Long ago, when there were not many people living here, there was a snake (molopai or python) and a man. The snake’s name was Bipi Molopai and the man’s name was Kuu. Their house was situated on a place which is called Bipi Kama today, the ceremonial grounds for the Bipi tribe. There in the men’s house they lived together on unusual terms. The house was divided in half by an imaginary line, and each of them knew that one side of the house, both inside and out, belonged to each of them. They were not allowed to touch anything on the other side of the house.
One day late in the afternoon, Kuu returned home, opened the door of the house, and scrambled into his side of the room. He looked for his fire tongs. Kuu looked all around his side of the house for his tongs, but they were not to be found. He saw Bipi’s tongs on the other side of the house but knew that he must not touch them. Even so, he wanted to use the tongs so much that he reached over and borrowed them. He made the fire and cooked his food using the fire tongs. Then he just sat idly by the fire and warmed himself.
Very late that evening, Bipi came home and sat in his side of the house. As soon as he sat down, his fire tongs started clicking together (a metaphor for gossip), and then Bipi suspected that Kuu had used them and asked him if he had.
“Yes, I borrowed your fire tongs,” answered Kuu nodding his head. “I looked for mine and couldn’t find them anywhere, so I used yours.”
Without saying a word, Bipi picked up his tongs and threw them at Kuu with all his might. Kuu threw them back at Bipi, and they continued to fight this way for a while and then stopped, wondering what had gotten into them. They had never done anything like this before.
Kuu was very upset, “I must leave,” he said. “We cannot live together anymore.” With that, he left the house; he jumped into a gulley that went down the mountain side. At the foot of the mountain, he made his new home. At the place where he built his house, a pai tree grows, marking the spot where Kuu settled after leaving Bipi Molopai. At Bipi Kama, where Bipi Molopai remained, our forefathers held the Kepele ritual. Where the pai tree grows, our fathers held the Watake ritual. Ever since Bipi and Kuu separated, they have lived apart from one another.
One day after Kuu and Molopai had separated, a Maulu man came into the area, following the river. Molopai was at home at Bipi Kama when he arrived. The Maulu man had made a long journey and was very tired, for it was already late afternoon.
“From where did you come?” Molopai asked him.
“I came from Maulu Pausa and am just passing through this area,” he answered. “Before I tell you anymore, let me just light my pipe and heat up the sweet potato I brought with me.” By this time, it was getting dark, and Maulu wondered where he could spend the night. There was no house in sight, and Molopai was just sitting in a clearing.
As they sat there in the forest clearing, they could hear a chorus of voices singing. The voices, which were coming from all directions, came closer and closer. In the darkness, the Maulu man could only make out some figures approaching, many figures carrying small, wrapped bundles. They approached Molopai and dropped the bundles at his feet, making a large heap. Then, as if by magic, they made a house-like formation and turned into a house, some of them becoming the rafters, others beams and posts, and still others thatch on the roof.
There before him stood a house to sleep in. The Maulu man was amazed and could not in any way understand what had happened. Maulu went into the house with Molopai. The inside was comfortable and spacious. They brought all the parcels into the house, and Molopai gave some of them to the Maulu man. They opened the parcels and, to Maulu’s surprise, they contained all the foods his heart could desire – cassowary meat, kepa and tanakae possums, mushrooms and other bush foods. Molopai and Maulu ate their fill and went to sleep.
A tinalupi bird made its call to signal daybreak. Molopai woke up from his sleep and sat there wide awake. Then he said to the figures who made up the house, “Do not sleep soundly, but wake up because I have something to tell you. We must ask this man who is staying with us, why he came here. Nobody must leave until we find out.”
The figures who made up the house were Molopai’s children, and they did not want to ask the man why he had come. Only one agreed to do so. When Maulu awoke, he asked why he had come.
“I have come from Maulu Pausa to ask if there was somebody who could help me cut down the trees in my newly made garden,” he replied.
“I’ll come help you,” replied Molopai’s son. By this time Molopai’s other sons had left for the bush, and Molopai gave his son permission to accompany the Maulu man. The boy and the Maulu man prepared for their trip back, taking with them some of the food they had not eaten the previous night.
