Return From the Dead

Part of the responsibility of males, as I have already noted, consists of controlling the flow of valuables and meat so as to preclude the

creation of ambiguities in women's status. Fonomo's failure to answer the drum's initial summons revealed the widowed status of the ka buru . His separation from his wife and his lethal contest with Kunuware is therefore a result of his refusal to properly mark the woman. In the following myth, a man is separated from his wife by an analogous failure to control the flow of relational solicitude toward his affines and his wife. Williams collected a version of this tale, and Wagner cites it as closely parallel to his Daribi story "The Hunter's Wife" (1978:207 fn.). The obviation sequences of the Foi and Daribi versions are virtually identical, and this allows one to pinpoint thematic contrasts between them.

Once there was a longhouse. There was a young man whose relatives helped him fasten [marry] a wife. When they were newly married, his relatives said to him, "You and your wife go to the swamp to sleep. Stay three days and then return to the longhouse. But do not stay a long time." The boy agreed, and he and his wife went to the bush house. But the two disobeyed their relatives' advice and they stayed in the bush. They worked three sago palms and still they did not return. Then the wife became sick. But the young man did not inform either his parents or the girl's parents. The woman worsened and finally died. He left the body in the empty house and went and told his parents. "Father, mother, my wife is dead. I've left her in the bush house, and have come to tell you." But the parents replied, "We told you not to do this. But you disobeyed us and stayed long enough to process four sago palms. We said you should not do this." They wanted to beat the man for his negligence. Crying, the young man returned to the bush house. The people of the longhouse mourned for her and approached the boy saying, "We have come to put the body on the burial scaffold." But he said, "No, I myself shall look after it. I will place her bones, and I myself will make the burial scaffold here near the house." Saying this, he built an exposure platform near his house. The other people were getting ready to disperse back to their houses and they called him to come along. But he refused. The relatives of the man and dead woman came to view the body, but the boy himself remained at the house crying and mourning his wife. The body decomposed, and soon only the bones were left. His relatives kept urging him to abandon the bush house and return to the village. "She is dead; come back," they kept saying, but he refused all their entreaties.

He took the bones and hung them up over the verandah of his bush house. In his overwhelming sorrow, he could only wander aimlessly about. In his wanderings, he came upon a set of fresh footprints, leading eastward or downstream. ^[4] "Who is this?" he thought to himself. He inspected them closely and saw that they were identical to his dead wife's footprints. "Is her new ghost walking around?" He wondered. He followed the footprints eastward. Leaving the bones hanging at the house, he followed the trail. He walked a great distance until, coming to the top of a mountain, he saw a house hidden below. There were cordyline, bananas, sugarcane, and flow-

ers of many varieties. In great quantities, these things were planted around the house. He approached the house and looked inside. Aiyo! There was very large old man there, of great girth. The old man laughed as he saw the young man approach. "Brother, what do you wish?" he asked, and the young man replied, "No, for no reason I have been wandering and have thus arrived here." The old man said, "No, there is something on your mind that has brought you here." "No, my wife had died, but her footprints seem to lead this way and so apprehensively I have followed them here." The old man said, "I have heard no talk regarding whether your wife has come or not. But 'with my ear only, a little talk of wind,' I heard that she went. Thus, let us go see if she has gone. Stay here for now." Then the old man left and came back with meat and vegetables which they steam-cooked and ate. Then the old man went outside and broke off a large segment of ka'ase cordyline. He also brought male decorations such as a bark belt, forehead band, and cassowary plume for the young man and said, "We shall go now." They walked eastward until they came upon a stone cliff face. It was of great height, touching the clouds at the top. "Eso!" the man thought, "How shall we pass here?" But the old man spoke a magic spell and pointed his war arrow at the cliff, and it parted and a path opened up in the middle. The two went through the gap eastward. As they passed, the two sides dosed up again. They kept going east and came upon a river in a broad valley. There were Ficus species trees of the su'uri variety, gofe palms, bark-cloth trees, and kotabera ferns in groves. The two men went and stood near the base of a huge kafane fern. Then the old man said to him, "You will now go fetch your wife. Down below there will be men sitting near the end of a longhouse, on the verandah, but when you arrive they will go back inside. At one end of the house there will be bohabo bananas; at the other end will be ginigi bananas. They will both be very ripe. If you try and enter the house, the bananas will attempt to block your path. If they do so, do not admire them or try to pick them. Look with your eyes only and go straight inside. Inside the house, the men there will give you grubs, chicks, pork, cassowary, water, tobacco, these things. Do not eat them. I alone will give you your food. The things that the other men give you put on the fireplace rack. While you are there, a woman will approach you and will invite you to have intercourse. Do not do it. But yell out when she does and I will come strike her." The young man agreed, and they peered down. There was a gigantic longhouse down there, with a large verandah. There were ko'oya tree saplings around the house. At the upper end of the longhouse there were many men. When the two men approached the house, they all went inside. "I told you what would happen," the old man said to him.

