Oceanic Mythology: Part III. Indonesia: Chapter III. Miscellaneous Tales
IN Melanesia, and perhaps also in New Zealand, one of the themes found to be characteristically developed was that of the swan-maiden, i. e. the descent of a heavenly maiden to earth and her capture and marriage by an earthly hero, and since tales embodying this motif are numerous in Indonesia, a consideration of the remainder of the mythology of this region may well begin with examples of this type. The Toradja in central Celebes say that once a woman gave birth to seven crabs which, in terror and disgust, she threw into the river. The crabs gained the bank, however, and there fixed seven places for bathing and built a house; but when they entered the water, they put off their crab disguise and assumed their human form. One day, when they were disporting themselves in the river and had left their crab garments on the shore, seven men crept up and stole their clothing, thus making it impossible for the maidens to resume their animal guise; and each of the men then took one of the maidens as his wife. 1 Another tale from the same tribe shows a more typical form of the story. According to this, seven parakeets one day flew down to bathe, doffing their bird garments and laying them on a bench while they made merry in the water as beautiful maidens. Magoenggoelota crept up and stole the garment of the youngest, who, realizing that something was wrong, called to her sisters, "Whew! I smell human flesh," at which the others were vexed and said, "Oh, how could any mortal come here? You are joking." Soon they all went out to resume their garments, but though the older sisters found theirs and donned A version from Halmahera 3 shows a further development. A man once had seven sons. Attacked by a mysterious illness, he gradually turned to stone, and the sons, wishing to seek for medicine with which to cure him, determined at once to set out in search of it. The youngest son, however, being very ugly and covered with sores, was left behind; but he, resolving to do what he could, started off alone in another direction and came to the house of an old woman, who took pity on him, cured his sores, clothed him, and listened to the story of his quest. When she had heard his tale, she told him to hide among the bushes near a pool of water which was close by, and he had not been there long before five maidens came to bathe. They took off their garments and laid them on the bushes under which he was concealed; and while they were bathing, he stole the clothes of the youngest. The others, when they came out, put on their winged garments and flew away, but the youngest, unable to escape, begged in vain that In these and other versions 6 we may trace many variations of the theme, from the simple forms like the first, which seem to rest on the wide-spread belief which prevails throughout the region, of human beings in animal guise who can put off their animal shape and resume that of man; to those like the latter, where it assumes the type common in Indian and European mythology. It would seem that we have here, as in the case of the trickster tales, one group whose direct Indian origin is unmistakable and which has spread widely wherever Many of the stories in Indonesia are based upon the theme of the animal disguise, or "Beauty and the Beast," the following being typical of this class. 9 Once there was an old woman who lived alone in the jungle and had a lizard which she brought up as her child. When he was full grown, he said to her, "Grandmother, go to the house of Lise, where there are seven sisters; and ask for the eldest of these for me as a wife." The old woman did as the lizard requested, and taking the bridal gifts with her, went off; but when she came near the house, Lise saw her and said, "Look, there comes Lizard's grandmother with a bridal present. Who would want to marry a lizard! Not I." The old woman arrived at the foot of the ladder, ascended it, and sat down in Lise's house, whereupon the eldest sister gave her betel, and when her mouth was red from chewing it, asked, "What have you come for, Grandmother? Why do you come to us?" "Well, Granddaughter, I have come for this: to present a bridal gift; perhaps it will be accepted, perhaps not. That is what I have come to see." As soon as she had spoken, the eldest indicated her refusal by getting up and giving the old woman a blow that knocked her across to the door, following this with another that rolled her down the ladder. The old woman picked herself up and went home; and when she had reached her house, the lizard inquired, "How did your visit succeed?" She replied, "O! alas! I was afraid and almost killed. The gift was not accepted, the eldest would not accept it; it seems she has no use for you because you are only a lizard." "Do not be disturbed," said he, "go tomorrow and
