1. I have already mentioned the common metaphorical equation between sexual intercourse and death in Foi dreams (see chapter 4). Foi also told me that if one dreams of having sexual intercourse with a woman, it foretells the fact that the dreamer will kill a cassowary or wild pig. (For a more detailed account of Foi dream interpretation see Weiner 1986).

2. This is commonly done when one is leaving the house for the day.

3. Apparently, the circumstances under which the man revealed himself to the ka buru are thought to be romantic by the Foi. F. E. Williams gives an account of a seduction in which the man "finding [the woman] at work sago-making and ready to pack up and go home . . . had stolen up and taken her stick while her back was turned. After searching for it high and low she had finally seen it poking up near the heap of sago fibres and behind the heap found [the man] himself—an excellent joke which quite melted her heart" (Williams 1977:218-219).

4. In Williams' version of this myth, the husband discovers a hole leading from the spot where the si'a'a sui is planted. This springy stick was attached to the hair of the corpse and was designed to snap the scalp off after the body had become soft enough through decomposition. Wagner notes that among the Daribi, the coronal suture is the spot at which the soul leaves the body after death (1978:207 fn.). Glasse (1965:30) reports an identical belief among the Huli of the Southern Highlands Province.

5. In Williams' version, Gaburiniki, the guardian of the afterworld, is supposed to have plucked out the tongues of all new arrivals and replaced them back to front in their mouths so that they could not speak properly.

6. "The Fish Spear" is closely cognate to the Daribi tale "The Yaga " in its depictment of the mediating role of the fish spear (Wagner 1978:117).

7. This passage is a conventional reference in myth-telling. It indicates that the woman at first fears that the young man is a ghost and implores him to carry out the rites associated with the Dabi Gerabora ghost-appeasement ceremony.

8. Williams (1977:218), however, comments on the mediating confidant-like function of a young unmarried man's elder brother's wife, his karege , in acting as a go-between during the young man's courtship.

9. Most other versions of this myth begin with the "Usane Transformation."