The tribes of Lakani and Waitini were the easternmost Enga tribes in the Kompiam area at the time of their origin tradition some eight generations before present. Their origin tradition takes place at Pulitesa between Laialama and Alaguli. The theme is a common one in Enga oral traditions:
A long time ago, only one man was living near (Laialama). He lived in a man’s house on top of a small hill called Nele Leasa Akalyanda. He fortified the hill by planting special trees and bush plants. In the middle of these fortifications, he built his house. From his house, he went out hunting, and all the surrounding lands were his hunting grounds. The land provided so much food that he always had more than enough food in his house.
One day he roasted cassowary meat, possum, and taro as he usually did, took the food out of the earth oven, and ate to his heart’s content. When he could eat no more, he took the leftover meat from tanakae possums and wrapped them in leaves. Then he took the parcel to a kendoli tree and wedged it between its trunk and one of its branches, intending to finish the meat later. That evening he heard the sound of a cicada coming from the east.
The next day, after the man had finished his work, he went to get the food that he had placed there the previous evening. To his surprise, the food was not where he had left it. He did not think twice about it and went home and slept. The next day, he went out hunting, killed several possums, came home and roasted the meat with other foods. When the food was cooked, he ate some and put the rest in the crotch of the kendoli tree just as he had done previously. The same thing happened again and again, and he began to wonder about the disappearance of the food. He noted that it always occurred after he heard the sound of the cicada that always came from the east. The curious disappearance of the food continued for some time.
When we were created, forest demons or bogeymen (pututuli) were also created. The sound of the cicada was actually the sound of the pututuli coming to steal the food. The pututuli began to feel indebted to the man for all the food he had stolen and wondered what he could do in return for the food he ate.
Somewhere to the east in an area near where Waitini and Lakani are settled today (near Labalama), there were two girls. They were of unrivaled beauty and all the young men in the area wanted to marry them. One day in the Wale area, a sing-sing was held, and the two girls went to watch. During the sing-sing, the pututuli went into the nearby forest and cut the bark of two kupi trees. He made ropes from the bark and dragged them to the house in which the girls were staying. While they were attending the sing-sing, he slipped unseen into the women’s house. He made two rolls of rope and hid them underneath a heap of dry sugar cane husks which covered the floor of the women’s house. He took the girls’ pandanus leaf raincapes and spread them out on top of the ropes and sugar cane husks. Then he went to the ceremonial grounds to watch the dance.
By the time he arrived, the two girls were dancing. Their fine decoration and unmatched beauty left the young men dazzled in admiration. The spectators talked of nothing but the beauty of the two girls. In the evening, the dance stopped and the crowd dispersed to their homes. The two girls made their way to their house and crawled exhausted into their sleeping quarters. They slept on top of the roll of ropes and raincapes that the pututuli had prepared for them.
When the girls were sound asleep, the pututuli tied up the two girls and carried them up out of the Wale gorge. The girls did not move for they were under the magic spell of the pututuli. The pututuli intended to use the girls to pay off his debt to the man who had fed him so well.
He traveled a long distance carrying the two sleeping girls and brought them into the back section of the men’s house at Nele. He lay them down on a bed of possum fur and cassowary feathers and crept out of the house returning to where he had come from. He felt satisfied that he had paid back the man.
The man woke up from his sleep and began to play the Jew’s harp. He changed tunes often playing ones which reminded him of his days of hunting, planting, chopping firewood and so on. The girls awoke and scolded him,
“After courtship parties, decent young men leave the women’s house and go to the men’s house with the other young men. Who is this young man who has not gone to sleep in the men’s house and is still playing the Jew’s harp until the break of dawn?”
The sound of their voices caught the young man by surprise. “Who is there?” Who are you?” He asked.
“What kind of a man is he that he has not gone to the men’s house?” The girls continued to ask.
“I am not sleeping in your woman’s house, you are sleeping in my man’s house,” he said, cutting them short. “If what you say is true, then you will hear the song of the wambia bird at dawn and you shall see red pandanus nuts. However, if you are in my man’s house on my land, then you will see the Lai stone walls and hear the song of the Lai mapya bird.”
Just as he finished saying this, they heard the song of the Lai mapya. The girls sat still in their sleeping places. Then one poked the other and whispered, “We didn’t hear the song of the kailende and timale birds of our land. We must be in a foreign place.” Shocked and puzzled, they sat there in silence.
“There, you didn’t hear the songs of the birds in your land. Come outside and see for yourself.” the man said.
The girls put on their grass skirts and prepared to leave, but as they were dressing, they peeked out a hole in the house wall and didn’t like what they saw. They saw steep stone walls and heard the sound of waterfalls. In humiliation, they drew back and sat down. However, the man gave them way to pass and said,
“Come this way and get ready to go home.” The two girls did as they were told and the man gave them possum and cassowary meat to fill their net bags.
The pututuli, through magic, had created the steep stone cliffs and had planted dense groves of stinging nettles at their base to stop the two girls from going home. When the girls came outside and saw what surrounded them, they felt miserable. Nothing at all reminded them of their homeland. The steep stone walls and the landscape were not like anything they had seen before.
Nonetheless, they attempted to find their way home, but in vain. The stone walls fenced them in, the nettles stung them, and the snails and leeches clung to their bodies. Their beautifully tattooed faces were blotched by nettle stings, and they no longer looked like the beautiful girls they had once been, but like lepers. When they were completely worn out, they realized that they could not find their way out and returned to the man’s house.
