Six tales from Sa'a and Ulawa, in the south-east Solomon Islands, told exactly as Walter G. Ivens printed them in 1927. His Lordship the Eagle gives a feast, and the Crested Hawk who plaited a red cane anclet on Lady Swamp Hen pays for his presumption. A hibiscus flower plays a trick on a fire stick at the pool. A worm silences a rat with wise words. A younger brother wins a wife from the Lady with watery eyes, while his elder brother, who would do none of her bidding, fares otherwise. A bride-viewing party sails from landing to landing in five hired canoes, finding fault at every beach, until the mate of Lord-fall-at-sea is found at home. And Takere Toro, disguised as an old woman, asks for water at every village in the land.
Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices.
Chapters:
01:43 The Feast of His Lordship the Eagle
06:24 The Hibiscus Flower and the Fire
08:02 The Rat and the Worm
09:08 Procuring a Wife
14:20 Marriage Negotiations
29:11 The Story of Takere Toro
Passage notes, exactly as told: in The Feast of His Lordship the Eagle, the Crested Hawk is caught, struck and tied for his presumption, then loosed by the Swallow unharmed — a brief chastisement inside an animal tale. In Procuring a Wife, the elder brother moves to throw the old woman into the sea and does not: her words stop him, and she stays aboard as his housekeeper — the throw is threatened only, never enacted. In Marriage Negotiations, at the close the feast pigs are killed and roasted in a single line. After the first tale and its music you will hear this episode's short spoken break, placed there by design.
Left out of this part, by name: Bang the Paddle (Ulawa), which stands between The Rat and the Worm and Procuring a Wife in the book — excluded whole under this shelf's written register, and never narrated. This part tells six tales of Sa'a and Ulawa from Ivens's folklore chapter, and the shelf claims no completeness that its exclusions contradict.
Source: Walter G. Ivens, Melanesians of the South-East Solomon Islands (London: K. Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., 1927) — stories of Sa'a and Ulawa, public domain.
Narrated by Mira. Music: opening and closing theme, "Bandoneo Street Romance", with the same theme as a short separator between stories; no music under the narration.
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