Yandamani origin traditions begin at Bilimanda on the north side of the Lai River near Pompabusa. No myths or legends for the origin of Yandamani were told in our interviews nor those of R. Lacey, who studied Yandamani historical traditions in the early 1970s. However, a legend from the Yambatani clan in the Saka valley mentions that in the ninth generation, a Yambatani man named Kitalini, married two women from different Yandamani groups in a politically strategic move to create a major exchange route to the north. This occurred in the generation in which most Yandamani genealogies begin, and thus Yandamani must have already been a large and important group.
Some younger Yandamani interviewed at Yalesa, claimed that Yandamani was originally from the Tambul (Kola) area and that it migrated into Enga with groups in the Saka, continuing on to Bilimanda in the Lai. However, none of the older Yandamani men agreed with this, and those interviewed in the Tambul area acknowledged that the Saka tribes had originated there but knew nothing at all of Yandamani. In the Saka, it was strongly denied that Yandamani’s origins were connected with Saka origins. Most probably, those who claimed Tambul/Saka origins for Yandamani were mistaking origins for early exchange ties.
Yandamani has 12 clans today, which in some genealogies are said to have been founded by Yandamani’s sons with different wives. In other versions of Yandamani genealogy, three of the clan founders are said to be the sons of Yandamani’s brother, Yala, who married some of Yandamani’s wives after Yandamani died. Yala is also attributed with being the father of Lungupini and Yanagi, the latter of whom had Tinilapini and Pumalini. The complex genealogies of Yandamani give order to what must have been a network of related groups at the beginning of the era.
Although there is no origin legend for Yandamani, there is one well-known legend which marks the expansion of Yandamani into the lower Lai area and the war in which Yandamani took much of Sinyi’s land to get a foothold in the Yalesa area. The fight mentioned in the legend took place in the seventh to eighth generation and involved Sinyi’s granddaughter:
A long time ago in Elyai (Yalesa) there lived a man by the name of Sinyi. The land of Elyai belonged to Sinyi. At Elyai there was an unmarried woman, the granddaughter of Sinyi, who lived with her mother. One day during a dry spell, the mother and daughter went to Yangapusa to collect elyoko branches out of which to make the string to knit net bags. They were there by the Yangapa River cutting elyoko branches when they were caught in a torrential rain. The mother and daughter ran and took shelter in a nearby cave.
There was a man by the name of Yangape Talemane in the cave. He was a ruggedly handsome and well-built man. He was lying down and resting in the cave when the mother and daughter came in. They were wet and shivering from the cold.
“Will you make a fire for us? We are dying from the cold,” the mother asked Yangape Talemane.
“I don’t make fire for nothing,” Yangape Talemane replied.
“Then what do you want?” asked the mother.
“I want to make fire with my friction sticks on the breast of a woman,” the man replied.
“Alright, you can have it your way, but first make the fire for us,” said the mother.
The man took his friction stick and a strip of bamboo and quickly made the fire. Then the man had sexual intercourse with the girl. She called out in fright:
“Mother, I am dying, I am dying.” The mother came over and asked what she said, and the man said, “She said that the fire is dying.” The mother went over to keep the fire burning, and the man had intercourse with the girl again. The same thing happened, but each time the mother came to the aid of the girl, the man told her that the fire was dying. The mother knew that there was little she could do, so she allowed the man to continue.
When it was all over, the rain had stopped. The mother and the girl picked up the elyoko branches and carried them back to Elyai. On the way they felt humiliated to have been outwitted by the man. They went to their house in Elyai and made string from the elyoko fibers.
Later the girl, who had become pregnant, gave birth to a son. The boy was brought up by the girl and her mother. During this time, the people of Elyai built a house to store taro for a large taro feast to be held there. Yangape Talemane got ready to attend the feast to be held at Elyai. He decorated himself in fine traditional dress and cooked some taro to eat along the way. He cleaned the taro very carefully, scraping off the outer skin. He also cooked a number of other taros and brought them with him to Elyai where people were gathering for the feast.
