Asmn folklore Studies

280 Pages·1610·4.57 MB·English

Asmn
folklore Studies
Published by the Asian Folklore Institute
Roger E. Mitchell
Micronesian Folktales
NAGOYA 1973
VOL. XXXII 1973
THE FOLKTALES OF MICRONESIA
By
Roger E. Mitchell
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION ...................................... 1
TALES OF BEGINNINGS ....................... 16
The Theft of the Moon . 16
King of the Stars .......... 18
The Displaced Island .… 20
The Fished-up Island •… 23
The Island Dropped from Basket 26
6 The Loss of Fresh Water ..................... 29
1.he Origin of the Uoconut ................. 30
The Origin of Kava Drinking ............. 32
rhe Origin of Palauan Money ............. 34
10 The Great Navigator ................................ 35
TALES OF ANIMALS .................................................... 39
11 How the Hermit Grab Won a Race . 39
12 The Battle of Whale and Octopus ... 41
13 Rat’s Uanoe 1 rip .................................... 45
14 The Stolen Blessings ................................ 48
TALES OF ANIMALS AND PEOPLE ..................... 50
15 The Man-Eating Lizard ........................... 50
16 The Tricky Octopus ................................ 52
17 The Birds，Courtship ............................. 56
18 The Adopted Bird .................................... 60
19 The Helpful Bird ...................................... 62
20 The Eel’s Life-Restoring Medicine .... 66
21 The Shark Sons ........................................ 68
22 Origin of the Rat Clan ......................... 71
23 The Worm Mother-in-law ..................... 73
24 The Eel Lover .......................................... 75
TALES OF SOCIAL CONFLICT .................................. 77
25 The High Chiefs Revenge ................... 77
26 The Man Who Exposed Himself ......... 80
27 The Low Glass Boy and the Chief ... 82
28 A Competitive Feast ............................... 83
TALES OF MISFITS，TRICKSTERS，AND FOOLS 85
29 The himbless Glutton ............................. 85
30 Letao the JTrickster .................................. 89
31 Olofat and the Stolen Eyes ................. 92
32 I he Disguised Warrior ........................... 95
33 The Men Who Tried to Fly ............... 97
34 The Foolish Women Who Drowned lv( 98
The Foolish Navigator ....................
TALES 3c5^ UTNhUe SUSoAapL- ECatHerIsL D..B...I.R...T...H.... ............................... 9
33〕67 TIghneo raMncoes quoift o NaLtaurrvaale CPhrieldgbniarnthcy ..•,, 9

33 The Girl Born from a Boil......... 0
TALES 8 LOVERS ................................................
0
4 The Spirit Lover ............................. 0
9 The Beheaded Lover ........................ o
The Double Suicide .......................
4 The Scorned Suitor’s Revenge ... 7
^ The Sore-Covered G irl................... o0
TALES 4 SPOUSES .............................................. 33
The Undersea Bride ....................... 23
40 The Heavenly Bride ....................... o
The Counterfeit Spouse ................. 2.
41 TThhee WUnofoaditehnf ulB riHdue sb.a..n..d.. ................................. o3 38
The Trapped Adulterer ................. 33
o2 The Dissatisfied Wife .....................
The Abducted Wife ....................... 141
TALES 二 3 PARENTS AND CHILDREN ........ 6
45 43 TThhee GHierel dlWeshso DCaouogkhetde r the.. ...B...a..b..y.. .... 144
5 The Mermaid ....................................
45 4 TOrbaendsifeonrtm aatniodn Dtios obae dLieinzat rdS on.s.. ........ 148
5455 5 TThhee MJeiasltoruesa teFda thSteerp -s..o..n. ..................................... 1 8
TALES c45 56 SIBLINGS ............................................ 5
6 0 Crab’s Sons Battle ............... io'