They set off on their journey and, not too far from Bipi Kama, the boy wanted to hunt along the way. Maulu told the boy to take another route and go hunting and that they would meet further down along the valley.
They met down the valley as they had agreed to, and there the boy gave Maulu some of the possums he had killed. The Maulu man stuffed them into his net bag. They went down into a steep gorge and climbed the next ridge. The boy carried a heavy load but still showed no signs of weariness. He went ahead and kept hunting, leaving some of the possums on the next ridge for the Maulu man to carry. The Maulu man, who was tired by this time, stuffed them in his net bag and continued. The boy kept hunting until he reached another rocky river near the place that is called Titipa today and left some more possums there for the Maulu man to carry. When the Maulu man reached this spot and loaded the additional possums in his net bag, it was so heavy that he could hardly lift it. He managed to load it on his back but could barely get up. He staggered to the next rocky ridge where the boy had left the last load of possums.
“If I carry all of this, it will kill me. My lungs and ribs will burst, and my bones will pop out of joint,” he gasped when he saw all the food.
The boy, seeing how tired the Maulu man was, picked up the heavy load and carried it for him. Finally, they reached the Maulu man’s house. From there they could see the new garden that he had talked about. It was at a place called Lyakipau. The garden was almost completed – only the branches of the trees needed to be cut off. The Maulu man took some dry wood he had stacked nearby, made a fire and cooked sweet potatoes. They supplemented these with the forest foods the boy had gotten along the way. Maulu remembered what the boy’s father had told him before they left – that they should eat and work together, but not sleep close to each other, so he told the boy to go and sleep alone in the men’s house which was nearby.
At the first call of the tinalupi bird at dawn, they set out to work in the new garden. The boy worked hard and diligently, and they spent the whole day cutting branches. At night they roasted teke and tanakai possum nearby and the boy went to sleep in the men’s house as he had done the night before. The Maulu man slept in the woman’s house. The next day the boy worked so hard that by evening the garden was nearly completed. On the third day, the boy went to sleep in the men’s house as he had done the night before.
By this time the Maulu man was really curious. There was one thing that he had to find out about. After the boy had gone to bed, he gathered some stems of tall grass, brought them to the woman’s house, tied them in a bundle and lit them. Using this as a torch, he left the woman’s house and had not gone far when he ran into something. In the torchlight, he saw that something was encircling the men’s house and the stack of firewood. Taking a closer look, he saw that it was a snake. He went to the men’s house and saw that the boy was not there. He was suspicious but went back to the woman’s house to sleep.
In the morning, he called all his brothers and clansmen together and told them to chop firewood, collect stones and leaves to prepare for a feast. When all the preparations had been made, he said, “We will roast tanakae possum.”
The men waited for the evening and then went with the Maulu man to the place where the snake was lying and clubbed it. He chopped the snake’s head with his axe to knock it unconscious, heated stones for the oven pit and laid it in the pit. They decided that the snake would not be well cooked until the morning, so they went off to sleep. They noticed that the boy was not sleeping in the men’s house that night.
At daybreak, the boy woke up from his sleep and found himself in a most unlikely situation. He realized that he was in an oven pit and the steam from the hot stones was uncomfortable. His head felt burning hot. Somehow, he managed to crawl out of the oven and fled. When Maulu woke up and came out to uncover the roasted food, to his amazement, the oven had already been opened and was empty. The snake had just escaped death.
Meanwhile, the snake had changed himself back into a boy and was making his way home. His wounds ached and he felt dizzy, so he bound his wounds with take leaves and fastened them on with gum from a tree. He continued until he reached Kepa where he changed the dressing on his wounds. He did the same at Kokolo and finally arrived at Bipi Kama, his home. There he dressed his wounds at Bipi Kama while his father sat watching.
“You are in bad shape, my son,” he said. “What happened to you?”
“I was killed and roasted by the man you sent me with. He wanted to eat me, but I escaped and came home,” the boy answered quietly.