When they arrived at the door of the men’s house, the man said to them gently, “So you two have returned.” The two girls were very timid and acted like frightened dogs trying to slink into a house unseen.
“We lost our way, so we came back,” they answered. The man told them to come inside and laid out cassowary meat, possum meat and all other kinds of food for them to eat. One of the girls pulled herself together and showed no signs of weariness or despair, but the other refused to eat and just lay there on her stomach.
The next morning the man filled their net bags with food once more and suggested that they try again. He too was concerned and sympathetic about their situation, but there was nothing he could do. He did not know where they had come from or how they had come. That was all the doing of the pututuli.
The girls went out in search of a passage that could lead them home, but to no avail, so they returned to the men’s house that night in despair. They tried again the next day and when they had no luck by noon, the one girl who had calmed down said, “Sister, if I go home and get married, that man will probably be no different from this man who I have met by chance. I will stay here and marry this man; eat the food he provides and settle here. As for you, my sister, why don’t you keep on trying and maybe you will find your way home.”
With these words, she left her sister in the bush and returned to the men’s house. The man was not there when she arrived, so she ate some of the food he had left for her and remained in the house doing the chores expected of a woman. The other girl tried as hard as she could to find a way out of the stone walls that surrounded her. She felt broken with despair, and she became so dizzy and confused that she was on the verge of collapse. Then she thought of the men’s house and by sheer willpower managed to make her way back to the men’s house, arriving late at night. Exhausted, she slept.
So it happened that both young women became the wives of the man. He built a woman’s house for them and spent most of his time in the men’s house. The two women became pregnant at about the same time and gave birth to two sons. They became strong and healthy on the meat provided by their father and the sons had grown up into young men.”
This story continues with an incident concerning the two boys. It appears however, that a generation or two are left out here and that this incident refers to the sons of Waitini, not the sons of the man and his two wives.
“One day the two brothers asked their father why he always went to the forest alone to get food and why he didn’t bring them with him. He decided that it was time to bring them along and teach them how to hunt and trap. They went up the ridge and trapped many possums and cassowary. The boys cleaned and prepared the animals while their father built a bush hut. After doing this he told his sons to chop firewood, roast the possums and cassowary, and to stay near the hut. He told them that he was going out to hunt more possums and that they should prepare the hut for the night. He divided the hut in half and gave one side to each brother. Then he left.
Later in the afternoon when he returned from hunting, he was pleased to see how his young sons had managed. One of the boys had collected poa leaves to make his bed, and the other had collected sapily aleaves. The father praised them for what they had done and nicknamed one Poane, the one who gathers poa leaves and the other sapilya, the one who gathers sapilya leaves. The descendants of Poane and Sapilya make up two clans bearing the names of their forefathers.
The people here used to hunt possums and roast them ritually at the sites where the first man built his men’s house, at the place where the pututuli stole the food and at the spot where the father built the hut for the two boys.
(Lomakali Kone, Waitini tribe of Laialama)
There are many different versions of this story, all of which follow a similar theme though the places of origin of the pututuli’s wives vary.
When Lakani and Waitini were settled at Pulitesa, they appear to have formed the northeastern frontier of the Enga speaking population. Most of the area to the east was inhabited by Wapi, Bulae and perhaps Lembena speakers. A narrative given by Kalita Tipa of the Waitini Kikitalowe clan at Walelama describes this frontier situation:
The Lakani tribe lived on this side of the river (a tributary of the Wale) and the Waitini on the other side. The two depended on each other for help in case of enemy attack. When the enemy from Wapi, Mumanda and Sulungu in the east came to attack Lakani, then Waitini would help Lakani and vice versa. It was said in the Wapi Language: Polyata kapukamata, tupala kamakutate.” That was to say, “When Lakani went to battle, Waitini would come to his aid.” We were brothers and should have stayed together at Laialama.
Kalita then went on to give the following explanation for their dispersal, a tradition representing lack of cooperation and quarrels which led to the eventual dispersal of the two groups. From narratives collected at other locations, the motivation to seek good land was of equal importance.
A long time ago our forefathers went out hunting in all directions. Some went in the direction of the Tarua and others went to hunt in the Wale region. (Presumably they were hunting for a communal feast or ritual). Those who went hunting in the Wale region returned first and roasted the possums. Those who went to the Tarua region came back late and were disgruntled because the first group had roasted and eaten the possums in their absence. Tempers flared and a fight broke out. It is said that the two groups took up their bows and arrows and exchanged arrow shots. Then they stopped fighting and dispersed in all directions, some leaving for the Wale area, others for the Tarua area, and still others to different destinations. Most of Lakani and Waitini migrated to Alutesa near Labalama where they live now, but some Waitini live at Walemanda and others at Andaemanda. Waitini scattered after further internal clashes. However, it is said that most of our forefathers lived and died at Alutesa.
Genealogies for the dispersed groups are difficult to reconstruct. Lakani appears to have had four sons: Pipipae, Paimandane, Litipini, and Apilya. Most of Pipipae, Apilya and Litipini stayed near Pulitesa in the Laialama/Alakuli area. Part of Litipini migrated to Aekosa in the upper Sau valley after a fight over land. Some of Paimandane remained in the Laialama area while the rest migrated to Ipamauanda near Labalama. According to patrol reports, some Lakani sub-clans went to the upper Wapi, crossed the Sau-Wapi divide and wiped out a Wapi group to take their land.
The two sons of Waitini are said to be Poane and Sapilya. Waitini is even more widely dispersed than Lakani and we were unable to collect a coherent genealogy or distribution of Waitini clans.