(A Retold Myth from Wondama Bay and Roon, West Papua)
Their Courage and Ingenuity Saved the People from the Dragon.
By CELLY AKWAN and BECKY SIMSON
In ancient times, the coastal people of Wondama lived peacefully and happily. There were no chaos and catastrophes; in fact, there was unity among all things created.
Then, the original peace was ruptured. Not by the Creator but by a human crime.
Mandomaka, an old man, and Nawus, a snake, lived in ancient times near the spring of a creek. The snake was tied and lay at the Anio Sara, the ancient sacred men’s house, in Wondama.
One day, the old man made a journey to the coast. Unfortunately, a boy stole the snake. Mandomaka made a threat to him, “If you don’t give me your sister to be my wife within three days, I’ll bring thick darkness and heavy rain on you and your people.”
The boy was frightened and did not tell the threat to his fellow villagers. So, Mandomaka carried out his threat: he cursed the land, got angry, left, and never returned.
His curse was devastating. Mandomaka could no longer keep the snake, his partner or antagonist, in control. He let it break loose, and there was a big flood flowing wildly and mercilessly down the creek. Not only did the flood destroy the village where the boy came from. It also destroyed all the inhabitants, their belongings, and the sacred men’s house.
The Anio Sara was drifted rapidly, hit a big rock, and could not be flown off by the flood. Then, two brothers showed up. One of them drilled a hole through the rock and suddenly caused a deluge. The other was able to jump on the sacred house and while being drifted he danced and sang on the deluge along all villages in Wondama. Nobody except villagers living in Dusner on the other side of the U-shaped Bay of Wondama understood the language of his song.
So, he landed in Dusner. The deluge stopped and at the same time Nawus disappeared in it. Here, the sacred men’s house was brought to land, repaired, and rebuilt. The rebuilding assured the people that a new certainty and a new time of happiness had dawned. This time, the new era would be under human guidance.
But other pillars of the sacred men’s house that drifted along villages in Wondama were used for building new sacred men’s houses there. They served as central pillars of the new sacred houses.
Not all villages were lucky to get lost pillars of the first sacred house. Wasior and Miei, two important villages in the peninsula, did not get any pillars. So, they turned to Dusner as the new center of the Anio Sara. Here dwelled Lord of the Anio Sara.
Roponggai
The deluge was so huge and widespread that it even reached Yappen-Waropen hundreds of miles away from Wondama and Roon. People in Yappen-Waropen have since then remembered the catastrophes it caused. Their oral tradition handed down from one generation to another recorded this deluge imaginatively through the story of Roponggai and his two conquerors.
Indarami Painusi gave birth to Roponggai, the snake, and he floated on a plate called Mafiri. After Painusi had delivered him, Roponggai grew up and was soon known as an inquisitive child. He asked his mother numerous questions: “Mother, why do you cry? Mother, why do you sit in that house?” Even though his mother could answer them, she could not answer other difficult questions from her son.
Painusi took care of him. She cooked coconut meat and rubbed its oil on her son’s skin. One day, she painted his left face black with soot and his right face red with red earth. After the painting, his mother left him.
That day, Roponggai stayed home until noon. Then he went out and took a walk. He became pugnacious when he met with people; he wanted to kill them. This time, he took his bow and went out to meet some fishermen. He wanted to kill them.
Then, he met some fishermen and fought with them. Other fishermen who were watching the fight from afar did not recognize him.
“Who’s fighting?” some asked.
“A snake,” others replied.
“He’s Roponggai, the thin-skinned snake,” another added. “He never leaves us without killing some of us.”
“Yeah, he’s already killed my brother,” another fisherman said.
The fishermen did not like Roponggai. He liked to fight with them and killed some of them, men and women. He once fought with the men who were looking for shellfish and killed all of them in a men’s canoe. He also killed the women who were in a women’s canoe at Worumi, near the Woisimi River in the Wondama Peninsula. The women had just collected shellfish at the river and were rowing back home when they met their sudden deaths.
Roponggai’s passion for fighting and killing made all of the villagers hate him. Aware of their aversion, his mother frequently wept like a suckling babe over him.
Indarami Painusi died of grief when her son was as big as an ironwood tree and his head became bigger than the central room of a house! His brute force was fearful and devastating and made him a formidable snake. The frightened rural fishermen escaped him and left for other islands or areas far from their village.
Left behind
One day, Roponggai lay in the neighborhood of a village built on land. The houses here were built on erected wooden poles thrust deeply into the ground. He waited to attack any villagers who passed by. Some people who were ignorant of his presence in the area went to their sago groves to make sago flour. The enormous snake then appeared, killed all of them, and devoured them.
The following day, other villagers came to their sago forests, and he killed and gobbled them up, too. He ate the other people in the area for days until most of the population was destroyed. Not more than ten people survived, including a few villagers who had escaped Roponggai’s devouring mouth.
These survivors did not feel secure in their village anymore. They felt powerless against the formidable snake.
“The end is drawing close to us,” one of the male survivors said, “so we just have to escape to Numfor.” Numfor is an island located north-west of Yappen-Waropen.
“A good idea,” one of the female survivors said. The rest also favored this plan. Then, they decided to leave their village by canoe and sail to Numfor.
