Monaini

In the beginning just after heaven and earth were created, there were two young men. They were sitting on the bank of the Lagaip river, near the road junction at Mamale, Laiagam. They became involved in a heated discussion over which way the river flowed. They argued and argued but could not reach any conclusion. Finally, one of them had an idea. He got up and went over to a waima tree that stood by the bank of the riverside. He chopped it down, cut off its branches, and hollowed out the trunk. He squeezed into the hollow and asked the other man to push it into the river.

 

Just before the log was launched on its journey, the man inside the log said, “Now we will find out in which direction the river flows and where it goes. ”

 

The Lagaip river flows to the west and the log kept floating down the river until it reached a place called Leapo. It did not come to rest there but kept floating on and on until it reached Aiaka and then the junction of the Lagaip and Keta rivers. Not far from there is a place called Laibuala where the river changes its course, creating a small inlet. The log was carried into the inlet where it came to rest.

(Leo of the Monaini Pakupu clan, Kasap)

I will tell you the origin tradition of Monaini. A long time ago a kambua fern and yakitapu grass mated and had a son Yuuandate at Kasap. Yuuandate gave birth to a son named Itatanda, and two daughters named Taniwana and Lungutalewana. They lived at Kopeaka not far from Kasap above the inlet of Laibuala in the Lagaip river.

 

One day when the weather was hot and dry, the two sisters decided to collect firewood by the banks of the river. Their brother, Itatanda, stayed home. When the sisters reached the riverbank, they walked up and down looking for firewood. They had not gone far when they found a waima log lying on top of a large stone. They picked up the log, carried it home, and placed it in one of their pig stalls where there was a mother pig with her two piglets.

 

The sisters were not aware that there were two men hidden in the waima log. When the sisters were gone, the two men came out and walked around the house. They cooked some of the food by the hearth and killed and roasted one of the piglets. They did this for several days until the family realized that all their piglets were missing. They began to search the house, desperate to find out what had happened to the piglets, but their search was in vain. In the end, they gave up and brought the waima log outside to chop up. When they split the log, inside were the two young men. They had grown older during their journey and now were full grown men with beards. The sisters told their brother of their discovery, and they all agreed that the two men should stay with them at Kopeaka, and so they did.

 

As time passed, the friendship between the family and the two men grew. The two men found the sisters very attractive and later married them. The man who married Lungutalewana moved to the north and gave birth to many children there, including Epelya, Wakune, Pyui, Wingi and Kewai. The other man who married Taniwana had three sons, Loo, Waipape and Yandama. The brother Itatanda married and fathered Kipula, Laekini, Diuatini and Tindipisa. Tindipisa was devoured by a forest demon. The name Monaini is the name for the waima log which the men used to float down the river.

(Lemendai Mata of the Monaini Lakini clan, Kasap)

Lakini and Tindipisa were brothers and the sons of Monaini. One day they went to the Mauonga forest to hunt possum. They reached a hut in the forest and decided to spend the night there. Lakini told his younger brother Tindipisa to stay in the hut while he went to the forest to hunt. Before he left, he told him,

 

“When I am in the forest, do not say the words for axes, spears or arrows, and do not make a sound if you are surprised or in pain.” (To change language when in the bush, and observe other restrictions for fear of forest demons, was common practice in Enga and other parts of the highlands.)

 

Tindipisa remained near the hut but mistakenly wandered into a patch of stinging nettles. The nettles burned him so badly that he said some of the words that his brother had warned him not to say and went into the hut to rest.

 

While he was in the hut, a stranger appeared and asked, “Why did you come, and whom did you come with?”

 

“We came here to hunt. I am with my brother Lakini, and he is out in the forest hunting possums,” Tindipisa told the stranger.

 

“Okay then, take these parcels. The small one is for you, and the bigger one for your brother. They contain meat. You can open yours and eat now if you like but keep the other one for your brother and do not open it,” the stranger said in a calm and persuasive voice. Then he left.

