Page:The Melanesians Studies in their Anthropology and Folklore.djvu/389

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Samuku. The Mini.
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2. The Story of Samuku. Bugotu, Ysabel Island.

Samuku lived in his village, and built his house, and worked, and good and many were his affairs; so he took a wife and married, and they two lived well, and agreed perfectly well together, and worked, and much was their food. And Samuku came home and asked for food, because he was hungry, and his wife had not prepared any food, and Samuku was angry with his wife, and scolded her greatly. And his wife said to him, I am tired of making food for you, your father and mother are dead, who is to make you food? Go and see them in Tuhilagi, says she. And Samuku was angry, and he sat and thought; and he said, Good, I will go and see them. So he hauled down a canoe and put out to sea to Tuhilagi, and landed at Lelegia tarunga, the Ghosts' Mangroves, and stepped up the beach and went in shore, and found the company of ghosts. And they asked him, Why have you come here? You are not dead yet, said they to him. And Samuku answered, My wife scolded me, and sent me here, said he. And at night he stayed in a house, and when it W 7 as morning the house disappeared. So he played them a trick and made a net, and they went to fish with it, and he saw the forms of the ghosts, and the net caught in the coral. And when it was light all the company of ghosts departed from him, and he went down and slept on the sand. And the people of a certain place found him and took hold of him, and took him to be with them till he died. Finished is the story of Samuku, not a very long one.

3. The Mim. Torres Islands.

They say that the Mini people dragged the yams from place to place, having brought them ashore at Hiw, and then dragged them to Tugua, for which reason the yams at Hiw and at Tugua are very large and long. But when they dragged them along here to Lo, all the people were down on the reefs fishing and heard nothing of it; nor