Beyond this mountain there is a piece of land called Pinakama. Upon this land there was a man named Pinalima. He married and had a son named Lungupini. I was never told who gave birth to Pinalima. I was only told by my forefathers that Lungupini was the son of Pinalima.
(Lao Tai, of the Lungupini Yakau clan, Imalemanda (Yalisa)
This statement contains the only information we could obtain on Lungupini origins, even from the most knowledgeable elders. There are different claims as to Lungupini’s exact place of origin, but all agree that Lungupini was originally located on the north side of the Lai in the Pina-Yaibosa area.
Early stories of the life of Lungupini depict him as the idiot who lived from grubs and who, from time to time, was rescued from his own stupidity by his uncle Yandamani. In the best known of these legends, Lungupini cuts grass by placing his own leg, rather than a piece of wood, beneath the grass as a support against which to chop and then chopped against his own leg. Yandamani comes along and shows him how to use a piece of wood instead. In another legend, Lungupini’s wife shows him her vagina while trying to get him to have sexual intercourse with her. Lungupini, thinking that her vagina is a wound, has great pity for her and rushes to bind and dress it with grass and leaves. Yandamani comes along and sets him straight.
There is no doubt that for generations Lungupini legends have been told primarily for amusement. However, when taken together with other evidence, they may also suggest that Lungupini was considered to be somewhat behind the times. In discussions with Lungupini elders on a variety of topics, they indicated that Lungupini was slow to adopt some of the cultural innovations moving to the south and west along the major trade routes. Nonetheless, Lungupini clans appear to have been very successful in military exploits to expand into the lower Lai valley and as participants in the early Tee cycle.
A glimpse of Lungupini history and its gradual expansion can be found in an unusually detailed family history given to us by Lao Tai:
When Lungupini grew up, he married and had many sons. Their names were Sau, Yakau, Yambalekini and Taekini. The descendants of Sau and Yakau live to the west and those of Yambalekini and Taekini to the east. I will give you the genealogy of Yakau. Yakau gave birth to Mena and Paui. Mena gave birth to Tinai, Waekini and Koleala. Paui married and had many sons named Aepe, Yapena, Kiua and Kepakepa. Kepakepa gave birth to Tambuaka, Yapu, Kuala and Waio. Kuala gave birth to Tambuaka. Yapu gave birth to Katea and Kome. Waio gave birth to Saui and Kangupae.
Waio had an old garden site at Pukale. Waio also had a daughter who was named Yukuli. She was married to an Itokone man named Kelyakali, a man of considerable wealth. Waio gave the old garden at Pukale to Yukuli which meant that it would belong to her Itokone husband, Kelyakali. Waio’s sons who would normally inherit the land were discontented with the transfer of the garden to their sister because it would then become a part of Itokone tribal land. They complained to their father who replied that he had given the land to their sister and would not change his mind. He pointed out to them that the relationship established by the marriage of their sister to a wealthy Itokone man would create potential ties for trade and exchange.
There was a dispute between Waio and his sons Saui and Kangupae. For some time after, the two sons lived apart from their father. As time passed, Kangupae married a woman named Andae Winima, the daughter of Talinana from the Apitili clan. Winima saw that her husband Kangupae had not been given land. She went to her father’s house and said to her relatives, “I was not given garden land by my husband’s father. ”
Her father was working on a new garden when she arrived and when she explained why she had come he said, “It is good that you came now. I have been busy clearing land to make a new garden, and I will give a portion of it to you and your husband. Go and get your husband and tell him to come and help me make the garden fence.”
Winima did as her father told her and her husband Kangupae, and his younger brother Saui came to live on the land of their in-laws. Winima’s father gave an entire hillside to Kangupae and his brother. For some time, they worked on clearing the land and then they gathered and cut materials to build their house. Clearing the land was a hard and time-consuming job, so Winima returned to her husband’s place and said to his relatives,
“I have come to ask you to help me and my husband build our house and finish clearing our new garden. Kangupae’s kinsmen agreed to come and help, so Winima went back the way she came. When she arrived home, Kangupae and Saui were working in the garden. She told them of the news, and she and her relatives prepared food for the helpers who would come the next day. With the help of all the men, they cut down a large casuarina tree and chopped it up. They stacked the big logs on the spot where the house would stand and laid the small pieces nearby to build the fence. They worked until late in the evening and then went home for the night.
In the morning, the men came to complete the work. Meanwhile Kangupae had said to his wife, ” Winima, will you go to your place and ask all the women you can find to bring food. Also, we will need some young women to help carry the kunai grass for the roof of the house.”