When he arrived, everybody was milling around finding places to sit. Both Yangape Talemane and the mother and child were there at the same time. The mother had brought with her a net bag of cooked taro. As she was sitting there, she noticed that Yangape Talemane was sitting amongst the crowd, looking in her direction. She took a piece of string out of her net bag, tied one end of the string to the boy’s hand and held the other end in her hand. Then she took out a taro and gave it to the boy saying, “Go and give this taro to your father.”
The boy went in the direction his mother indicated and approached a group of people. Since he did not know his father, he could not recognize him, so he stood there and looked back at his mother for directions. He pointed to a man and called out to her:
“Is this my father?”
The mother pulled on the string to signal to him that the man was not his father, and so he pointed to another man and asked if he was the one. The mother pulled on the string and said, “Go a little further forward and you will find your father.”
The boy did as his mother said and approached Yangape Talemane. “Father, you must be the one,” he said, holding out the taro.
“No, no, I am not your father. It must be this man,” he said rejecting the taro and pointing to the man sitting next to him.
The boy looked back at his mother, but his mother insisted that the father was Yangape Talemane.
“But I don’t have a wife. You are trying to shame me. I cannot accept such claims. Look, to prove I am telling the truth, I will eat dung.” With that he picked up a taro which he had hidden in the burned grass beside him and pretended he was eating dung.
Yangape Talemane thought that what he had done would change people’s minds and convince them that he was indeed telling the truth. However, when people saw him doing such a disgraceful thing, they became enraged. One man in a fit of anger called out,
“This man is eating dung. How shameful. Let us fight.” The spectators were alarmed by the call to fight. Commotion and panic spread throughout the crowd, and a fight broke out. This is how Sinyi and Yandamani came to fight. If it had not been for this fight, we should all be living over there where Yandamani is today.
After the fight, there was a man named Ikita. He was angry with his fellow clansmen for continually making trouble and made a vow never to see them again. While making the vow, he cut off his penis, and this is symbolized by the ikita stone on the cliff above Yalesa. The woman is represented by the kebena stone, and you can see her breasts and sexual organs carved on the stone. Later Ikita turned into an akaipu tree and for that reason many akaipu trees grow up there.
Later, Sinyi also fought Matea. One Yandamani by the name of Kitapena, fought in this war on the side of Sinyi. He was caught in an ambush and was killed by Matea. Sinyi could not compensate for his death because Yandamani was a big tribe and Sinyi was too small to raise adequate compensation. Therefore, the remaining Sinyi gave Yandamani their land near Elyai in compensation and came to live with the rest of Sinyi at Beta.
(Itakaipu, Sinyi of Beta (Yalesa))
This historical tradition, which has many versions, tells of Yandamani’s intrusion into the lower Lai area and how it got a foothold there. Further to the northeast near Tupikores, Yandamani clans also fought with smaller clans who were residing there as well as other Yandamani clans and Lungupini clans for land.
members interviewed
Yandamani:
- Naepea Pakena, Yokoenda clan of Pompabusa
- Pilyo Ikisa of Yalesa,
- Kopilya Pyalenda, Andae clan of Yalesa,
- Emeke Lamao, Andae clan of Yalesa,
- Yanesa Piui, Yangakuni clan of Yalesa,
- Mauka Yukulyo of Yalesa, and numerous others in discussion groups.
clans and places
Yandamani
| Clan | Location | Nearest school/aidpost |
|---|---|---|
| Andae | Yalesa | Yalesa (Elyai) |
| Kiakepe | Pumalimanda | Yangili |
| Yokope | Pumalimanda | Elyai |
| Yanana | Kaiputesa | Elyai |
| Lanymini | Kupitesa | Tupekotesa |
| Yatikini | Malimanda | Tupekotesa |
| Kopakini | Longaimanda | Tupekotesa and Yalesa |
| Yokoenda | Koiamanda | Pompabusa |
| Yangukini | Koepu | Tupikores |
| Kiungakuni | Yopomanda | Tupikores |
| Kana | Awasa | Tupikores |
| Mainangini | Talemanda | Tupikores |