well. In The Spirit Who Promised an Arm-Shell, told by Marisi of Ipisia, six shining spirits come into the house where Marisi sleeps, his dead brother Sóido among them. In The Canoe of the Dead, told by Kóbo of Ipisia, a canoe like a great house comes in from the sea crewed by the dead. And in You Cry Too Much, told by Gaméa of Mawáta, a father's wailing for his two dead boys will not cease, until the boys' spirits come in his sleep: "Father, you cry too much."
A note on the tales as written. Two deaths are reported as the tales open, each in a clause — a woman's death from snakebite and a man's drowning in A Reappearing Spirit — and Gabia's goring takes a clause before he revives; none is dwelt on. The turtle ceremony's grave-tending in The Resentment is the tale's frame, told as the rite was practised; The Canoe of the Dead closes on a quarrel in which a beating is threatened and not carried out; and The Spirits Clearing the Burying Ground keeps Landtman's own transcriptions of the dream-songs, sung as he printed them.
Chapters
0:42 The White Men and the Spirits of the Dead
1:56 The Resentment of a Dead Man Whose Grave Had Been Neglected
5:48 A Reappearing Spirit Who Brought Dugong to Harpooners
11:35 Gabia Gored by a Pig
12:38 The Pig-Men in the Garden
13:41 The Spirits Clearing the Burying Ground
14:48 The Spirit Who Promised an Arm-Shell
15:32 The Canoe of the Dead
18:53 You Cry Too Much
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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