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Today we remain in West Africa and take a tale from the Yoruba people. It is entitled:
AKITI THE HUNTER – A Yoruba tale from West Africa
A FAMOUS hunter and wrestler named Akiti boasted that he was stronger than any other man or animal. He had easily overcome a giant, a leopard, a lion, a wolf, and a boa-constrictor, and as nobody else opposed his claim, he called himself “the King of the forest.”
Wherever he went, he sang his triumphant wrestling-song, and everyone feared and respected him. But he had forgotten the Elephant, who is a very wise animal and knows many charms. One day the Elephant challenged him and declared that he had no right to call himself “King,” as the Elephant himself was the monarch of the forest and could not be defeated.
Akiti thereupon flung his spear at his enemy, but because of the Elephant’s charm, the weapon glanced off his hide and did him no harm. Akiti next tried his bow and poisoned arrows, and his hunting-knife, but still without effect.
However, the hunter also possessed a charm, and by using it, he changed himself into a lion and flew at the Elephant, but the Elephant flung him off. Next he became a serpent, but he could not succeed in crushing the Elephant to death.
At last he changed himself into a fly, and flew into the Elephant’s large flapping ear. He went right down inside until he came to the heart, and then he changed himself into a man again and cut up the heart with his hunting-knife. At last the Elephant fell dead, and Akiti stepped out of his body in triumph, for he was now without question “the King of the forest.”
——————
From Yoruba Legends
ISBN – 978-1-907256-33-2
URL: http://www.abelapublishing.com/cg_yor.html
NOTE: The Yoruba people are descendants from a variety of West African communities. They are united by Geography, History, Religion and most importantly their Language. Many years ago, before African slavery, the Yoruba people inhabited an area which stretched, along the coast of West Africa, all the way inward and down to Angola in South West Africa.
THE Ojibways were a great nation whom the fairies loved. Their land was the home of many spirits, and as long as they lived on the shores of the great lakes the woods in that country were full of fairies. Some of them dwelt in the moss at the roots or on the trunks of trees. Others hid beneath the mushrooms and toadstools. Some changed themselves into bright-winged butterflies or tinier insects with shining wings. This they did that they might be near the children they loved and play with them where they could see and be seen.
But there were also evil spirits in the land. These burrowed in the ground, gnawed at the roots of the loveliest flowers and destroyed them. They breathed upon the corn and blighted it. They listened whenever they heard men talking, and carried the news to those with whom it would make most mischief.
It is because of these wicked fairies that the Indian must be silent in the woods and must not whisper confidences in the camp unless he is sure the spirits are fast asleep under the white blanket of the snow.
The Ojibways looked well after the interests of the good spirits. They shielded the flowers and stepped carefully aside when moss or flower was in their path. They brushed no moss from the trees, and they never snared the sunbeams, for on them thousands of fairies came down from the sky. When the chase was over they sat in the doorways of their wigwams smoking, and as they watched the blue circles drift and fade into the darkness of the evening, they listened to the voices of the fairies and the insects’ hum and the thousand tiny noises that night always brings.
One night as they were listening they saw a bright light shining in the top of the tallest trees. It was a star brighter than all the others, and it seemed very near the earth. When they went close to the tree they found that it was really caught in the topmost branches.
The wise men of the tribe were summoned and for three nights they sat about the council fire, but they came to no conclusion about the beautiful star. At last one of the young warriors went to them and told them that the truth had come to him in a dream.
While asleep the west wind had lifted the curtains of his wigwam and the light of the star fell full upon him. Suddenly a beautiful maiden stood at his side. She smiled upon him, and as he gazed speechless she told him that her home was in the star and that in wandering over all the earth she had seen no land so fair as the land of the Ojibways. Its flowers, its sweet-voiced birds, its rivers, its beautiful lakes, the mountains clothed in green, these had charmed her, and she wished to be no more a wanderer. If they would welcome her she would make her home among them, and she asked them to choose a place in which she might dwell.