Winima went out and gathered women to help. Yandamani women and women from other clans brought bananas and taro. Before long the garden had already been completed, and the house was nearly finished. Then the roof had to be put on, and a large group gathered for the event. Men, women and children of all ages, almost the entire Lungupini clan was there. They finished up the hard work and then sat and ate together. Everybody enjoyed such events.
In this way, the sons of Waio settled on their new land. When some years had passed, Saui had grown up and it was time for him to marry. He married a girl from the Yandamani Kyakae clan.
Saui and his wife moved to Lyabikama. At Lyabikama Saui built a house and cleared new gardens as his brother had done. Kangupae remained at Ipiada where he and Winima had first settled on the land given to them by her father. One day, for some reason, Kangupae killed a man named Sina Muni. Kangupae and all his relatives living at Ipiada packed up their possessions and left the area in fear of a revenge attack. Kangupae and the others came up this mountain. At that time, all the land was thick forest and there was only an infrequently used bush track up the mountainside. He followed the track until he came to the house of a man from the Yandamani Kiungukini clan who was a cousin of Kangupae’s father. Kangupae said to him,
“I have killed Sina Muni, and his men are after me. They have raided my house and are destroying my gardens and stealing my pigs. What can I do? Do you know anywhere I can hide?
“Come I will show you a place, ” said the Kiungukini man after the heard these words. He motioned for Kangupae to follow. He led him up into the forest and showed him an area called Lepai. Kangupae stayed there with his relatives and hid from his enemies, planning to return to his own home when things had settled down. He built a hideout, dug a trench around it and fortified it.
While Kangupae was in hiding, he heard news of the fight. Sina Muni’s clansmen had come from the east and took part in the fight. When it ended, the son of Waio did not return home. He remained at Lepai and settled there permanently. He and his brothers cut down the trees in the forest, burnt off the grass, and built gardens. They also built a man’s and a woman’s house and then named the place, which included the entire area where the houses and gardens were built. While they were living there, Andae Winima, Kangupae’s wife gave birth to Pyati, Kyakae and Pangali. Pangali later returned to the land where his parents had settled before, but his parents remained at Imalemanda. Kyakae married a Waiminikini woman whose name was Leme and had a son named Tai and two other sons, Kuli and Kopa. Tai was my father.
Later Tai had another son, Mulae, who was the youngest. When he was a teenager, he went to a garden at Yapekama and secretly dug up sweet potatoes with a wooden stake. The owner of the garden found out about the theft and drove away the young man. He fled to the land of the Lungupini Yambalekini clan where he stayed with a man named Kolo who adopted him. When Mulae grew up, he married a woman named Koma from the Yandamani Kyakae clan and had a son Lomean. He married a second wife, Makimi from the Walena clan and she had Waluni and Abone. The descendants of Mulae became part of the Lungupini Yambalekini clan. Now I have told you something about the history of the Lungupini clan.
Lungupini Expansion to the East
As the Lai became increasingly more populated, Lungupini had little choice but to expand eastward toward the lower Lai as did the related tribe of Yandamani. When the Yambalekini clan of Lungupini moved into the Lower Lai area near Tupikores, it came into conflict with clans already settled there particularly the Yandamani clans of Yanana, Lanymini, Yatikini, Kopakini, Miunugini and Watale as well as Lyakani, a clan that had migrated from Sikini Wapai near Pina to the lower Lai. Lungupini Yambalekini squeezed these clans out of some of their land and also drove Andaluni and Waia over to the Baiyer side of the Lai. Lungupini was an early participant in the Tee cycle and formed an important link between the Lai valley and the Kompiama area.
members interviewed
Lungupini
Lao Tai, Yakau clan of Imalemanda, Kamani Tilia, Yambalekini clan of Tupikores (plus numerous men in gathering at Tupikores), Luther Wia, Yakau clan, Yaibosa, (plus other men gathered at Yaibosa). (Note: most of the Lungupini information presented here comes from our interview with Lao Tai. It should be mentioned that other elders interviewed at Yaibosa and Tupikores gave similar information on Lungupini origins, genealogy, the sangai male initiation and the Yae Tee. We have used Lao’s material here because information from other informants is more fragmented.)
CLANS AND LOCATIONS
Lungupini
Note: Lungupini is highly dispersed, particularly groups in the lower Lai and so it is difficult to give one place name for the single clans.
| Clan | Location | Nearest school/aid post |
|---|---|---|
| Sau | Yaibosa | Yaibos |
| Yakau | Yaibosa and | Yaibos and |
| Tupatesa/Mateamanda | Yalisa | |
| Yambalekini | Leoamanda | Tupikores |
| Taekini | Wainapekoma | Tupikores/Yalisa |