The story of Itupo Loniu (Kristine Pat) 2011-04-23-AA-03

Audio recording and transcription/translation of Kristine Pat telling the story of Itupo Loniu. The story includes the same two songs that are in Maria’s story (2011-04-03-BC-04), but Kristine sings both in Koro. Synopsis: Pwakop (a different Pwakop than the one in the Hinimei and Hinipong story), his wife Itupo Loniu, and their son paddled in the canoe to go and fetch water. Pwakop and the boy stayed with the canoe and Itupo Loniu took a basket into the bush to fetch water. When she was fetching the water a devil woman appeared and pushed her into the water. The devil woman took on the form of Itupo Loniu and she went back to the canoe and told Pwakop to paddle onwards. Pwakop gave the baby to the devil woman to hold and he told her to feed it. She tried to feed him but her breast was spiky and it poked his mouth. Itupo Loniu got out of the water and called to her husband. Pwakop heard her, but the devil woman told him it was just chaukas fighting. This happened three times, and after the third time Pwakop realized that it was the voice of his wife he was hearing. They kept paddling and they came to the beach. The next day Pwakop’s family came and brought food for the devil woman and when she ate it she ate the plate and everything with it. The women thought it was strange that she didn’t bring their plates back and they asked Pwakop, so he told them about the devil woman. When it was low tide he told his mothers and sisters to go to the reef and find fish and to take the devil woman with them. He told them if they saw a big clam to tell her to put her head in it, and it would cut her head off so that they could get back all their dishes. So they did as he said, and when the clam cut her head off they took her body to the shore and cut her belly open to get out all their dishes. Then Itupo Loniu finally found her way back to Pwakop.