The council were greatly pleased; but they could not agree upon what was best to offer the Star Maiden, so they decided to ask her to choose for herself.
She searched first among the flowers of the prairie. There she found the fairies’ ring, where the little spirits danced on moonlight nights. “Here,” thought she, “I will rest.” But as she swung herself backwards and forwards on the stem of a lovely blossom, she heard a terrible noise and fled in great fear. A vast herd of buffaloes came and took possession of the fairies’ ring, where they rolled over one another, and bellowed so they could be heard far on the trail. No gentle star maiden could choose such a resting-place.
She next sought the mountain rose. It was cool and pleasant, the moss was soft to her dainty feet, and she could talk to the spirits she loved, whose homes were in the stars. But the mountain was steep, and huge rocks hid from her view the nation that she loved.
She was almost in despair, when one day as she looked down from the edge of the wild rose leaf she saw a white flower with a heart of gold shining on the waters of the lake below her. As she looked a canoe steered by the young warrior who had told her wishes to his people, shot past, and his strong, brown hand brushed the edge of the flower.
“That is the home for me,” she cried, and half-skipping, half-flying down the side of the mountain, she quickly made her way to the flower and hid herself in its bosom. There she could watch the stars as well as when she looked upward from the cup of the mountain rose; there she could talk to the star spirits, for they bathed in the clear lake; and best of all, there she could watch the people whom she loved, for their canoes were always upon the water.
From American Indian Fairy Tales
ISBN: 978-1-907256-15-8
URL: http://www.abelapublishing.com/cg_aift.html
Once upon a time, long, long ago, there were two brothers, the one rich and the other poor. When Christmas Eve came, the poor one had not a bite in the house, either of meat or bread; so he went to his brother, and begged him, in God’s name, to give him something for Christmas Day. It was by no means the first time that the brother had been forced to give something to him, and he was not better pleased at being asked now than he generally was.
“If you will do what I ask you, you shall have a whole ham,” said he. The poor one immediately thanked him, and promised this.
“Well, here is the ham, and now you must go straight to Dead Man’s Hall,” said the rich brother, throwing the ham to him.
“Well, I will do what I have promised,” said the other, and he took the ham and set off. He went on and on for the livelong day, and at nightfall he came to a place where there was a bright light.
“I have no doubt this is the place,” thought the man with the ham.
An old man with a long white beard was standing in the outhouse, chopping Yule logs.
“Good-evening,” said the man with the ham.
“Good-evening to you. Where are you going at this late hour?” said the man.
“I am going to Dead Man’s Hall, if only I am on the right track,” answered the poor man.
“Oh! yes, you are right enough, for it is here,” said the old man. “When you get inside they will all want to buy your ham, for they don’t get much meat to eat there; but you must not sell it unless you can get the hand-mill which stands behind the door for it. When you come out again I will teach you how to stop the hand-mill, which is useful for almost everything.”
So the man with the ham thanked the other for his good advice, and rapped at the door.
When he got in, everything happened just as the old man had said it would: all the people, great and small, came round him like ants on an ant-hill, and each tried to outbid the other for the ham.
“By rights my old woman and I ought to have it for our Christmas dinner, but, since you have set your hearts upon it, I must just give it up to you,” said the man. “But, if I sell it, I will have the hand-mill which is standing there behind the door.”
At first they would not hear to this, and haggled and bargained with the man, but he stuck to what he had said, and the people were forced to give him the hand-mill. When the man came out again into the yard, he asked the old wood-cutter how he was to stop the hand-mill, and when he had learned that, he thanked him and set off home with all the speed he could, but did not get there until after the clock had struck twelve on Christmas Eve.
“Where in the world have you been?” said the old woman. “Here I have sat waiting hour after hour, and have not even two sticks to lay across each other under the Christmas porridge-pot.”
