Tumbuna (ancestor) stories from Karkar

Hi friends!

I've been spending most of my time translating and transcribing interviews I did last summer on Karkar Island in Papua New Guinea. Here is a first example of the bizarre stories (partially directly translated and partially edited by me) that I've been working with. By the end of the summer I, if all goes as planned, will have a whole book of interviews, essays, poems, and stories. cheers, Christa

1: Story bilong (about) Grille man:

note- This story is interesting to me for three reasons. One, it is a love story that doesn't end well. Two, it was told to me as a legend, but it involves the modern conveniences of a flashlight and perfume. Three, it is about a man with grille, a common plight for young Papua New Guineans which involves chronic flaking of the skin all over the body.
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During Lotu (church) Grille Man picks fish-scale layers of skin off his arms. During class Karkar Meri (girl) looks at all the young men singing, the ones singing with their head down, quiet, singing all belly and out, but not at Grille man. Never. After the first few blessings, Grille man sees her, bright moon eyes, mountain fire mouth, sun skin.
That night, like every other night, Karkar Meri slips away from tok story (conversation) around the cooking fire and steps by the light of a small palm torch to a clearing in the jungle. There she prays, “Lord, please tell me the right man to marry.” That night, like every other night, she listens for an answer and hears nothing, only the bats giggling in the higher branches nearer the sky, molded into one black around her. That night, however, unlike every other night, Grille man has followed her. He hides behind the mango tree.
The next morning, Grille man waits outside of the Chinese store until the lock is opened by the man with the big cheeks and the straight-haired baby. He buys soap, perfume, sheet, and a torch (flashlight).
That night, Grille man hides in mango tree near where Karkar Meri prays. Soon enough, he hears the pressing of her feet and sees her light flicker off just a few feet away. After listening to her prayer, “Lord, please tell me the right man to marry,” Grille man turns on his torch beneath the sheet so that all she can see is a white light from behind the juicy tree.
He says in a thin voice, “I am angel of God and he wants you to marry the Grille man.” Grille then turns off his torch, runs back to his house, changes, and waits. Karkar Meri, sweating and still from this divine communion, finishes her prayers, thanks God, and goes to the Grille man’s house immediately to marry him.
One would imagine they live happy ever after, but instead the Grille man, trusting his wife of many years, tells her the truth. Karkar Meri leaves him. He lives alone until he is a very old man.

2: Poem about the creation myth of Karkar

The Story of Manub and Kulbob Version 1

The white one was Kulbob, the youngest.
Skin so new it squinted in the sun.
He departed for the mainland before his voice deepened

“Wanderlust!” Manub, the dark one, elder one, called it.
A sense of necessity and inspiration, Kulbob thought.
His skin predicated a lack of permanence;

Cloudlike and willowed. Kulbob careened in toothpick canoes
To Europe and Antarctica while Manub coveted their crater,
Tending to the fire of origin, the home of the mountain

Sun and soot. Snakes and secrets. The garden of Manub
Stretched all around the beginnings of earth. All lush
Like caocao and pawpaw, he grew it well. Kept it.

Lips small with thick pulpy sweet
Lemongrass and infants, old men
Telling stories in sugarcane fields

These are where the rhythms come from.
Humming of earthquakes. Home. Birthplace of races.
So much so you sing to the soil like “Father,

Mother, grandfather, son, I’ve been waiting
For you. I’ve been waiting for you, I’ve been
Hoping, brother, that you would return.”