46167 The Exiled Sister .................. 1 1
62 The Abandoned Sister ..........
5
OF EROTICISM ............................. 82
56378 Ignorance of Sexual Organs 28 24
5665489 BTrhoet heBri-tiSnisgt erV agInicneas t ............................. 858 750
66 The Sexual Contest ............. 9 0
5679 The Detachable Penis .......... 25917
TALES O^F SPIRITS AND MEN ............................. 9 32
680 The Life-Restoring Medicine ................. 9 4
69 The Lost Bracelet .................................... 698
70 The Island of Dolphin Women ........... !02
711 The Swallowed Sons ................................ !0 752
72 Olofafs Son .............................................. !606
723 The Spirit and the Famine ................. !13
74 The Woman Who Died in Childbirth !1 8
7765 TThhee SCpainrniti baFli shBinrgid eCgroomompa ni.o..n.. ............................. !!622142
77 The Evil Sea Spirit and the Secluded Girl !2 9
78 The Giant’s Fish ...................................... !631
79 The Spirit and the Falling Fruit .... !34
80 The Deserted Woman and the Giant !3 76
81 The Story-Telling Spirit ......................... !40
7
NOTES ................................ !44
BIBLIOGRAPHY ............. !6 6
APPENDIV A: Map I . !718
APPENDIX B: Informants m
VTTA .................................. ?76
0

1
5

8

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INTRODUCTION
Despite Magellan’s early landfall at Guam in 1521, Micro­
nesia remains a shadowy island world to most and the reasons
would appear a composite of geography, trade, and happen­
stance. For over three centuries Guam was little more than a
way station in the Spanish attempt to tap the wealth of the
Indies. Micronesia itself had nothing in the way of spices or
other precious commodities to excite the interest or cupidity
of the Western world. Nor have there been chance visitors of
the stature of Stevenson, Gaugin, Melville, or Michener to
envelop the land of the tiny islands with the web of romance
spun for the related islands of Polynesia. Even infamy was
in large part escaped, for it was Melanesia that was to gain
renown for the combined ferocity of its cannibals, headhunters,
geography and native diseases. While there was some head-
taking, especially in Western Micronesia, overall early contacts
with Micronesians were relatively mild and the sporadic con­
flict was of short duration.
Yet despite their modest impact on the imagination of the
Western world, Micronesian societies developed and have main­
tained complex and satisfying cultures, approaches to living
that will be presented in this study from the vantage point of
rich and still flourishing complexes of oral traditions.
Micronesia lies in the Western Pacific, east of the Philip­
pines, northeast of Melanesia, with Polynesia far to its east
in the northern sector and closely adjoining in the southeast
(see Map I). Micronesia, Land of the Little Islands, describes
2 ROGER E. MITCHELL
it well. Total surface area is impressive, stretching more than
2000 miles from the southernmost of the Gilbert Islands north
to lonely Farallon de Pajaros in the Mariana chain, and another
2500 miles from the eastern Radak chain in the Marshall
Islands to tiny Tobi Island in the west. These many islands
assume more humble status when considered in terms of land
mass. Guam heads the list with 215 square miles. Babeldaob
in the Palau Islands and Ponape Island are next in order with
153 and 129 square miles. But the rest of the major islands
are drastically smaller. The several islands of the Truk group
add only 38.5 square miles and the Yap Islands total about
the same.
One searches in vain for the towering peaks and deep
of New Guinea. Yet within a modest topographical range
valleys of Hawaii and Tahiti or the vast swamps and deltas
there exists great variability, from the low lying Palau Islands
and their rugged coral limestone formations and the equally
low reddish islands of Yap to the more complex Guam, with
its composite of upraised coral limestone plateau and weathered
volcanic peaks. Other variations are the basaltic formations
of Ponape and Kusaie, or Truk, with its several basaltic islands
jutting up from a wide lagoon surrounded by a great coral reef.
Palau, Yap, the Marianas, Truk, Ponape, and Kusafe:
these are the high islands of Micronesia, and they constitute
the bulk of habitable land, about 836 square miles. The rest
of Micronesia consists of low-lying coral atolls, with an occa­
sional uplifted coral island like Fais and Nauru, which lack
the enclosing coral reefs of the typical atoll.
The atolls are the islands of romance, with their gleaming
beaches of white coral sand, stately palms, and blue lagoons.
Yet to be more pragmatic, living conditions are challenging.
Coral sand and scanty humus limit severely what can be grown,
providing rainfall has been adequate; and these islands are
only a few feet above sea level. Since all of Micronesia is
subject to severe typhoons and occasional tidal waves, eleva­
tion can at times tie of the essence. Moreover, population
pressure can be severe, since the total land area of these hund­
reds of small islands is little more than two hundred and forty
square miles (Freeman, 1951).
THE FOLKTALES OF MICRONESIA 3
The relative obscurity of these many islands for much of
their recorded history is best presented in historical perspective.
Magellan’s famed voyage was part of Spanish attempts to
exploit the wealth of the East Indies by establishing a new
sailing route not under the control of the Portugese. While
the islands of Micronesia had flourishing populations and had
worked out, especially on the high islands, complex cultural
patterns, yet to Europeans seeking gold and spices, these islands
had little to offer. Despite the often reiterated Spanish position
concerning its Christian duty to proselytize the heathens, it
can be seen that such efforts followed expansion of empire.