“Oh! I could not come before; I had something of importance to see about, and a long way to go, too; but now you shall just see!” said the man, and then he set the hand-mill on the table, and bade it first grind light, then a table-cloth, and then meat, and beer, and everything else that was good for a Christmas Eve’s supper; and the mill ground all that he ordered. “Bless me!” said the old woman as one thing after another appeared; and she wanted to know where her husband had got the mill from, but he would not tell her that.
“Never mind where I got it; you can see that it is a good one, and the water that turns it will never freeze,” said the man. So he ground meat and drink, and all kinds of good things, to last all Christmas-tide, and on the third day he invited all his friends to come to a feast.
Now when the rich brother saw all that there was at the banquet and in the house, he was both vexed and angry, for he grudged everything his brother had. “On Christmas Eve he was so poor that he came to me and begged for a trifle, for God’s sake, and now he gives a feast as if he were both a count and a king!” thought he. “But, for heaven’s sake, tell me where you got your riches from,” said he to his brother.
“From behind the door,” said he who owned the mill, for he did not choose to satisfy his brother on that point; but later in the evening, when he had taken a drop too much, he could not refrain from telling how he had come by the hand-mill. “There you see what has brought me all my wealth!” said he, and brought out the mill, and made it grind first one thing and then another. When the brother saw that, he insisted on having the mill, and after a great deal of persuasion got it; but he had to give three hundred dollars for it, and the poor brother was to keep it till the haymaking was over, for he thought: “If I keep it as long as that, I can make it grind meat and drink that will last many a long year.” During that time you may imagine that the mill did not grow rusty, and when hay-harvest came the rich brother got it, but the other had taken good care not to teach him how to stop it. It was evening when the rich man got the mill home, and in the morning he bade the old woman go out and spread the hay after the mowers, and he would attend to the house himself that day, he said.
So, when dinner-time drew near, he set the mill on the kitchen-table, and said: “Grind herrings and milk pottage, and do it both quickly and well.”
So the mill began to grind herrings and milk pottage, and first all the dishes and tubs were filled, and then it came out all over the kitchen-floor. The man twisted and turned it, and did all he could to make the mill stop, but, howsoever he turned it and screwed it, the mill went on grinding, and in a short time the pottage rose so high that the man was like to be drowned. So he threw open the parlour door, but it was not long before the mill had ground the parlour full too, and it was with difficulty and danger that the man could go through the stream of pottage and get hold of the door-latch. When he got the door open, he did not stay long in the room, but ran out, and the herrings and pottage came after him, and it streamed out over both farm and field. Now the old woman, who was out spreading the hay, began to think dinner was long in coming, and said to the women and the mowers: “Though the master does not call us home, we may as well go. It may be that he finds he is not good at making pottage and I should do well to help him.” So they began to straggle homeward, but when they had got a little way up the hill they met the herrings and pottage and bread, all pouring forth and winding about one over the other, and the man himself in front of the flood. “Would to heaven that each of you had a hundred stomachs! Take care that you are not drowned in the pottage!” he cried as he went by them as if Mischief were at his heels, down to where his brother dwelt. Then he begged him, for God’s sake, to take the mill back again, and that in an instant, for, said he: “If it grind one hour more the whole district will be destroyed by herrings and pottage.” But the brother would not take it until the other paid him three hundred dollars, and that he was obliged to do. Now the poor brother had both the money and the mill again. So it was not long before he had a farmhouse much finer than that in which his brother lived, but the mill ground him so much money that he covered it with plates of gold; and the farmhouse lay close by the sea-shore, so it shone and glittered far out to sea. Everyone who sailed by there now had to be put in to visit the rich man in the gold farmhouse, and everyone wanted to see the wonderful mill, for the report of it spread far and wide, and there was no one who had not heard tell of it.