Bipi welcomed his son home.
(Painda Kaimane of the Kuu Wapinyo clan, Taitangesa, Longape)
This version of the Bipi Molopai legend is the most detailed one we were told, except for the ending, which is told differently by Bipi clansmen and used to explain the dispersal of Bipi clans:
After having fled from Maulu, the boy went down to the Lai Purari River to bind his wounds. He bound his wounds with take leaves and cut a pai stick to use as a crutch. From there he went on to Angole and rested before going on to Bipi Kama. Along the way, he sang this song to the Maulu man,
“Did you eat the Molopai raw or roasted?”
After he arrived at Bipi Kama, he told Molopai and the other snakes what happened. Worried that the same thing would happen to his other sons, Molopai sent them each off in a different direction.
The boy, who was named Bipi, said to them, “Farewell, go to Puanga, Palyanga, and Wakona (places in the upper Lai-Purare and Wage region) and tell the people that Maulu killed the Molopai and ate him.”
The snakes went their own way. Later, one found Maulu, chased him and caught him, killed him and ate him. He hung Maulu’s jaw at the front of the entrance to his house.
(Kunjo Puio of the Bipi clan, Telyatesa)
Bipi clans in areas such as Laiagama, Porgera, and Tari are said to be descendants of Bipi’s brothers who fled. Bipi remained at Bipi Kama and founded the Bipi clans in the Kandep area today. The Kepele ritual was held in all the places where Bipi stopped to dress his wounds.
Most of the Bipi legends end with the dispersal of Molopai’s sons in their fear of being cooked and eaten like their brother. However, Pianda Kamaine completed his legendary tale with the revenge of Molopai. This is not a story specific to Bipi, but one told all over the province by agricultural groups explaining how some of their members disappeared in the forest and were consumed by demons which were believed to dwell there:
One day a man from Maulu tribe came to Yukutimandaka. He came with his son on a hunting expedition for rats and possum. They were on Kuu land when they reached a clearing with a hut.
The father said to his son, “Stay here and roast the bush rats we have trapped, while I go out and hunt possums. Listen to me carefully and keep my advice in your head. A man will come while I am away and he will offer you food. Whatever you do, be sure not to accept it.”
With those words, the father left. The boy went about roasting rats and setting new traps. Not long after the father left, a tall, light-skinned man appeared. His sudden appearance took the boy off guard, and he was very frightened. He hurried into the hut and sat by the fire he had made without taking his eyes off the stranger.
“Who are you and what are you doing here?” asked the stranger.
“I am from Maulu and have come here hunting with my father,” the boy replied. The man patted him on the shoulder in a friendly gesture and gave him two parcels wrapped in sundu leaves.
“Here is something to eat. You can eat the food in one bundle now but save the other for your father when he returns. There is nothing but food in the bundles.” The man left and the boy opened the bundles and ate. He waited for his father who came back in the evening.
“Did you kill any tanakae possum?” The boy asked.
“No, not a single one,” the father answered. The father noticed that the boy’s face was smeared with grease from meat. He looked down at his hands and they too were greasy. Then he asked his son, “Did you chop any firewood?”
“No,” replied the boy.
Noticing that his son’s body was smeared with grease, the father asked, “Did you take something from the man? I ask, did you? I told you not to. Did you?”
“The man brought two parcels of meat. I ate some and left the rest for you,” the boy answered, upset.
The father looked worried (knowing his son had been bewitched) and said, “Wait for me in the hut, I will go out and get some firewood.” He took his axe and hurried off into the forest. He pretended to look for firewood, but when he got out of sight of his son, he ran back on the path they had come on.
“Where are you going?” The son called after him, but the father did not answer. He kept running as fast as his legs would carry him.
“Father, are you leaving me? Please come back,” the son shouted pleadingly after him. Soon the father was down in a gorge out of hearing distance of his son. He climbed the next ridge and his son followed him, yelling for him to wait.
When the boy reached Bipi Kama, his father was already at Laetoko. When the boy arrived at Talyakau, his father was already at Kepya. At Auni, the boy met the stranger who had given him food in the forest.
