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PAPUAN FAIRY TALES

when he had come up to the face of the earth, the Dead closed the hole with a great stone that no man might lift. Therefore when the man returned after the three nights were past, he found no place where he might enter, and he saw his wife no more. Nor since that day have any found the way to Ioloa. But if the stone had not been placed over the hole we might even now have seen and talked with our dead after they had left us for their own land.


DAKODAKO, THE MAN EATER.

There was once a man named Dakodako, who ever hungered for flesh to eat. When the others ate pig or wallaby he ate, but was not satisfied as were they. And he daily bethought him where he might look for flesh meat which he might eat and therewith be filled.

Thus it befell that one day he lay in wait on the path, and slew a man, a stranger passing to another village, as he walked. Then he took his body and cut it up, and laid the pieces in a great earthenware pot, and cooked them over the fire.

When the flesh was cooked he sat down and ate of it till he could eat no more. Then rising up he said, "I will beat upon the drum and dance, for that I have eaten flesh meat which satisfieth."

Therefore he did even as he had said. He beat