After a long, long time came also a skipper who wished to see the mill. He asked if it could make salt. “Yes, it could make salt,” said he who owned it, and when the skipper heard that, he wished with all his might and main to have the mill, let it cost what it might, for, he thought, if he had it, he would get off having to sail far away over the perilous sea for freights of salt. At first the man would not hear of parting with it, but the skipper begged and prayed, and at last the man sold it to him, and got many, many thousand dollars for it. When the skipper had got the mill on his back he did not stay there long, for he was so afraid that the man would change his mind, and he had no time to ask how he was to stop it grinding, but got on board his ship as fast as he could.
When he had gone a little way out to sea he took the mill on deck. “Grind salt, and grind both quickly and well,” said the skipper. So the mill began to grind salt, till it spouted out like water, and when the skipper had got the ship filled he wanted to stop the mill, but whichsoever way he turned it, and how muchsoever he tried, it went on grinding, and the heap of salt grew higher and higher, until at last the ship sank. There lies the mill at the bottom of the sea, and still, day by day, it grinds on; and that is why the sea is salt.
From The Blue Fairy Book
ISBN: 9781907256905
http://www.abelapublishing.com/cg_bfb.html
Today we journey to the American Sout West, to Arizona and the Hopi people. Our tale comes from the Mesas and is tale 26 in the book “Traditions of the Hopi” which contains 100 Hopi folk tales and legends. It is titled:
THE PÖ’OKONGS AND THE BÁLÖLÖOKONG (1)
Alíksai! In Mishóngnovi where now are the ruins, the people lived, and there lived a family consisting of a father, mother, a youth, and a maiden. One day at noon the latter went after water to Toríva. There was a great deal of water in the spring at that time. As she was dipping out the water it began to move and a Bálölöokong came out. He at once began to draw the maiden with strong inhalations towards him, embraced her, and disappeared with her into the water. Her mother was waiting for her to return, but she did not come. When she did not return the mother began to worry and said she would go and look for her. Following her tracks and not meeting her on the way, she went down to the spring. There she hunted for her tracks but only found them descending to the water. The jug was standing there, but the daughter could not be found, so she finally picked up the jug and the old blanket in which the jug had been carried and went home. “I have found the tracks,” she said to her husband, “but they simply lead to the edge of the water, and cannot find our child anywhere.” “Oh!” the father replied; so the father bestirred himself and made a ball and an arrow: to the latter he tied some blue-bird feathers. These he took to the house of Pöokónghoya and his younger brother Balö’ongahoya, who lived somewhat higher up, north of the village.
When he arrived at their house the two youths were romping about. “Be quiet,” their grandmother, Spider Woman, said, “be quiet, somebody has come here.” So they were quiet. “Sit down, sit down,” she said to the man, and then set some hurúshiki 2 before him, of which he ate. It was just a small ball, but as he ate from it it kept increasing again. When he was done she said to him, “Now why do you come? What is the matter?” “Yes,” he said, “yes, yesterday our daughter went after water and she did not return. Her foot tracks only lead to the edge of the stream, and now I came here, as you have a strong heart, and thought that may be you could do something for us.” Hereupon he handed two bows to the youths and an eagle nakwákwosi, which he had also prepared, to Spider Woman. They were all happy over these things. “Askwalí,” she said, “yes, these, my youths, know about it, for they have seen it. Bálölöokong dragged your daughter into the water, and to-morrow we will bestir ourselves and we shall go there. Now, you go back and invite your friends and you must also go to work making nakwákwosis.” Spider Woman also instructed him that they should then dress up the brother of the maiden.
So he went home, invited his friends, and they made many nakwákwosis which they placed into a handsome tray. Early the next morning Spider Woman and the two youths repaired to the village. When they had arrived there they dressed up the brother of the lost maiden, putting a kilt, sash, bunch of breath feathers, numerous strands of beads, and ear pendants on him. He took a ball in his right hand, and the taláwayi (a stick with two eagle feathers and a string of horse hair attached to it) in his left hand. The father took the tray with prayer-offerings, and the chief of the village also went along. Spider Woman told the young man not to be afraid. While the Pö’okong and his younger brother would sing at the spring he should dance, and if the Bálölöokong pitied them and would come out With his sister, he should not be afraid and he should not cry, but should grab his sister and then strike the Bálölöokong with the tonípi (a club with a stone attached to it), which the Pö’okongs had handed to him.