“Stay here with me,” the stranger said. He then took the boy deep into the forest, and he was never seen again. This is the legend of how the Molopai ate Maulu’s son in revenge.
The myth of Bipi Molopai and Maulu is also told at Porgera, in the Lagaip and by other groups in Kandep. It is used for three purposes:
- to tell of the split between Bipi and Kuu;
- to explain a change in the lifestyle, distribution and relations of Bipi and Kuu groups, and
- to account for the spread of the large and elaborate Kepele fertility ceremony.
According to the Molopai myth, Bipi and Kuu groups were living at Bipi Kama early in their oral history. Versions of this myth told by Bipi and Kuu groups at Porgera confirm Bipi Kama as the focal area for the Bipi tribe but give a much wider range for Bipi and Kuu tribes at this time. The Molopai from Bipi Kama was said to travel throughout his land in the high country of the upper Lai-Purare and Wage valleys between northern Kandep and Porgera. At Tipinini near Porgera, it is said that the Molopai wrapped itself around Mt. Kaijende to rest, and that its tracks can still be seen there on the rocks today.
In occupying the land of the upper Wage and Lai-Purare, Bipi had close ties with groups directly to the north in the Lagaip and to the west in the Porgera area. Interaction and intermarriage with Bipi and Kuu are so frequently mentioned in the history of these groups who are part of a network of tribes that occupied the highland areas between northern Kandep, Laiagama and Porgera than as a part of Kandep. In contrast, intermarriage with groups to the south is less frequently mentioned, and relations with these are characterized by misunderstanding.
The lifestyle described for Bipi and Kuu at the beginning of oral history is one of hunters and gatherers. Their lack of permanent residence is described in Molopai’s sitting in a clearing during the day and his sons arriving to form a shelter at night. The hunting and gathering skills of Molopai’s son, in contrast with those of Maulu, the agriculturalist, are vividly exhibited during the journey of Molopai’s son and Maulu to Maulu’s home. If Bipi and Kuu groups engaged in agriculture when their historical traditions began some 11 generations ago, there is nothing in their oral traditions that suggests this. They may, however, have traded forest products for agricultural ones.
The meaning of the encounter between Maulu and Bipi and Maulu’s attempt to roast and eat the snake is best understood considering the history of southern Kandep tribes. In asking the question, ‘Exactly who tried to roast Bipi Molopai and why?’, we got the general answer that it was the agriculturalists of southern Kandep who were originally settled in the fertile Kaupa valley. Maulu, Timitopa, Yalipuni, and Aimbatepa, amongst others, each have their own version of the myth in which they asked for help from Bipi men in clearing gardens and, not realizing that the snake was Bipi’s son, tried to roast him.
In Aimbatepa history, the Aimbatepa man came to get help from Bipi at the time that Aimbatepa had given its land in the Kaupa valley to Maulu and was moving up into its former hunting territories and clearing the dense bush for new gardens. Apparently, this shift in settlement was made possible by the arrival of the sweet potato, as suggested in the name of a garden ritual held by Aimbatepa and Kambitipa near Lakalapa: ‘Aina yoko wapuingi saa ingi waitake pingi ‘or ‘the feast to create the sweet potato leaf and to forget about eating the innards of possums.’
When different versions of the Molopai myth from different areas are considered, it becomes evident that the Molopai myth describes relations between hunter-gatherer and agricultural groups. That is, at a time when agricultural groups were expanding out of the Kaumbo valley to settle in their former hunting grounds, they sought men from hunting and gathering tribes to the north to work for them as laborers. Differences in their lifestyle led to misunderstanding, poor treatment of the laborers, and conflict. According to Bipi interviewed in Porgera, after Maulu tried to kill the Bipi Molopai, Bipi tribesmen dispersed over their original vast territory and settled in the more favorable areas, shifting from hunting to agriculture.