Then he went on, "There is one more thing. In the morning as it is getting light, your wife will come. She will come dancing. She will come and stand close to you. If with her eyes or gestures she says 'come' then take her by the wrist." The boy heard him. Then they went inside the house. The bohabo and ginigi bananas moved and blocked their way inside. But he only looked with his eyes and went inside. There was a man's

sleeping place there with bark blankets and a man was sleeping under them. "Ai, mother! Is there a real man underneath there?" he thought. He lifted the blanket and saw that there was indeed a man there. The other men of the house brought him banana, fish, grubs, meat, pork, cassowary, but the young man did not eat though they gave him great amounts. He kept hiding it on the upper fireplace rack. The old man gave him food, and this he ate. In the afternoon, from the east steps they heard the sound of footsteps. He looked and saw a woman approach seductively. But the young man yelled out, and the old man came running and struck the woman and threw her out of the house. Four times the woman tried to approach the young man, and each time the young man yelled and brought the old man who struck her and threw her out. The young man slept there restlessly that night. He kept nodding off sleepily all night, trying to stay awake waiting for his wife to come. Then the house shook—something was coming. He heard the sound of singing. "In the west you have looked, in the east you have looked, right here you have looked. . . ." Then as he watched he saw his wife come close up to his face. She was being supported by dead people, and her head reeled from one man's shoulder to another's as they escorted her into her new home, limp and helpless. He listened as his wife said something in a low voice to him while the other dead people sung the song, "In the east, in the west, right here. . . ." Since the woman's bones were back in the land of the living, she had to be helped up. The woman recognized her husband and said to him "Come!" and the man quickly went and tightly held her wrist. The other men chattered in consternation at this—"nenenenenene !" they cried, in the speech of ghosts Then they disappeared. Only the young man, the old man and the dead wife were there. Then the woman saw that her husband was holding her wrist. She attempted to frighten him into releasing her by changing into a snake, water, and other things. But he held the snake tight; he cupped his hands so the water would not run out. She turned into saliva and this too he held. Finally, resuming her form she said to him, "Because you desired me, you have come. Let go of my hand; I will go with you now." Then the man thought to take with him the food that he had been hiding on the fireplace rack all this time. Ai! It wasn't the things he thought he saw but only the bell of the banana instead of real fruit; pigs' penises instead of real meat; saliva instead of water. There were the food of the ghosts perhaps, that he had really put there.

Then, the old man left the house first, followed by the woman in the middle and the man last. They came up to where they had descended through the kafane hole and climbed up, alighting on the ground. Then toward the west they went. Once more, the old man said a spell and pointed his arrow at the stone cliff, which parted and let them through. They arrived at the house of the old man and he told them to wait there. He went and fetched food and meat and then heated stones. They cooked and ate the meat. He prepared a large bilum of food for the two to take with them. Then the old man returned to his garden. Coming back the young man saw that he had brought a cutting from the abuyu sugarcane

and a sucker of the bohabo banana. Then he instructed the young man, "To your wife 'make sago' don't say; 'find fish' don't say; 'care for pigs' don't say; 'cut a garden' don't say; 'cook me sago' don't say; 'fetch firewood' don't say. You alone must do all the work. Go and plant this abuyu and bohabo near the refuse pit. When the sugarcane has flowered, the bohabo fruit is truly ripe so that flying foxes come for it, then you can tell your wife to do all these things. This is what I wish to say to you." The old man whispered these things urgently and carefully in the man's ear. "Do you hear and understand?" he asked, and the young man replied, "Yes." Then he took the sugarcane cutting and the banana sucker and the bilum of food. The old man then said, "Look to the west and close your eyes. When I strike you both on the back, then open them." They did so. The old man struck them both on the back and said, "Open your eyes," and when they did, they saw they were back at the young man's bush house. "Ai! What has happened?" he thought. But he quickly went and planted the banana and the sugarcane near the refuse pit and quickly built a fence around it. He was happy now. He did not tell his relatives he had returned. They thought he had lost his senses and had run away for good.

