OLAC Record
oai:soas.ac.uk:MPI1230835

Metadata
Title:The story of coconuts (John Kris)
2011-03-31-AH_AV-01
Contributor:Kris
Sylvia
Contributor (consultant):Mary Clara
Contributor (researcher):Jessica
Coverage:Papua New Guinea
Date:2018-02-10
Description:Audio recording and transcription/translation of the traditional story of a woman whose head grew into a coconut when her grandsons buried it, as told by John Kris Hinduwan. Synopsis: An old woman and her two grandsons were paddling to an island far away. They traveled on and on and when they were close to the island the old woman was close to death. She instructed her grandsons that when she died they should cut her head off and bury it and throw away her body. They followed her instructions and buried her head, and the next day a coconut had grown on top of her grave. They took the coconut back to the village and planted it, like their grandmother had told them to. A short coconut palm grew and when the coconuts were ready they took them around to the other villagers to exchange them for other food. The villagers wanted to know where the coconut came from, and they wanted to take them and plant another coconut palm, but the brothers told them they could not grow their own — if they wanted a coconut they would have to exchange food for it. The villagers stole a coconut and planted it, but it didn’t grow. The coconut would only grow for the two brothers. If other people tried to plant one it would just die. The villagers were jealous, and the brothers got dogs to guard the coconuts. Eventually the older brother died and at his funeral the younger brother tried to give the coconut to the villagers to plant, but it didn’t grow because the old woman had only wanted her grandchildren to have the coconuts. Finally the brother used the coconut to buy a wife, and she had two sons. When the brother died the wife wanted to give away the coconuts, but the older son said, "No, our father told us not to share the coconuts. We can only exchange them for food." The mother didn’t listen and she tried to give away the coconuts to her family, but they would not grow. Eventually the children grew up and the older one married. The younger son went and prayed to the coconut and promised never to share them, but to just keep them in the family. And nowadays there are coconuts everywhere, enough for the whole village.
Format:audio/x-wav
text/plain
Identifier:oai:soas.ac.uk:MPI1230835
Identifier (URI):https://lat1.lis.soas.ac.uk/ds/asv?openpath=MPI1230835%23
Subject:Narrative
Koro (Papua New Guinea) language
Koro
Papitalai language
English language
Subject (ISO639):kxr
pat
eng
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:MPI1230835
DateStamp:  2019-06-04
GetRecord:  OAI-PMH request for simple DC format

Search Info

Citation: Jessica (researcher); Kris; Mary Clara (consultant); Sylvia. 2018-02-10. Endangered Languages Archive.
Terms: area_Europe area_Pacific country_GB country_PG iso639_eng iso639_kxr iso639_pat

Inferred Metadata

Country: United KingdomPapua New Guinea
Area: EuropePacific


http://www.language-archives.org/item.php/oai:soas.ac.uk:MPI1230835
Up-to-date as of: Mon Oct 18 19:01:10 EDT 2021