While on one hand the Molopai myth describes past relations with agriculturalists and corresponding dispersal and settlement, on the other, it is used to track the spread of the Kepele fertility ritual to neighboring groups. In all versions of the legend, the snake man is portrayed as a hardworking and extraordinarily capable young man. He is attributed to the magical powers of being able to change into a snake but always retains very appealing human qualities. When he miraculously escapes death in the oven, he makes his way through the Kandep area to Bipi Kama. Every place he stopped to dress his wounds is said to have become a site for the Kepele ritual.
Dispersal and Settlement of Bipi and Kuu
After warning his brothers to disperse, both Bipi and Kuu groups settled in the more fertile areas of their land – Longape, Karekare, Yumbisa, Kindarepa, Imapaika, and Kaidiki, amongst other places. Since most of these areas are high, over 2300 meters and unsuitable for taro, this must have occurred after the arrival of the sweet potato. Wohlt gives a description of this process for the Kapii clan at Yumbisa. His account is based on Kapii oral history but reconstructed with “a great deal of literary license” (Wohlt, 197:27). It begins with the clan founder Kapii building a pandanus hut at Yumbisa (Kare Kare) and goes on to describe his settlement there:
“… A few days later (ie. after he had constructed the hut), Kapii returned with his family, pigs and relatives. The harvest was good as expected; they (and the pigs) ate as much as they wanted, and dried and carried back as much as they could. In subsequent years they returned, each time rebuilding the house more permanently and clearing a bit of forest around it in the process. During the pandanus season, men worked hard cutting, clearing and carrying nuts (the bush was after all the province of men) while women, relieved of their garden obligations, had little that had to be done. On one occasion, his wife brought with her a bundle of yumbi sweet potato vines, made a few mounds by the house and planted them. The soil looked good. Perhaps someone would come back to see.
Many months later, Kapii and his two older brothers, Meoko and Epee, wanted to hunt marsupials in the bush. During the last pandanus season, Kapii had come upon a large pile of komaipa dung beneath a tree in the valley. A large marsupial must have lived there, and recalling this, they went back to see if they could kill it. When they reached the pandanus house, they noticed that the sweet potatoes that Kapii’s wife had planted were flourishing. When they dug out the tubers, they were astounded; they were huge, larger than any they had ever seen, with stout stems that they cut with their axes. This was indeed a fine place for gardening, they all agreed, and Kapii forthwith resolved to clear the surrounding bush.
Meoko and Epee were the first and third male children of the family, while Kapii was the fourth. Meoko and Epee had received better land from their father than their younger brothers and had developed their resources and connections before Kapii came of age. The last three sons of the family, Ekeme, Apone and Taumo, moved to another bush place near Kapii’s older brother Kungadine, the second born. Kapii’s father had marked Yumbisa to be Ekeme’s place, but the older siblings were too strong and took it from their younger brother when he did not exchange pigs properly. It was thus Kapii who actually moved to the “place of the yumbi sweet potato” Yumbisa – while the other two cut pandanus on nearby ground. His family flourished and he married several wives and had many sons. But Yumbisa turned out not to be quite the paradise it had appeared, for the frost fell there more often and harder than at Bipi. Still Kapii’s first three sons, Pao, Kepa and Yurimi, actually stayed at Yumbisa while the last three sons, Anamu, Murelyu and Apolo, gardened at Bipi. Before he died, the old man saw his older sons clear the bush along the valley edge and begin the process he had earlier envisaged of working out into the valley flats.
During the next hundred years, the people of Yumbisa grew in numbers, cleared forest, ditched the valley, and fought with their Huli enemies who were pioneering the other side of the valley. Land was abundant and many relatives were encouraged to come and live at Yumbisa. Descendants of Meoko and Epee gardened along the northern edge of the valley and with them the Kapii people occasionally fought.
About 1900, an especially bad frost killed the gardens. They knew what to do from previous experience; everyone packed up and went to stay with relatives at lower elevations. This was easily done since they maintained contact with relatives in far flung localities; lineal descendants of Kapii’s ancestors lived in many distant places. When they had re-established their Yumbisa gardens, they returned and life went on as before.”