When they had arrived at the spring they stood there. “Now we are ready,” the young man said. Hereupon the Pö’okongs sing the following song:
Slowly: | Aha’naha vuyuna ha Aha’naha yuyuna ha Aha’naha yuyuna ha hahahaia |
|
Fast: | Ahainahai vuyuna ha Ahainahai vuyuna ha Ahainahai vuyuna ha hahahaina. |
(Words are all archaic) |
While they were singing the young man was shaking his ball and holding the taláwayi in his left arm, dancing at the edge of the spring to the time of the singing. All at once the water began to move and the Bálölöokong came out holding the maiden in his left arm. She was still nicely dressed, having her turquoise ear-pendants still in her ears. “My elder brother,” she said, to her brother, “take me. ”Yes, you go nearer now, and have a big heart, but do not cry,” Spider Woman urged him. So he approached the edge of the spring and reached for his sister. But as he did so he began to cry and immediately the Bálölöokong disappeared in the water with the maiden. “Oh!” they all said. “Now let us try it again,” Spider Woman suggested. “Let us try, it once more, but you must not be afraid; you must have a big heart; you must not cry. I did not tell you you must do this way, but have a big heart this time.” And now they were ready again.
As they were singing the same song that they had sung before, the young man again shaking his ball and dancing at the edge of the water, the water again began to move and the Bálölöokong once more came out, again holding the mána in his left arm. ”Now go nearer, close to the edge,” Spider Woman urged him, “do not be afraid now” So he danced slowly to the edge of the water and again his sister reached out her hands towards him and said: “My elder brother, take me.” So when he was still dancing he held out his hand, grasped the maiden and struck the Bálölöokong on the head with the club. Immediately the serpent released the maiden and only his skin was floating on the water like a sack. “Thanks the maiden said, “thanks! You were slow in taking me, you cried.” Hereupon he drew her out of the water. “Thanks!” Spider Woman said, “thanks that you were not too late.” Hereupon they put other clothes on the maiden and laid a pûhu of red feathers for her on the path. 3 The tray with all the nakwákwosis they threw into the spring for the maiden, because with this price they had purchased the mána back from the water serpent. And they threw the prayer-offerings into the spring that nothing further should befall the mána.
They then returned to the village, but it seems that Bálölöokong just left his skin and slipped back into the water when he was struck, because he is still there and is occasionally seen by women, and whoever sees him becomes sick. Only lately, the narrator continued, he was seen by a woman, Corn-Ear (Káö), but the women that have seen him say that he now is just small. One time he was also seen by a man. Sometimes those who see him get sick, because he is dangerous.
After they had returned to the village Spider Woman and the two Pö’okongs returned to their house. And so that way they were in time to save the mána.
Footnotes
1 Told by Sik’áhpiki (Shupaúlavi).
2 Prepared of corn-meal and water and sometimes formed into balls.
3 A pû’hu (road or path) consists of one or more small feathers–usually eagle feathers-to the stub end of which are fastened a single and a twisted string. These feathers are placed near springs, in front of shrines, altars, on paths and near graves, as paths for clouds, spirits, deities, etc., Whom the Hopi wish to follow the paths.
From “Traditions of the Hopi” collated and edited by H R Voth (1905)
ISBN 978-1-907256-39-4
URL http://www.abelapublishing.com/cg_toth.html
In the north, it is said, there were many first people. One house was full of people, and they went hunting. One man went off and did not return by night. Then next day his brother went to look for him. And he went off, going along the ridge; and in the morning, again he had not come back. Then again someone went to look for him; and he, not returning, they ceased (going off).