Not until Spain had established its Manila galleon route from
the Philippines to Acapulco did the Spanish initiate a limited
program of colonization and conversion in Micronesia. These
early efforts were centralized on Guam, which was made a
port of call for the aforementioned galleons. The rest of
Micronesia continued in peaceful obscurity, spared the ravages
of newly introduced disease, forced Christianization, and social
disorganization that accrued to the Chamorros of Guam and
the other inhabited Mariana Islands.
Although the Spanish labored mightily with cross and
sword and managed with the aid of famine and pestilence to
transform Chamorro culture into a weak imitation of Spanish
Catholicism, little of the aboriginal state of things was recorded.
Almost nothing remains to tell us of Chamorro oral traditions.
Some scattered references in letters from the early missionaries
and in biographies of their martyred leader Father San Vitores
do indicate that Chamorro religion was a part of a Micronesia-
wide ancestor worship (Le Gobien, 1700, pp. 17-21). During
this early period a few canoe loads of Carolinians appeared on
Guam, which led to an abortive attempt to Christianize the
atolls of the Central Carolines, and as a side effect the soon-
to-be martyred Father Cantova included in his correspondence
to his superiors the first published account of the still well-
known Carolinian trickster god, Olofat (Cantova, 1728).
However, the researcher of oral traditions is but sparsely
rewarded by the documents of this long period of sporadic
contact. Only recently William Lessa surveyed this early
literature; and while he found much of broad ethnographic
4 ROGER E. MITCHELL
value, there was little in the line of folktales (Lessa, 1962).
Fortunately for the social sciences, the Spanish claim to
sovereignty in Micronesia was not too confining. As Spain’s
power waned, other Western nations were stirring and the
vacuum was filled, albeit in a rather haphazard fashion. French,
English, Americans, Russians—all made their public and pri­
vate expeditions into Oceania and the resultant publications
contained random bits of information on Micronesian culture
(for example, Dumont d’Urville, 1880-34; Hale, 1846; Kotzebue,
1821;Wilson, 1799).
Of far greater importance than exploratory expeditions
and missionizing attempts were developments in the economic
field. The exhaustion of whaling grounds in the Atlantic saw
the whale oil industry shift its major efforts to the whale-rich
Pacific. With the depletion of the Pacific whale herds in the
1850，s a new source of oil was sought in the dried meat of
the coconut, the copra of Pacific commerce. With this develop­
ment, islanders had something to sell and Micronesia became
a viable area for two-way trade. Gone forever were the days
of desultory bartering and brief encounters.
Traders and their associated companies vied for advantage
and often backed this or that chief in his attempt through the
use of firearms to aggrandize his position. Small ports sprang
up in such places as the Marshalls, Ponape, Yap, and Palau.
White deserters and drifters threw their lot and weapon know­
how with petty despots. Missionary groups, especially the
Boston and the London Missionary Societies, hurried into the
field, spurred on by reports of the debauchery of natives brought
on by the lawless element in ships，crews and assorted adven­
turers (Crawford, 1967).
Only as the 19th century was drawing to a close did the
first indepth ethnographic reports from Micronesia begin to
appear. The weathly Hamburg merchant, Johann Godeffroy,
had indulged his taste for natural history by establishing a
museum and an associated journal, Journal des Museum
Godeffroy (Spoehr, 1963). In addition to assigning his cap­
tains the added tasks of collecting museum specimens, he also
hired a young Polish expatriot, Johann Kubary, as a full time
collector and reporter on things Micronesian. Unfortunately,
THE FOLKTALES OF MICRONESIA 5
the House of Godeffroy went bankrupt during the Franco-
Prussian War, and the disillusioned Kubary committed suicide
on Ponape in 1896 (Mitchell, 1971). Nevertheless, during the
course of a quarter century in Micronesia, Kubary traveled
widely, learning languages, studying cultures, collecting arti­
facts and specimens for museums, and writing reports and
articles about Micronesia. Here it can be said Micronesian
ethnography came into its own, and within this excellent re­
portage are to be found several important myths presented
within their cultural contexts (Kubary, 1873, 1895).
Invaluable firsthand reports though they were, Kubary’s
works have a limited value for the folklorist, this allied to
Kubary，s focus. Much of his effort was expended on museum
collections, along with descriptions of material culture, and his
tale texts were usually secondary to these interests. It was
also Kubary’s misfortune to be embroiled in the troublesome
political climate of the time and the decline in fortune of his
primary benefactor. The combination vitiated his life’s work,
leaving. him often without support and no doubt contributing
to his untimely death.
Yet the scholarly climate was soon to improve. The
Germans speedily took advantage of the demise of Spanish
sovereignty following the Spanish-American War, and they
bought out Spain’s claims in Micronesia, thereby consolidating
the foothold they already had in the Marshall Islands. Only
the island of Guam was retained by the victorious Americans.
