OLAC Record
oai:soas.ac.uk:MPI1197343

Metadata
Title:The story of the old woman and her children, Menuwai and Hesol (Kristine Pat)
20120628AA01
Documentation and description of Koro, an Oceanic language of Papua New Guinea
Contributor (researcher):Jessica Cleary-Kemp
Contributor (speaker):Kristine Pat
Contributor (translator):Sylvia Pokisel
Coverage:Papua New Guinea
Date:2012-06-28
Description:This is a 12 minute audio recording and time-aligned transcription/translation of Kristine Pat telling the traditional Tewi clan story of an old woman and her children, a sea eagle and a snake. The recording was made inside Rex's house on the beach (where Jessica Cleary-Kemp was staying) and small Kristine and small Sylvia can be heard coming in and out.
Koro is an Oceanic (Austronesian) language spoken by several hundred people on Manus and Los Negros islands, approximately 200 miles off the north coast of the Papua New Guinea mainland. This documentation consists primarily of recorded narratives and conversations in the Papitalai dialect, spoken in Papitalai, Riu Riu, and Naringel villages.
Synopsis: There was an old woman who lived by herself. One day as she was peeling vegetables, the shell she was using cut her hand and it started bleeding. She poured some of the blood into an empty clam shell and she put it in the fork of a tree. After a few days the shell had turned into two eggs, and out of one hatched a snake and out of the other hatched an eagle. The snake went to the bush, but the eagle stayed with the woman. It grew bigger and stronger, and it felt sorry for the old woman because she just ate food from the garden and had no meat to go with it. So he flew out to sea to catch her some fish. After a while the woman wanted sago, so the eagle flew off to find some sago for them. He went to the bush and took some sago that had been left hanging to dry. When the people found that some of their sago had been taken they decided to lay in wait for the thief. When the eagle came to take more, they whipped him and he dropped the sago and fled back to his grandmother. (There is another story that elaborates on this part of the tale.) The eagle got a leaf and told the grandmother that as long as the leaf stayed fresh that meant he was still alive, but if it dried up that meant that he had been killed. He tried to take more sago, but the people whipped him again and shot him with arrows. He flew away to Anitah island and he fell into the sea and was floating. The people from Pityluh island saw the eagle and they killed him and ate him, but they kept the bones and gave them power using black magic. Then when they would fight with the people from Powat or Nombrut they would win with the eagle’s bones. One woman from Powat got married to a Pityluh man and she found out about the magic eagle bones. So she stole some of the bones and took it back to her village so that they could use them. They tied the bones to their spears and after that when they fought with the Pityluh they killed them all.
Jessica Cleary-Kemp is the PI on the project. She conducted the research on Koro during her tenure as a PhD candidate at the University of California, Berkeley.
Her mother was from Papitalai and her father was from Powat and Papitalai. I estimated her date of birth. Kristine Pat is Jessica Cleary-Kemp's adopted mother (nano). Her husband was the late Paura Pat. Her children are Julianne Paura (Paura's child by a different woman), Veronica Pat, Shirley Duma, Kennedy Paura, Jenny Paura, Steven Paura, Sandra Paura, and Rex Paura.
Sylvia transcribed and translated all stories for which there is a transcription. Some of these were completed together with Jessica Cleary-Kemp (the researcher), while others were completed independently. Sylvia's mother was from Ponam and her father is from Papitalai. Sylvia's late mother was from Ponam, and so she grew up with Ponam as her first language, although she grew up in Papitalai. Tok Pisin is also her first language, and her language of everyday communication. She learnt English at school and is fluent. Her village name is Hilondelis, which can be parsed as hi- 'female name prefix', lo- 'leaf', ndelis 'tropical almond'. This was the name of her paternal great-grandmother. Her father is Philip Pokisel and her paternal grandparents are Kris Pokisel and Maria Pokisel. Her siblings are Francis, Geoffrey, Lomot, and Siwa. Her children are Adrien and Philson and her husband is Steven Paura. Maria Pokisel (her grandmother) calls Sylvia by the nickname "Kalas" (glasses).
Format:audio/x-wav
text/plain
Identifier:oai:soas.ac.uk:MPI1197343
IGS0124
Identifier (URI):https://lat1.lis.soas.ac.uk/ds/asv?openpath=MPI1197343%23
Publisher:Jessica Cleary-Kemp
Subject:Fiction
Traditional narrative
Koro (Papua New Guinea) language
Koro
English language
Papitalai language
Tok Pisin language
Subject (ISO639):kxr
eng
pat
tpi
Type:Audio

OLAC Info

Archive:  Endangered Languages Archive
Description:  http://www.language-archives.org/archive/soas.ac.uk
GetRecord:  OAI-PMH request for OLAC format
GetRecord:  Pre-generated XML file

OAI Info

OaiIdentifier:  oai:soas.ac.uk:MPI1197343
DateStamp:  2018-09-26
GetRecord:  OAI-PMH request for simple DC format

Search Info

Citation: Jessica Cleary-Kemp (researcher); Kristine Pat (speaker); Sylvia Pokisel (translator). 2012-06-28. Jessica Cleary-Kemp.
Terms: area_Europe area_Pacific country_GB country_PG iso639_eng iso639_kxr iso639_pat iso639_tpi

Inferred Metadata

Country: United KingdomPapua New Guinea
Area: EuropePacific


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Up-to-date as of: Mon Oct 18 15:12:10 EDT 2021