The next day Lizard and his wife went once more to their clearing and saw that the house had already been built for them by the coco-nut-shells, which had turned into slaves; whereupon the lizard said, "Good, tomorrow evening we will hold the preliminary planting festival, and the next day a planting feast." Ordering his seven slaves to prepare much food for the occasion, he said to his wife, "Let us go to the river and get ready," but on arriving at the stream, they bathed far apart, and the lizard, taking off his animal disguise, became a very handsome man dressed in magnificent garments. When he came for his wife, she at first did not recognize him, but at last was convinced; and after she had been given costly new clothes and ornaments, they returned toward Lise's house. As they came back, the preliminary planting festival had begun, and many people were gathered, including Kapapitoe's elder sisters, Lise, and the old woman. The six sisters said, "Tell us, Grandmother, who is that coming? She looks so handsome, and her sarong rustles as if rain were falling. The hem of her sarong goes up and down every moment as it touches her ankles." The old woman replied, "That is your youngest sister, and there comes her husband also," whereupon, overcome with jealousy, the six sisters ran to meet their handsome brother-in-law and vied with each other for the privilege of carrying his betel-sack, saying, "I want to hold the sirih-sack of my brother-in-law." He, however, went and sat down, and the six went to sit beside him to take him away from their youngest sister, but the lizard would have none of them. A tale wide-spread in the Archipelago, and interesting because of its further extension elsewhere, introduces the theme of the descent to the underworld, though not as in the Polynesian examples of the Orpheus type. As told by the Galela, 12 it runs as follows. Once upon a time there was a man who was accustomed to keep watch in his garden to prevent its being plundered by wild pigs. One night a pig appeared at which the man threw his spear; but the creature was only wounded and ran away with the missile sticking in its back. Next day the man followed the trail of the stricken animal and after a long chase found that the tracks led to a deep cleft in the rocks, which conducted him down into the earth, so that at last he came out in the middle of a town. The tracks led directly to one of the houses, which the man entered, and looking around, he saw his spear leaning by the door. From a neighbouring room he heard sounds of crying, and shortly a man appeared, who asked him who he was and what he wanted. When he replied that he had come to find his spear, which had been carried off in the body of a pig the night before, the owner of the house said, "No, you speared my child, and
A still more characteristic version is told in Celebes. 13 Seven brothers were hunting and drying the meat of the pigs which they had killed, but, as in one of the trickster tales, 14 a man appeared who stole -the food and made away with it, the brother who had been left on guard being unable to stop him. When the turn of the youngest came, he succeeded in spearing the robber in the back, but the culprit ran off and disappeared with the spear still sticking in him. Now the spear belonged to the boys' grandfather, who, angry at its loss, demanded A story of quite wide distribution is that of the half-child. According to the Loda version, 19 the first man and woman lived by a river, on whose banks they had a garden. A boy was born to them, but later, when a second child was about to be brought into the world, a great rain and flood came and washed away half of the garden, whereupon the woman cursed the rain, the result of her malediction being that when the child was born, it was only half a human being and had but one eye, one arm, and one leg. When Half-Child had grown up, he said to his mother, "Alas, what shall I do, so that I may be like my brother, who has two arms and two legs?" Determining to go to the great deity in the upper world and beg him to make him whole, he climbed up and laid his request Tales which involve themes of the "grateful animals" and the "impossible tasks" are quite common; and as an example of one type of these we may take a Dustin story from British North Borneo. 21 Serungal was an ugly man, but he wished very much to marry a rajah's daughter. On his way to the village of the rajah he saw some men killing an ant, but when he remonstrated with them, they ran away and left the insect, Widely disseminated in Indonesia, and also occurring far outside its limits, are stories based on a theme involving the miraculous providing of food by women of supernatural origin. A Bornean version 24 may serve as an example of this type. One day a man named Rakian was out hunting for honey, when in the top of a mangis-tree he saw a number of bees' nests. The bees belonging to one of these were white, and as this was a curiosity, he selected this nest, removed it carefully, and carried it home. He spent the next day working in his garden and did not return to his house until evening; but when he entered, he found rice and fish already cooked and standing on his food-shelf above the fire. "Who can have cooked for me?" he thought, "for I live here alone. This fish is not mine, although the rice is. The rice is cold, and must have been cooked some time. Perhaps someone has come and cooked for me and then taken away my bees' nest." On going to look, however, he found his bees' nest still where he had left it; so he sat down and ate, saying, "Well, if someone is going to cook for me, so much the better." In the morning he went off again to his garden, and when he came back at night, there was his food already cooked as before; and this continued for some time until one day he resolved to return early to see if he could not solve the mystery. Accordingly he set off as if to go to his garden and then quietly came back and hid himself where he could watch. By and by the door of the house creaked, and a beautiful woman came out and went to the river to get water; but while she was gone, Rakian entered the house and looking at his bees' nest found that When Rakian got home, his wife was silent and would not speak to him, but after a while she said, "What did I tell you