“I don’t know what is the trouble! I again (also) will go and look for him,” said one. And he, in the morning, after he had had his breakfast and made ready his bow, went off. And he did not return. “What can be the trouble?” said one. “Do you go and look for him, taking good care.” Then (another) went.
Again he did not come back. “They are trying to destroy us,” they said; and again one went to search, and did not return at night. Then, “You must be careful,” said his father. Again one went off, and did not return at night. The people were half gone.
“Do the best you can, live through it,” said he. “Whatever can be the trouble? I will go and see,” he said. “If I do not get back, do the best you can, ye people. What can be the trouble? While we are out hunting for food, for game, (someone) I don’t know who it is, sees us, and troubles us. What man can it be?” he said.
So he went off, and did not return. Another one went off afterwards, and he also did not return. Then the old man said, “I will go last. Do you go first,” said he. So the last and only one left alive went. And at night again he was not apparent. Then again the old man went. “Do ye stay,” said he. “Don’t let the child run about.” So (the latter) and his elder sister staid there. The old man did not come back. Then they two remained there alone. “You must remain without crawling outside,” said she. “What is it that is destroying us people? Do you know “Do not go out! You must play about close by here, not going far away,” said she. Then be replied, “Very well.”
Then she said, “Bring some wood!” and he went to bring it. By and by he brought some back. He carried a large piece, although he was small, he carried a large piece. She sent him again. “You must not carry a large piece! It might hurt you,” she said.
Then he went for wood. “Do not go far,” she said. But he went a little farther, and brought back a very large, very pitchy (log). “Didn’t I tell you not to carry (such a large one)?” said she. “You might hurt yourself in the chest. That is what I told you,” she said.
He had big eyes, they say; and, “Although (I am) small, I am going to see,” he thought. “What, I wonder, does this!” he said. “Look here, my sister! I want to go and look.”–“I have told you not to say such things,” she said. Next morning she sent him to get wood, and he went. He brought back a pitch stump, a whole one. Then, “I wonder how it is that carrying such loads . . .,” thought his sister. “Although he is indeed very small, (yet) he carries great loads,” she thought.
Next morning he went off. He went, going along the ridge, and came to a great flat place. And human bones were many there. Standing there, he looked all about. By and by a man approached. “What are you doing?” said he. “Nothing,” (the boy) replied. “Do you want to fight?” said he. “Yes,” said the boy. Thereupon they two wrestled, and the boy killed Lizard-Man.
Thereupon he returned, and arrived at the house. He bathed in warm water, and then spoke. “I am going off above,” said he. “You must remain, you must stay here. Rising from here, I shall go over up to the Above-Valley; and when I reach there, I will thunder,” said he. “I shall roar, and you shall hear me.”
Whereupon, having finished speaking to his sister, he started and went off. And a while after he had gone, it thundered. He was roaring, they say. He it was who was to be the Thunder-Man. His sister recognized him again. At that time he said, “I shall have my country there. You must remain here. Meanwhile I shall be continually travelling about in the Above-Valley.” So he spoke. That is all. “There are many squinting women gathering tules.” 1
Footnotes
1 This is a common way of ending a tale. The sentence has no application to the rest of the story.
From “Maidu Texts” – Maidu folklore and legends
The Maidu are an American Indian tribe who traditionally live in the central Sierra Nevada of California, to the north of Yosemite.
URL – http://www.abelapublishing.com/cg_mt.html
Today we head back to the west coast of the USA. But first a stopover in New Zealand, also known as the land of the long white cloud, or Aotearoa (ay-oh-tee-ah-roh-ah) in the Maori language.
