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by Bernard Narokobi by Lise M Dobrin Yəhələgɨr, Wautogig’s founding father Why Yəhələgɨr had to seek a new home in new lands About Yəhələgɨr's wife's people, on whose lands he settled The places where Yəhələgɨr and his wife made their new home Yəhələgɨr befriends a man from Walanduom and creates lasting ties between their two villages Why Meliawi fled Kwangen How Meliawi and Yəhələgɨr met Meliawi and Yəhələgɨr learn to trust one another The former inhabitants of the lands where Wautogig was founded The clans that make up the village How Wautogig’s tribes are distributed over the land Description of the present-day village site Things that happened during the early colonial period How Anton Narokobi brought the Catholic church to the village The villagers’ earliest forays into schooling outside the village and work in trained occupations Key figures in the first generation of Wautogigem to advance through higher education Further discussion of Wautogig’s many educated, professional, and important men Important women from the earliest generations About women from Narokobi's mother's generation Women of modern times, with special focus on those who married in What the villagers experienced during the Second World War The return home and establishing of a new unified village site How the Wautogigem came to occupy their current village site Reflections on the village churches as both buildings and social institutions How land is owned and passed on Gardening, marketing, and the planting of cash crops Public presentations of wealth to other communities The words, actions, and histories of village song-dance complexes Traditional games and how they were played Expectations about the relations between men and women |
Chapter 4: Yəhələgɨr Establishes a HomeIn those days, there were few people and the land was vast. Yəhələgɨr and his wife hid in bamboo clumps on a ridge. Where they settled became known as Dagububu, or in Boikin, Tangupupu because dagu or tangu means ‘bamboo’ and bubu means ‘ridge’. So Dagububu is a bamboo ridge. At that time Yəhələgɨr was living among his wife’s people. They helped him to establish a home. They made him some garamut drums and helped him make gardens and settle into the new land.1 Yəhələgɨr lived on the land of Dagububu which is a continuation of a mountain ridge which starts from the upper Urieb River, from Bai to Kunicuaɲ peak and rising to Horonin and Worewabɨr.2 This land is now covered with thick tropical jungle, but it was occupied by the nation of Wautogig until the Pacific War scattered the people. The village had its own paramount chief and its own parliament house known as the the nubahʷ. It was from the nubahʷ that the men would decide on war, peace, gardening, and feasts. The ridge on which Yəhələgɨr and his wife settled overlooks the large Gədəgəp creek on the southern side while to the north, the Maranit creek falls away, both joining Urieb river. The power source of the Wautogigem is known as Walə Kɨrəbɨri, symbolised by a snake-like creature with the face of a large rooster. Its dwelling was the branch of an ironwood tree or in Tok Pisin kwila.3 The name Wautogig is derived from the word waut which in Tok Pisin is 'kwila', a tree with hard brown-yellowish wood. On the gulley over the Gədəgəp creek leading up to Dagububu stand many kwila trees or in Arapesh wautogʷ, hence the name Wautogig.4 |
NOTES 1 Jacob Sonin observes that there are political consequences to the kinds of things we are discussing, so we must take care to get details like the pronunciation of land names right. Listen. 2 To view a map of the locations from this chapter, click here. 3 To view an image gallery of the Walə Kɨrəbɨri spirit, click here. Jacob Sonin explains the nature of a walə spirit. Listen. The Arapesh language name for this kind of spirit is jab (sg) ~ jabohos (pl). Listen. 4 An alternate version of this story was recorded by Lise Dobrin in 1998. The primary narrator was Clemen Hayin, then the leading traditional elder of Wautogig's Abahinem clan. A transcript of the recording in Arapesh with Tok Pisin translation can be accessed here. |