PLATE XX Ancestral image from the island of Nias (Sumatra). The sprits of the ancestors were supposed to enter these images and to abide in them for a time. Peabody Museum, Massachusetts. "The man who owned the house, which she saw near the well, was Ini-init--the sun. But he was not in the place of his house, because he went out and went above to make the sun, because that was his work in the daytime. And the next day Aponibolinayen saw him, who went out of his house, because he went again to make the sun. And Aponibolinayen went after him to his house, because she saw the man, who owned the house, who left. When she arrived in the house, she quickly cooked, because she was very hungry. "When she finished cooking, she took the stick used in roasting fish and cooked it, and the fish stick which she cooked became cut-up fish, because she used her magic power. When she finished to cook the fish, she took out rice from the pot, and when she had finished to take out the rice from the pot, she took off the meat from the fish. When she finished taking the fish from the pot, she ate. When she finished eating, she "Soon he cooked, and when he had finished to cook he scaled the fish, and when he had finished scaling he cut it into many pieces, and he made a noise on the bamboo floor when he cut the fish. The woman awoke, who was asleep on his bed. She saw that the man who cut the fish was a handsome man, and that he dragged his hair. The pot she had used to cook in looked like the egg of a rooster, and he was surprised because it looked like the egg of a rooster; and the rice which she cooked was one grain of broken rice. Because of all this Ini-init was surprised, for the pot was very small with which she cooked. After Ini-init cooked, the woman vanished and she went to the leaves of the betel-nut, where she went to hide. "After Ini-init finished cooking the fish, he saw the bed, the place where the woman was sleeping, was empty. He was looking continually, but he did not find her. When he could not find her, he ate alone, and when he finished eating he washed, and when he finished washing the dishes he put away, and when he had finished putting away he went to the yard to get a fresh breath. . . . When it began to be early morning, he left his house, he who went up, because it was his business to make the sun. And Aponibolinayen went again into the house. "When it became afternoon, Ini-init went to his home, "He begged her, and he cut the betel-nut, which was to be chewed, which was covered with gold, and he gave it to the woman who had magical power, and they chewed. When she laid down the quid, it looked like the agate bead, which has In some versions the woman who provides food miraculously is a tree-spirit, or comes from a plant or fruit; while in other stories she appears from the sea. In its distribution the tale extends eastward into Melanesia. 28 The following tale 29 embodies, among other incidents in the Indonesian area, that in which an animal, insect, or inanimate object answers for an escaping fugitive, and so aids his flight. Two sisters, whose parents had been killed and eaten by a tiger and a garuda bird, 30 saved themselves from their parents' fate by hiding in a drum; but one day a man went out hunting, and his arrow falling on the roof of the house where the two were hidden, he found the girls and took the older, whose name was Sunrise, as his wife. After a time the man said to his sister-in-law, "Bring me a piece of bamboo, that I may knock out the partition (at the nodes) and make a water-vessel for you to get water in," but when he fixed it, he secretly made holes through the bottom also. He then gave her the water-vessel, and she went to the stream to bring water, but the bamboo would not hold it; and after she had tried for a long time, she discovered the holes in the bottom. Accordingly she returned to the house, but By and by she came upon an old woman, to whom she called, "Oh, granny! Oh, granny! look here!" The old woman said to herself, "Well, ever since the world was made, I have lived alone, so I won't look," but, nevertheless, she did look, and then asked, "Well, Granddaughter, where do you come from?" "Granny, I am seeking my older sister," said the other sister, whose name was Kokamomako; and then hearing the sound of a drum, she inquired, "Granny, why are they having a feast over there?" The old woman answered, "Just now they went by with your sister," and so Kokamomako, continued on her way. When she came to the house, she called out, "Show me the hair of my sister in the window," but the people inside held up the hair of a cat, whereupon Kokamomako said, "My sister is indeed ugly, but that is the hair of a cat. You must show me her foot." Then the people took the foot of a cat and thrust it out of the window, saying, "If you want us to produce your sister, you must pick up a basket of rice that we will throw out," whereupon they threw it out and scattered it. Then Kokamomako wept, for this was a task which she could not accomplish; but a rice-bird came up to her and asked, Now there was a slave in the house who went to get water at the river, and when she looked in the stream, seeing the reflection of Sunrise, she thought it was her own and called out, "Oh, sirs, you said that I was ugly, but really I am beautiful." Proud of her supposed good looks and thinking herself too good to be a slave, she threw away her water-vessel and broke it; but when she went back to the house, they sent her back again for water and once more she saw the reflection of Sunrise, for the latter and her younger sister (their ghosts) were hidden in the top of a tree that leaned over the stream. This, however, the slave did not know, and again she said, "Oh, sirs, you said that I was ugly, but I am really beautiful," and again she threw away the water-vessel and broke it, doing this seven times before she told the people in the house that she had seen the reflection of Sunrise. 