Sunday, February 20, 2011

A Vanuatu Folk Tale

I heard this folk story on the Vanuatu National Cultural Center's radio show which airs I think on Wednesday nights on Radio Vanuatu. So it must have been the 8th of February. Anyway I thought it was kinda funny and would be good to share. It's abridged and paraphrased and also translated from Bislama. The story teller was a cultural center field worker working on Ambae Island.

And it goes a little something like this:

One day a man was hunting for birds deep in the woods a far walk from his village (Of course he was wearing Nambas the traditional dress of a large leaf wrapped around the penis and tied at the waste with a string). He was shooting down the birds with his sling shot and he caught lots and lots and filled up a big basket with all the birds he had caught and then started heading back to his village. Then a lesipsip (a jungle devil dwarf) came up behind him and said "hey can I have one of your birds to eat?"



img: A Vanuatu Devil, possibly to the lesipsip variety

So the man gave him one and the lesipsip took a minute to devoured it ravenously. The man started to walk off when the Lesipsip came up to him again asking again "hey can I have one of your birds to eat?".

But the man said "No I need to take these birds back to my village to feed my family."

"Well if you don't give me a bird to eat I will eat you, so can I have a bird to eat."

"Ok" the man said but he was scared now because he had made the devil angry so he threw the bird on the ground as he ran away. After the lesipsip had finished ravenously eating the bird he ran after the man. The man kept throwing birds down and running away for quite some time but he was getting tired and he wasn't losing the lesipsip.



img: Some more Vanuatu devils, maybe lesipsips, I don't know I've never seen one.

So the man tried climbing a white tree (certain type of tree found on the island that has lots of gooey sap under its bark). He climbed up high in the tree and the Lesipsip laughed and said "you think I can't climb up there and eat you?"

"Wait! if you just peel all the bark off the bottom of this tree I'll give you a bird to eat."

So the lesipsip tore all the bark off the tree and then said "hey can I have one of your birds to eat?"

The man gave him a bird to eat then he said "hey can I have one of your birds to eat?"

"No I just gave you one"

"Ok well I'm coming up there to eat you then"

But when the lesipsip tried to climb the tree his hands just slipped on all the sap from the tree. You'd think this would be the end of the story but no... The lesipsip went and sung out and called 9 friends to join him and they all piled one on top of the other until they could reach the man. At this point the lesipsips were angry and so they say "give me all your birds to eat or I will eat you!"

So the man had no choice but to give them the all the birds. He emptied his basket and the lesipsips ate ravenously.

When they were done they said "give us another bird to eat or we will eat you."

"But I've already given you all the birds, I don't have any more."

"Don't lie to us. We can see that you are hiding one. It's wrapped in a leaf we can see it"

When the man realized what they were talking about he stood up in the tree took off his nambas and peed all over the lesipsips. This caught the Lesipsips totally off guard and they all lost their balance and fell down dead. Releaved, the man got down out of the tree and quickly ran home.



img: This is the kind of outfit the man would have been wearing.