(Wohlt 197 pp. 28-31)
The experience of planting sweet potato at Yumbisa, in former hunting and pandanus areas, and thereby discovering that the area was suitable for agriculture is also described in the history of other Enga tribes such as Yanaitini and Lyomoi. A similar process probably occurred in the settling of Bipi and Kuu tribes in Karekare, Kindarepa and Imapiaka. Not all segments of Bipi, however, settled in former hunting and pandanus lands; many also moved to lower areas with the marriage of Bipi men to women from other tribes. In the case of Bipi in the Porgera area, descendants of Meoko, one of Bipi’s sons, settled at Kaidiki near the intersection of Bipi and Maiyuni land, with the marriage of a Meoko man to a Maiyuni woman. Maiyuni is a tribe in the Ummambo (Tipinini) area that is credited with having brought sweet potatoes to higher altitude localities in Porgera. Later, they were joined by other Bipi groups. Tekepaini, now a large tribe with segments at Mulitaka and Tipinini, was also founded by Bipi who moved to their mother’s area in the event of severe frost and remained. Other Bipi and Kuu groups in Paiela and Tari most likely have similar histories.
members interviewed
Bipi and Kuu
- Painda Kaimane of Kuu Wapinyo, Longape;
- Potawi Mangene Tindiwi Loape and Mengeane of Kuu Yomondaka, Tipinini;
- Kunja Puio of the Bipi Yaoai clan, Telyatesa, Yapumi;
- Eyakali and Waipo Lewasi of Bipi, Telyatesa;
- Tokea Tawa, Kaikepai Poepi of Bipi, Kaidiki, Porgera;
- Palusa Pakele of Bipi Kungutini, Tipinini and others.
CLANS AND LOCATIONS
Bipi
Because Bipi and Kuu groups were already widely dispersed early in their historical traditions, we were unable to get any single genealogy that incorporates all Bipi and Kuu groups. The following is the genealogy that was generally accepted by most Bipi and Kuu. See Wohlt (197:50) for an alternate Bipi genealogy.
Sons of Molopai (brother of Molopai is Kuu)
- Bipi
Children of Bipi
- Yapaka
- Kiua
- Lendea (daughter who married Walini at Ipai, Laiagam)
- Tekepaini of Mulitaka and Tipinini
Sons of Yapaka
- Laoala
Sons of Laoala
| Clan | Location | Nearest school or aidpost |
|---|---|---|
| Ponape | Telyatesa | Yapumi, Kandep |
| Yaoi | Lakisa | Yapumi, Kandep |
| Diende | Telyatesa | Yapumi, Kandep |
Sons of Kiua
| Clan | Location | Nearest school or aidpost |
|---|---|---|
| Meoko of Bipi | Yapumi | Kandep |
| Kungutina | Kindarepa/Karekare | Laiagama, Porgera, Paiela Mayauma |
| Epee of Bipi | Yapumi | |
| Kapii | Yumbisa | Karekare |
CLANS AND LOCATIONS
Kuu
Sons of Kuu (brother of Kuu is Molopai)
• Nene
Sons of Nene
• Olaenda
Sons of Olaenda
• Papaki
Sons of Papaki
• Yapakatuta
Sons of Yapakatuta
| Clan | Location | Nearest school or aidpost |
|---|---|---|
| Pisepa | ||
| Kandelema | Ketenge | Karekare |
| Mipa | Aunaka | Longape |
| Mino | Aunaka | Longape |
| Yomondaka | Tipinini |
Sons of Pisepa
| Clan | Location | Nearest school or aidpost |
|---|---|---|
| Wapinyao | Walelyo | Longape |
| Yuna | Walelyo | Longape |
| Tapaili | Walelyo | Longape |
| Yukuli | Walelyo | Longape |
| Gipinya | Walelyo | Longape |
| Kambaia | Walelyo | Longape |
*Yomondaka is a descendant of Kuu, although he could not be placed precisely in Kuu genealogy. Kuu clan have descendants spread out over the upper Lai-Purare and Wage valleys and in Porgera, Paiela and Tari.