33 In the house was another slave who suffered from wounds on his legs, and the husband of Sunrise ordered him to dive into the stream in order to seize her, but he refused. So all In the Polynesian and Melanesian areas the tales relating to cannibals were numerous; and they are also common in Indonesia, as several examples will show. Once there was an ogress called Bake, and a princess who spent her time weaving. The brothers of the princess went fishing, and while they were gone, she dropped her shuttle, whereupon she began to sing a song calling upon them to come and pick it up. Then the ground suddenly split asunder, and out of it came Bake who wanted to carry the princess away, but when the latter said, "I must wait, I must wait for my brothers," Bake said to her, "Very well, pound some rice for me." After the maiden had pounded a little rice, she rested, for she wished to delay until her brothers should come back from fishing; but when the ogress could wait no longer, she herself took the pestle and finished preparing the rice. The princess set water on to boil and cooked the rice, which she ate from a tiny vessel using a needle for a spoon, whereas Bake ate from a trough with a great stone plate as a spoon. When, in spite of all delay, the princess had finished, the ogress refused to wait longer, and taking the maiden on her back she carried her off. The princess, however, had secretly tied the end of a skein of thread about the tip of her finger so that the thread unwound itself behind the ogress as she went; 35 and just as the process Another version from the Moluccas 38 runs as follows. Two women once went fishing, and coming to a river, one said to the other, "There are many fish in that pool; reach down for them," but when the other stooped for the fish, the first woman gave her a push, so that she fell into the water, and then she held her under with a forked stick. Great bubbles came up as the victim struggled, but at last they ceased and she was drowned, whereupon the murderess drew out the body, cut off some flesh, put it in a bamboo vessel, and going home, set the vessel on the fire to cook. Now the dead woman had two children, a boy and a girl, and they asked the wicked woman kris, it broke, whereupon--so tightly had the rope been stretched--the tree, in whose top Kine-kine-boro was, snapped back. Seven times it swayed toward the land, and seven times toward the sea, and Kine-kine-boro fell from the tree upon his wife who was below, and they both burst with a noise like thunder and died, but the children got safely away. 39 As an example of a different type of cannibal-story the following may serve 40 A swangi (one who is secretly a vampire) once was going out to eat the flesh of men when a youth met him and begged to be allowed to accompany him, to which the swangi agreed, but said, "If you go with me, you must shut your eyes, and open them only when I tell you." The young The following Philippine tale 41 introduces a number of incidents whose distribution is of interest. Aponibolinayen said, "I am anxious to eat the fruit of the bolnay-tree belonging to Matawitawen;" but when Ligi asked, "What did you say?" she replied, "I said that I want some fish roe." Accordingly, Ligi took his net and went off after fish, and when he had caught some, he took out the roe, brought it back to the house, and gave it to Aponibolinayen. She accepted it, but did not eat it; and after Ligi had gone away, she threw the roe to the dogs, who fought for it. Ligi heard them and said, "What are the dogs fighting about? I think you threw away the fish roe," to which Aponibolinayen replied, "I dropped some." Again Arriving at the place where the tree grew, Ligi took the fruit and put it in the sack and carried some also in his hand; but when he was passing the spring in Kadalayapan on his way home, he met some beautiful girls, who said to him, "How pretty the bolnay fruit is! This sack is filled, and you have some also in your hands. Will you not give us some?" Ligi, however, gave them all the fruit, whereupon they said, "The child which Aponibolinayen is about to bear, and which asks for the bolnay fruit, is not your child. It is the child of Maobagan." At this Ligi was angry, and when he got home, he gave Aponibolinayen only the empty sack; but there was a small piece of the fruit which the other women had overlooked, and Aponibolinayen ate it and said, "I am anxious to eat more, if there are more." "What is that?" cried Ligi, angrily. "Get ready, for I will put you in the place where the tree is, if you want more," and so saying, he seized her and dragged her away to the tree, and digging a hole at its foot, he buried her in it Every time that he was bathed, he grew, and by and by, when he had become a boy, he was anxious to leave the pit; but his mother was afraid lest his father should find them. Nevertheless, the boy got out, and when he was safely away from the hole, he listened until he heard the sound of other children playing and then went to where they were swimming. The others inquired who he was, and one of them, called Dagolayan, saying, "He looks like my uncle in Kadalayapan," asked Kanag who his father was, to which he replied that his parent was of Matawitawen. 