Three tales from Sa'a and Mala, in the south-east Solomon Islands, told exactly as Walter G. Ivens printed them in 1927. Two sisters go for wooden ear plugs, and a broken shell armlet and an elder sister's angry words spoken in a parable send the younger travelling to find Apai dili tola raka — by way of the Fisher for Worms, who shuts her in his inner chamber until an old woman knocks the wall down and takes her out. Hute i Reuna Nga Pasi, Born by the Side of a Bow, is swallowed by the great Groper and cuts his way out by firelight, defies his mother's warnings to take the Pig at Talahanea, and shoots the man-eating Eagle that had destroyed the people. And U'o Saesae Madi, the Delectable Lizard, the wonder-child born running after his father, lifts the canoe-house pillars, walks out of the great Clam, kills the man-eating Pig at Paasi, and rides a rainbow home from the sky.
Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices.
Chapters:
02:01 The Two Puepuei Walo Toro
10:55 Hute i Reuna Nga Päsi, Born by the Side of a Bow
23:55 U'o Saesae Madi, the Delectable Lizard
Passage notes, exactly as told: in The Two Puepuei Walo Toro, a pig is caught and killed for the journey food in one line; the Fisher for Worms shuts the girl in his inner chamber and the old woman knocks the wall down and takes her out — confinement ends in rescue, no harm. In Hute i Reuna Nga Päsi, the father's death is worked by a boiled charm in a single clause before the tale proper begins; the boy is swallowed by the Groper and cuts his way out by firelight, a survival escape; he shoots the man-eating Eagle that had destroyed the people in one passage, and takes the Pig for food. In U'o Saesae Madi, the men try three times to be rid of the wonder-child and fail without hurting him; he kills the man-eating Pig in one clause; at the very end a burnt charm shrivels him and he dies, in one clause. 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: The War at Paasi (Sa'a) and Pelitataka and the Man-eater (Ulawa), which stand next after these tales in the book — excluded whole under this shelf's written register, and never narrated. This part tells three tales of Sa'a and Mala 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 Mala, public domain.
Narrated by Morgana. Music: opening and closing theme, "Blazing Fire", with the same theme as a short separator between stories; no music under the narration.
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