German scholars were to continue the work so ably begun by
Kubary and here folkloristics came into its own. Under the
general leadership of Georg Thilenius and backed by the Ger­
man government, an expedition was formed, and during the
years of 1908-1910 the whole area was surveyed. Large num­
bers of tales were collected along with other ethnographic
materials. Eleven fat volumes were produced, some consisting
of several book-long subdivisions. In certain instances, such as
Ponape, Palau, and Yap, entire part volumes were devoted to
oral traditions (Hambruch, 1936; Kramer, 1929; Muller, 1918).
No volume was without at least a portion devoted to oral tradi­
tions, and the whole series stands as the base line for an under­
standing of the Micronesian folktale.
6 ROGER E. MITCHELL
With the advent of German control, new missionaries
entered the field, among them some German Capuchins who
were a part of the priest-scholar tradition allied with FatKer
Schmidt and the journal Anthropos. Two volumes in the
Anthropos Bibliothek series were forthcoming, one on the
Marshalls, and one on Truk (Erdland, 1914; Bollig, 1927).
The Marshallese volume contains an extensive collection of
tales, while Bollig contented himself with but a few. Yet these
represented an important contribution, for Bollig was concerned
with presenting Trukese folklore according to native genre.
Once again international politics were to intervene and
prevent these broad studies from reaching fruition. Hardly
had the first few volumes achieved print when the debacle of
World War I was underway. No more were forthcoming until
war’s end, and a full twenty-four years elapsed between the
first and last volumes in the series (1914-38). Scholarly attri­
tion during these years was irreparable, for in several cases
the major researcher had died before his data had been fully
published, and some of the volumes represent the work of an
editor who lacked the firsthand field experience (e.g., Hambruch
& Eilers, 1936).
This meant that the data were collected but in many cases
the published results are little more than the fieldnotes and
translated texts. Hambruch did use a portion in his contribu­
tion to the Marchen der Weltliteratur series and these were
annotated fully (Hambruch, 1921). He also produced a volume
giving valuable insight into erotic humor (1924).
With the passing of Pax Germanica, scholarly activity
slowed down as Japan assumed control of Germany’s Micro-
nesian colonies under a mandate from the League of Nations.
Economically and politically, the Japanese made great strides,
but they left no scholarly legacy that could even begin to
approximate the result of the Thilenius Expedition.
In addition a language barrier has furtKer reduced the
impact of Japanese scholarship. However, the new edition of
Huzio Utinomi’s Bibliography of Micronesia (1952) gives Japa­
nese titles in English translation and provides a vantage point
from which to survey Japanese efforts. By far the greater
part of the entries show the practical orientations of the busy
THE FOLKTALES OF MICRONESIA 7
Japanese. They had come into the islands by the thousands,
far outnumbering the natives, and exploited to the utmost the
minerals, agriculture, and fisheries of Micronesia. Thirty-four
pages of the bibliography are devoted to cultural material. The
other 95 pages are concerned with agriculture, botany, fisheries,
tropical disease, geology, and similar matters of colonial concern.
While the Japanese made no concerted effort to collect
folktales as did the Germans before them, yet considerable
interest was shown in the folktales of the Palau Islands. The
Palauans had developed an art of carving myths and legends
on gable ends of their men’s houses and on tHe beams within
(McKnight, 1967), and the Japanese continued the German In­
terest in this art form. The most devoted! folklorist to emerge
was Hijikata, who published several articles and one full volume
of Palauan myths and legends (1942) and a more recent volume
on folktales from Satawal Atoll (1953).
Again the political balance in Micronesia was to be tipped,
this time by Japan’s ill-fated military expansion in World War
II, and by 1945 the Japanese had been replaced by the Ameri­
cans. This shift was followed by a return to the wide-reaching,
government supported researches into Micronesian culture.
However, Americans eschewed the encyclopedic German ap­
proach. More akin to the Japanese, American studies were
grounded in practicality, for first the Department of Navy
and then the Department of Interior were faced with the prag­
matic task of administering an area about which there was
little material available in English. Before World War II
ended, the Navy had commissioned a group at Yale to prepare
a handbook series from German and Japanese sources, and on
the cessation of hostilities the United States Commercial Com­
pany Survey was made. This was followed by the Coordinated
Investigation of Micronesian Anthropology, then the Scientific
Investigation of Micronesia. In addition to funding these pro­
jects, the military government kept full time anthropologists
on its staff, although this practice has waned since the Depart­
ment of Interior assumed administrative responsibilities.
While the Commercial Company reports were broad studies
calculated to provide insights into Micronesian cultures, the
folktale was ignored. Later studies became increasingly more