In order not to alarm the giant snake and lure it to them, the evacuating villagers hurried silently to their big canoe. In their haste to escape, they left a grandmother and Kirisi, her grandson, behind.
The old woman and Kirisi became aware of being left behind when they saw the canoe sail away and could not recognize the faces of the villagers. Suddenly, the old woman felt terrified when she imagined that Roponggai would devour them without any help from their villagers. So, she tried to get the rowing villagers come back and take her and Kirisi away.
“Come back, come back!” she shouted as loudly as she could while waving her hands or anything she could grab to draw the attention of the escaping villagers in the canoe. “Don’t leave us here! Come back, come back!”
But the rowers and passengers aboard were too far to hear her and notice her signals. The old woman could not do anything else except stand helplessly and weep out her loneliness and dread of Roponggai.
There was no other way to escape Roponggai. They had to stay together in the house at the Irumi River and find a way to get rid of him. But what way could they find?
Plans for killing Roponggai
An orphan, Kirisi was a stout and good-looking boy. The agile and brave boy liked to help his grandmother. He sometimes fought with village boys who bullied smaller boys. He hunted edible birds and boars in the forests and fished on the sea like an adult. When he returned home with his game and fish, he did not forget to share them with his neighbors. His good manners made the young and old love him.
But Kirisi lacked the wisdom his grandmother had. Though he was sensible, he was not well advised in all things he did. He had never had the experience of fighting with a big snake even though he had heard a lot about huge snakes. So, he relied on his grandmother’s good judgment, a result of her long life, to do things he did not understand completely. But in doing things that needed endurance, agility, and speed, Kirisi surpassed his grandmother. So, both needed each other in various plans and activities.
The old woman was trying to figure out how she and her grandson could survive from the devouring mouth of Roponggai. Suddenly, she got an idea.
“Let’s outwit Roponggai and kill him,” she said to the boy.
“Are you sure we can kill such a strong, huge snake?” asked Kirisi.
“Of course, we can. He’s not as clever as we are.”
“Then how should we kill him?”
“Let’s find some big stones and small sticks. We also need to prepare a lot of water, bark clothes, and wood.”
“What do we need them for? Will they help us kill him?”
“Of course, they will,” replied the old woman. “Let’s start doing what I’ve just told you. You’re young, strong, and brave enough to do them, aren’t you?”
Kirisi had no time to beam his smile of agreement to his grandmother. He was busy helping her gather stones and small sticks. Then, they collected plenty of water and boiled it the whole day.
The next day, they made bark clothes and each chose a piece of wood. They also baked the stones until they glowed.
Killing Roponggai
After this preparation, they had to finish some other things. They put on their bark clothes, went outside the house, stood on the wooden gallery, and began to pound its floor with the pieces of wood.
Roponggai heard the knocks and was lured to the sounds. He wriggled his way out of the cave, his dwelling. While winding impatiently toward the house built on land, he hit sticks of wood, and caused them to fall apart. But the impact did not hurt him seriously.
After a short time, he wriggled up the stairs of their house and went in. Roponggai’s heavy body shook the house like an earthquake. As soon as he saw the old woman and the boy, he opened his mouth that looked like the interior of a house, and was prepared to devour them.
Now was the right time to start the attack against him.
“Bring the fire tongs here!” the old woman commanded her grandson. Kirisi jumped as quietly as a cat, grabbed the tongs, and jumped back to the side of his grandmother. The snake was coming nearer.
“Throw the glowing stones into his mouth! Use the tongs.”
The boy hurled a shower of glowing stones into Roponggai’s mouth and started to throw another shower. The terrible snake swallowed the hot and burning stones.
“Look, grandma! Look at what’s happening!” the boy shouted.
Roponggai began to shake his head violently and writhe. His movements shook the house and Kirisi and his grandmother heavily. But he was so strong that he soon got over the pain.
“Prepare the boiling water and all small sticks,” said the old woman. “We’re going to boil and feed him.”
Before she finished her sentence, Kirisi poured the boiling water into Roponggai’s mouth, threw the small sticks into it, and poured in more water. Afflicted with intense pain, the amok-running monster swayed, coiled, hissed, rolled, and shook so violently that he nearly caved in the house.
“Watch out!” Kirisi shouted to his grandmother. Both swerved to avoid the snake from knocking them down to the ground with his powerful tail.
The boiling water shriveled up the snake, the heated stones burned his intestines, and the small pieces of wood broke his bones and mouth and tore open his stomach. But the snake was so strong that he did not die immediately. He flopped to the center of the house where Kirisi and the old woman had hidden.
“Let’s get out of here,” he urged his grandmother.
They sidled cautiously past Roponggai, climbed down the stairs, and ran into the forest. There, they built a hut and spent the night in it. There, they were safe from the dying Roponggai.
The following day, they went to the house. They found out that the snake was dead.
Since that time, the village has been safe from the threats and destructiveness of Roponggai. The villagers who had left returned from Numfor and other islands to their village. Since that time, they have commemorated the catastrophes by Roponggai and the two conquerors of the dragon through rituals and artistic images.
Copyright ©2008. All rights reserved. Published with written permission from the authors.
