This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
114
PAPUAN FAIRY TALES

should be known. Then the man, talking amongst his neighbours, learned that it was indeed truth which his brother had spoken, and his heart burned within him for grief that he had thus wrongfully accused him. Therefore he set out once more in the canoe to look for him, and searched for long, but found him not. Then sorrowing he returned home, desiring to take vengeance on his wife for that with lying tales she had caused him to act thus. And he said, "Woman, what hast thou done? It is through thy lying tongue that I have killed my brother," and he made as if to kill her, and doubtless he would have slain her, but that he remembered she was his wife, and he spared her.

Now it came to pass that the younger brother, when he was left to die in the sea, rested his arms upon the coconuts which had floated to him, and thus he remained many days, eating the gelaruru which lay upon the face of the water. And when the east wind blew he cried, "O Lauraibo, biraigu, biraigu," so that it might no longer blow upon him. For when the east wind blew it drove him further from land. Then when the north wind came he cried, "O Lauraibo, newaigu, newaigu," for thus he prayed it to carry him to the shore. And the north wind blew, and after many days he reached a strange land, which he knew not.

So long had he been in the water that the roots of the coconuts had twined round his legs, and their leaves were tangled in his hair. He was also feeble