Bronislaw Malinowski

“They live in Kwayawata; one day Kalaytayta goes to fish, gets into a small canoe (kewo’u). Behind him swims the dog. He comes to Digumenu. They fish with the older brother. They catch fish! The elder brother paddles; that one again goes behind; goes, returns to Kwayawata. They died; came Modokei, he learned the kayga’u, the inside of Tokulubwaydoga. The name of their mother, the mother of Tokulubwaydoga, is Tobunaygu.”

This little fragment gives a good idea of what the first version is, even of so well fixed a piece of narrative as a myth. It has to be supplemented by inquiries as to the motives of the behaviour of the various personages, as to the relations of one event to the other. Thus, further questions revealed that the elder brother refused to take the dog with him on this fishing expedition. Tokulubwaydoga then determined to go all the same, and swam to Digumenu, following the canoe of his brother. This latter was astonished to see him, but none the less they went to work together. In fishing, the dog was more successful than his brother, and thus aroused his jealousy. The man then refused to take him back. Tokulubwaydoga then jumped into the water, and again swam and arrived safely in Kwayawata. The point of the story lies in the fact that the dog was able to do the swimming, because he knew the kayga’u, otherwise the sharks, mulukwausi, or other evil things would have eaten him. He got it from his mother, the lady Tobunaygu, who could teach him this magic because she was a mulukwausi herself. Another important point about this myth, also quite omitted from the first version volunteered to me, is its sociological aspect. First of all, there is the very interesting incident, unparalleled in Kiriwinian tradition: the mother of the three belonged to the Lukwasisiga clan. It was a most incongruous thing for a dog, who is the animal of the Lukuba clan, to be born into a Lukwasisiga family. However, there he was, and so he said:

“Good, I shall be a Lukuba, this is my clan.”

Now the incident of the quarrel receives its significance in so far as the dog, the only one to whom the mother gave the kayga’u, did not hand it over to his brother and sister who were of the Lukwasisiga clan, and so the magic went down only the dog’s own clan, the Lukuba. It must be assumed (though this was not known to my informant) that Madokei, who learnt the magic from the dog, was also a Lukuba man.

Like all mythological mother-ancestresses, Tobunaygu had no husband, nor does this circumstance call forth any surprise or comment on the part of the natives, since the physiological aspect of fatherhood is not known among them, as I have repeatedly observed.

As can be seen, by comparing the original fragment, and the subsequent amplification by inquiries, the volunteered version misses out the most important points. The concatenation of events, the origin of the kayga’u, the important sociological details, have to be dragged out of the informant, or, to put it more correctly, he has to be made to enlarge on points, to roam over all the subjects covered by the myth, and from his statements then, one has to pick out and piece together the other bits of the puzzle. On the other hand, the names of the people, the unimportant statements of what they did and how they were occupied are unfailingly given.

Let us adduce now the kayga’u, which is said to be derived from the dog, and ultimately from his mother:

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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