Our tale today hails from Maori folklore and is titled “The Art of Netting Learned by Kahukura from the Fairies”. It translates into Maori as “Ko Te Korero Mo Nga Patupaiarehe”
ONCE upon a time, a man of the name of Kahukura wished to pay a visit to Rangiaowhia, a place lying far to the northward, near the country of the tribe called Te Rarawa. Whilst he lived at his own village, he was continually haunted by a desire to visit that place. At length he started on his journey, and reached Rangiaowhia, and as he was on his road, be passed a place where some people had been cleaning mackerel, and he saw the inside of the fish lying all about the sand on the sea-shore: surprised at this, he looked about at the marks, and said to himself: ‘Oh, this must have been done by some of the people of the district.’ But when he came to look a little more narrowly at the footmarks, he saw that the people who had been fishing had made them in the night-time, not that morning, nor in the day; and he said to himself: ‘These are no mortals who have been fishing here–spirits must have done this; had they been men, some of the reeds and grass which they sat on in their canoe would have been lying about.’ He felt quite sure from several circumstances, that spirits or fairies had been there; and after observing everything well, he returned to the house where he was stopping. He, however, held fast in his heart what he had seen, as something very striking to tell all his friends in every direction, and as likely to be the means of gaining knowledge which might enable him to find out something new.
So that night he returned to the place where he had observed all these things, and just as he reached the spot, back had come the fairies too, to haul their net for mackerel; and some of them were shouting out: ‘The net here! the net here!’ Then a canoe paddled off to fetch the other in which the net was laid, and as they dropped the net into the water, they began to cry out: ‘Drop the net in the sea at Rangiaowhia, and haul it at Mamaku.’ These words were sung out by the fairies, as an encouragement in their work and from the joy of their hearts at their sport in fishing.
As the fairies were dragging the net to the shore, Kahukura managed to mix amongst them, and hauled away at the rope; he happened to be a very fair man, so that his skin was almost as white as that of these fairies, and from that cause he was not observed by them. As the net came close in to the shore, the fairies began to cheer and shout: ‘Go out into the sea some of you, in front of the rocks, lest the nets should be entangled at Tawatawauia by Teweteweuia’, for that was the name of a rugged rock standing out from the sandy shore; the main body of the fairies kept hauling at the net, and Kahukura pulled away in the midst of them.
When the first fish reached the shore, thrown up in the ripple driven before the net as they hauled it in, the fairies had not yet remarked Kahukura, for he was almost as fair as they were. It was just at the very first peep of dawn that the fish were all landed, and the fairies ran hastily to pick them up from the sand, and to haul the net up on the beach. They did not act with their fish as men do, dividing them into separate loads for each, but everyone took up what fish he liked, and ran a twig through their gills, and as they strung the fish, they continued calling out: ‘Make haste, run here, all of you, and finish the work before the sun rises.’
Kahukura kept on stringing his fish with the rest of them. He had only a very short string, and, making a slip-knot at the end of it, when he had covered the string with fish, he lifted them up, but had hardly raised them from the ground when the slip-knot gave way from the weight of the fish, and off they fell; then some of the fairies ran good-naturedly to help him to string his fish again, and one of them tied the knot at the end of the string for him, but the fairy had hardly gone after knotting it, before Kahukura had unfastened it, and again tied a slip-knot at the end; then he began stringing his fish again, and when he had got a great many on, up he lifted them, and off they slipped as before. This trick he repeated several times, and delayed the fairies in their work by getting them to knot his string for him, and put his fish on it. At last full daylight broke, so that there was light enough to distinguish a man’s face, and the fairies saw that Kahukura was a man; then they dispersed in confusion, leaving their fish and their net, and abandoning their canoes, which were nothing but stems of the flax. In a moment the fairies started for their own abodes; in their hurry, as has just been said, they abandoned their net, which was made of rushes; and off the good people fled as fast as they could go. Now was first discovered the stitch for netting a net, for they left theirs with Kahukura, and it became a pattern for him. He thus taught his children to make nets, and by them the Maori race were made acquainted with that art, which they have now known from very remote times.
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From “Polynesian Mythology Ancient Traditional History Of The New Zealanders” (Maori Folklore and Legends) by Sir George Grey
ISBN: 978-1-907256-31-8
URL: http://www.abelapublishing.com/cg_pmath.html