Then they lived there. The man himself did all the work. He was solicitous toward her, preparing all the food, caring himself for the pigs. He saw the sugarcane and the banana growing, and one day he saw that the sugarcane was about to flower and the banana fruit was almost ripe. The man continued to do all the work, chopping down sago palms and processing them himself. One night he heard the bilum with the wife's bones in them rustling and rattling. Stealthily, he went and looked in the woman's half and saw that she was gone. "She has gone to insert the bones back into her body," he thought. Then he slept again. Near dawn, he went to the latrine, and when he returned it was light and he went to look at the bilum where he had put his wife's bones. Eke! They were all gone. There was not one left. "She has inserted them back into her body," he thought, and he continued to look after her. Another time he went to chop another sago palm down. He removed the bark and made the washing trough. They both went to the sago stand and he said to his wife, "Wife, stay here, I will make sago." He washed sago until they were filling up the last basket. There was only one more batch of washing to do before the last basket would be filled. At this time, he said to her, "Wife, I've been doing all the work for a long time now, and I am very exhausted. You go and cut sago leaves to wrap the sago in." "what is this?" she asked in fear. "Do it," he repeated. She obeyed. The man was finishing making sago when he heard a scream. "Wife, what is it?" he called out, but she didn't answer. He went to look, and was very frightened now. Eke! His wife had cut her hand on the thorns at the edge of the sago leaf, and blood was pouring out in great quantities, enough to fill a water bamboo. "Ai! my wife! my wife!" he cried out. He fetched tree moss and leaves and tried to bandage the wound, but because the blood was so profuse the leaves would not stick. He left the sago there and carried his wife back on his shoulders. Crying, he carried her back while she continued to bleed heavily. Her skin

finally turned yellow from loss of blood. It continued to flow through the floor planks under the house. She began to shrink and shrivel up as she became exsanguinated. He stayed up all night watching her, grimly trying not to fall asleep, but finally, as the birds started to twitter, he slept. He awoke again when it was light and looked in the woman's room and there were only bones left. "My wife! my wife!" he cried in grief. When it was light enough, he gathered her bones and hung them up and continued to look for her body. He found footprints going eastward, and he followed them. Along the way gagi thorns, tinigini thorns, mafu thorns, pandanus spikes, wasps, and ants scratched and bit him viciously [literally, in Foi, they "ate his skin completely"]. He arrived at the old man's house again. "Get up!" he cried to the old man. "Brother, what has happened?" the other asked. "No, my wife, my wife . . ., "and he told him what had happened. "Did I not instruct you," and the old man became very angry. Taking a fireplace tongs, he took hold of the young man's tongue and twisted and pulled it. Having twisted his tongue, he pushed it back into the man's mouth so that he choked on it.^[5] "You no longer wish to stay at your house either. You heard my talk but you chose to disregard it. Now you can go back east to the land of the dead, to where the ghosts reside." The man died and went east. So it is said. That is all.

In the opening of this tale, a young man fails to heed the delicate protocol of newly married life during which a bride, her mother, and the groom's mother live together for several months in the groom's mother's house. Instead, he keeps her unduly long in the sago swamp, substituting the complementarity of husband and wife for the solicitous sharing and coresidence of habomena (daughter's husband's parent/son's wife's parent). This reveals the precariousness of new marital ties: she becomes sick and dies (substitution A : bush for village; place of ghosts for place of humans). The man himself prepares the corpse and tends the exposure coffin until the ghost departs and the bones remain (B : bones for skin; dead wife for live wife). The disconsolate husband, however, discovers the footprints that his wife left in departing for the afterworld, haisureri . It is to this place that he follows her, where he meets the Foi equivalent of "Charon," who, in Williams' version, is named Gaburiniki. According to my informants, people who die from illness are transformed into the bird of this name. The mediation of this man in procuring the dead wife replaces that of the man's parents in obtaining her when she was alive (C : land of dead for land of living). It is of interest to note that whereas the Daribi version of this tale encompassed a statement on an elder brother's leviratic responsibilities toward a younger, the Foi tale significantly does not include this (cf. Wagner 1978:204-208). The guardian of

the dead gives the young man strict warning against identifying with the truly dead people through the sharing of food or sexual contact (replacing the warnings of the parents with those of the "Charon" character, C obviating A ). With the help of the mediating elder male, the young man is able to reclaim his wife (D : "living" dead wife for elder male guardian, obviating A by repeating the terms of his initial marriage in altered form).

The man returns to the land of the living with his "refastened" bride and "Charon" gives him a set of strict rules to follow which, as in the Daribi story, substitutes the complementarity of living and dead for that of male and female (E ). But this now reveals the mourning episode in a new light: the young man refused to share the complementary exchange work of mourning and tending the corpse, and so the new placement of the dead must now be his entire responsibility. The dilemma is that man and woman cannot live together except in a relation of sexual complementarity, and the woman dies again because of it (F : death for life; dead husband for dead wife, obviating A ). Like the Daribi tale, the Foi myth unfolds the facilitating modality of ACE as a series of regulations maintaining the proper separation of complementary realms (A : bush and village; C : living and dead; E : male and female), while the motivating modality of BDF plots the mortal consequences of their abrogation (B : death of wife; D : journey to land of dead; F : death of husband).

Opposed to intersexual mediation by implication is what I can identify as the dilemma of consexual cooperation. The solidarity of men and women is typically phrased in terms of male and female sibling-ship, and it is men's and women's divergent responsibilities toward the opposite sex that to a large degree creates the content of such siblingship. The last two myths of this chapter thus detail the nature of consexual differentiation.