45 Dagolayan and Kanag decided that they would go to fight, and Kanag went back to where his mother was in the pit at the foot of the tree to tell her; but though she did not want him to go, he insisted and said, "No, I am going. I will plant a vine; and if it wilts, you will know that I am dead." 46 Next day Dagolayan and Kanag went off to fight, and when they struck their shields, it sounded as though a thousand men were coming. They met Ligi, who was surprised and who asked where he got the other boy who was with him; but when he heard, he wished to kill Kanag, who was saved only by the pleading of Dagolayan. Then they went and lay in wait to catch heads, and when a pretty young girl went by the place in which Kanag was hidden, he seized her and cut off her head, whereas Ligi and Dagolayan were able to get only the heads of an old man and an old woman. At this Dagolayan was angry and said to Kanag, "What did you say when you took the girl's head?" Kanag replied, "The son of an alan [a minor spirit] of Matawitawen kills the pretty girl," is what I said; but Dagolayan answered, "No, that is Thus she restored Kanag to life, and when he came to himself, he said, "How long my sleep is!" "No, do not say that, your father killed you," said Aponibolinayen. Ligi tried to keep Aponibolinayen and Kanag with him, but refusing to stay, they went back to Matawitawen, and when they arrived there, Aponibolinayen said, "I will use my power so that Ligi cannot see us, and the trail will become filled with thorns." Accordingly Ligi could not walk in the trail, could not find them, and was sad; and therefore he lay down, while his hair grew like vines along the ground; and he did not eat, for he was always grieving about the things which he had done to his wife and son. At last, however, they forgave him and returned to Kadalayapan; and Ligi ordered his spirit helper to kill those women whom he had met at the spring, and to whom he had given the bolnay fruit, for they had told him lies about Aponibolinayen. Tales embodying the theme of the "magic flight" seem to be rare in the Oceanic area, and the few which have been reported Again he came after them, but when Badabangisa said to his friends, "Throw some ashes behind you," they did so, and the giant's eyes thus being blinded, he could not see. Yet still he pursued, so that Badabangisa said to his friends, "Throw some jungle marbles behind you," and when they Then Badabangisa called out, "People, be still! because you have urged me on, I have killed my father," and he ordered them to bring him three pieces of white cloth to bury the giant, but the monster was so large that these were quite insufficient. After this they went on, and coming to a town, Badabangisa. kept firing guns for seven days and seven nights, so that the people issued forth and said, "Who has become a king, that he fires so many guns?" Then they came to Badabangisa, and taking him with them to the town, they made him a king, and held a feast for nine days and nine nights. A tale which is wide-spread in Indonesia and which in spite of traces of outside influence seems to be largely local in development, is that of the "wonder-tree." Once there were three orphan sisters, the two eldest of whom one day found in a harvested field a bird called Kekeko, and bringing it home, they put it in a cage. A few days later they heard the bird call, "Set me in a basket, and I will lay;" and though at first they paid no attention, they finally did as it demanded, since it frequently repeated the request; and lo! the next morning the basket was full of cooked rice and fish, steaming hot. This continued daily, and thus the children obtained their food; but as there was always too much in the basket, and it Another tale, similarly open to suspicion of extra-Indonesian influences, though probably in essence of Indonesian development, is as follows. Once upon a time there was a hunter who had a beautiful white cat to whom he one day happened to give food out of a coco-nut-shell which he had used for household purposes, the result being that the cat later gave birth to a beautiful girl-child. 52 The hunter adopted the infant as his own, but later, when she was seven years old, he took to himself a wife, who was very jealous of the girl and did not know that the cat was her mother. When he went off to the By and by the man came home, and finding his child absent, asked where she was, to which his wife replied, "She has gone to the river." After a while the man followed her thither and heard the song which the cat was singing; but when he reached the place, he saw his daughter sitting on the top of a niboeng palm, holding the cat in her lap. Though the tree was very tall, the man tried to climb up, weeping and beseeching his daughter to come down; but she refused, and as he climbed, the tree became taller and taller, until at last, when it had grown almost up to the moon, a golden ladder was let down, and the girl with her cat climbed up and entered into the moon. The father tried to follow her, but no ladder was lowered for him, and trying to reach the moon without one, he slipped, fell, and was killed. To this day, when the moon is full, one can easily see Nini-anteh, as she is called, sitting beside a spinning-wheel with the cat beside her.MISCELLANEOUS TALES
Better than the rice and ashes
That the step-mother gives."