 

Not long after the stranger left, Tindipisa opened his parcel, took out a heart and another piece of meat, and ate the heart. He kept the other piece of meat and the parcel for Lakini. Late in the evening, Lakini arrived back from hunting. When he came into the hut, Tindipisa said,

 

“A stranger came while you were away and offered us two parcels of meat. One is for you and the other for me. Let’s eat them.”

 

“Describe the stranger for me,” Lakini said, so Tindipisa described him. As he listened to his brother’s description, Lakini knew that Tindipisa had said something that he should not have said, and an expression of fear crossed his face. He dropped the net bag of possums and said to his brother,

 

“It is getting late, so we must roast the possums. Give me the axe and I will go out and collect firewood.” Lakini had lied to him. He was planning to run for his life. He knew that the stranger who had given them meat was the forest demon who ate human flesh, the Wataka, and that Tindipisa would already be under the demon’s spell. The forest demon would soon come back to eat him, and he must get away before he was eaten as well.

 

Tindipisa gave the axe to Lakini and Lakini wasted no time. He wanted to put a long distance between himself and the demon. His brother was under the spell of the demon, and he knew that there was nothing that he could do for him.

 

Lakini kept running and running, stricken by fear of the Wataka man. He crossed gorges, hills, and valleys, leaving his brother behind. When he reached a place called Kyakaipai, he could hear the blood-thirsty cry of the demon. He descended a cliff and climbed a hill. He looked back and, in the distance, saw a figure running and behind him another one which he recognized as that of the demon. The first was his brother who cried,

 

“Help, Help! The Wataka is coming after me!” He tried to climb down the cliff but before he could get to the bottom, the demon grabbed him. He ripped off Tindipisa’s testicles and ate them. Leaving the body there, the forest demon looked across the gorge. He saw that Lakini was not far from an area inhabited by people, and knew that he could not get him, so the demon returned to the forest.

 

Lakini had a tato stick which he planted at the edge of the forest. The place is called Takae Watako to this day. Tato trees grow where Lakini planted the stick. Tindipisa was eaten by the Watako forest demon who then carried the bones to a hill and buried them. In his flight, Lakini built a bridge over the Keta River, where the river flows through a narrow corridor with walls on both sides. The demon lives in a place called Kapyalama. Not far from there is a stone wall where one can see the prints of the Watako demon’s blood-stained hands, which he wiped on the wall after eating. Today we have houses, gardens, and pandanus trees there. If the Watako forest demon had not eaten Tindipisa, he would have had descendants today.

(Kaepa Yakoposa, of the Monaini Lakini clan, Kasap)

Maipu, a son of Diuatini, was living at Poko near Mulitaka a long time ago. A man from the Diuatini Maipa clan killed a Kaia man, and a fight broke out. During the fight, no Diuatini man was killed to avenge the death of the Kaia man, and so when the fight came to an end, Kaia decided to avenge the death in a payback killing rather than a tribal fight. They offered a Diuatini man one of their girls in payment if he killed a fellow Diuatini man. He accepted the offer and murdered a young man from the Diuatini Kakaipu clan by sneaking into his house and chopping him up with an axe while he was sleeping. The man who was murdered had just gotten married.

 

The Kakaipu clan blamed the matter on the Maipu clan who had started the fight in the first place. They told the Maipu clan that later they would help them in their fight against Kaia, but first they needed to avenge the death of their man. They did so one day when a man from another Diuatini clan was building a house. A Maipu man came over to help him thatch the roof of his house, and while they were working, a Kakaipu man who had been hiding in the bushes jumped out and split the Maipu man’s head open with his axe. Shortly after, when a Maipu man met a Kakaipu man, he murdered him in payback. By this time the situation had gotten very tense, and a tribal fight broke out inside Diuatini. Many people were killed. Maipu clansmen and their wives and children fled to the Maramuni by the Molyoko track. Kakaipu and other Diuatini fled by the Pawapi track. Most of them later settled in Maramuni near Pasalakusa.

(Apele Ipai, Diuatini Kakaipu, Maramuni)