A story from Papua New Guinea

“Each morning, our fences are broken, our gardens are a mess. The fruit are torn from the trees and the vegetables lie half-eaten on the ground.”

 “The boys must watch tonight”.

I wait with my spear. It is new. I myself chipped the stone, shaped the stone, gave it a cutting edge. I myself said the words of power over the spearhead, over the stone. My soul is in the stone. My soul is in the spearhead.

At first, there is a moon. A small, thin moon. It goes. There are few stars. Clouds. The night is dark. I hear cracking and breaking, the fence crushed beneath stamping feet. Three, four shapes move in the darkness. I lift my spear. I throw my spear. A screech, a howl, a terrible cry is heard in the night, and then the noise of feet, of hooves, of paws. Three, four shapes race from the garden.

 My father’s brow darkens. “You must find the spear-head. You are in the stone, you are in the flint. It may fall into the hands of a witch; she will do you harm. You must follow the sound of the feet, the trail of blood, the blood that drips from the hole your spear-head made.”

First light breaks. In the small hours of the morning, I follow the drops of blood. Out into the trees, through the brush, through the trees.

I come to a river. It is wide. The water is dirty, brown and muddy. The blood leads to the river. On the other side, I think I see the blood. Drops of blood leading into the trees. I put my left foot into the water.

The water takes my toes greedily. It sucks at my toes, it works on them, and my toes squeeze together. I feel them sticking together. I lift my foot out of the water; it is not my foot. It is a pig’s foot – a trotter.

I must cross the river. I wade into the water – deeper and deeper. I feel my feet change. My legs. The water reaches my chin, my ears dip into the water. My nose stretches out in front of me, big and pink. A pig’s nose. When I reach the other bank, a pig walks out of the water. I am a pig.

I run through the jungle. I follow the spoor of blood, the drops of blood. Through the trees and through the brush races the pig, following the drops of blood. My nose snuffles at the drops of blood. Then I see another river. It is clear. It is clean. The water is cool as my trotters splash into it. As my trotters splash into it, the pig sees his fingers. The pig sees his forefeet and they are a young man’s arms. The pig swims across the river, and when I reach the other bank, I crawl out as a man.

First he was a man. Then he was a pig. Now he is a man again – but he is a man who has been a pig; his nose has sniffed at the ground beneath the trees and his ears have heard the sounds of the trees. He has been a pig.

He follows the drops of blood. They lead him to a village – a village much like his own. The people in the village are kind but sad and distracted. One of them tells him that the chief’s daughter is ill. She is dying. “Where is she?”, he asks. “I am a shaman in my own land; I may be able to help her”. One of the villagers takes him to the hut where the young woman is lying in shadow.

The drops of blood lead to the door of the hut.

He pushes into the hut. People are surrounding the place where the young woman lies, but he slips between them. The woman’s face glistens with drops of sweat; her skin is pale and she shakes. He sees a bloody wound in her thigh.

“I will cure your daughter”, he says to the chief. “First, I must fetch herbs from the jungle. Then I will come back, and all the people must leave the hut. I must be alone with the girl”. The girl’s father nods. “If she lives, she is your wife”, he says. The boy nods. Alone, he walks into the jungle. He sees with the eyes of a pig. He hears with the ears of a pig.

I take leaves and I take small stones. I put them in my pouch. I am ready.

There is pain. There is a hard, sharp pain in my thigh. The pig feels hot. The pig feels cold. I have a fever. I feel as if my eyes will grow and grow until they burst from their sockets. The men and the women have gone. He comes. His face is bright. I know his name.

I know her name. I will be quick. It is my stone. It is the sharp stone. It has the sharpness that I gave it, the sharpness that cut deep into her flesh. With the leaves, I wipe the blood away. The pebbles I plunge into her wound and smear with her blood. The sharp stone is in my pouch. I wrap the bloody stones in the leaves and quit the hut.

He walks out to where the girl’s father is waiting. He gives the man a bundle of leaves. “Quick”, he says. “There is bad magic in this bundle. Take it far into the jungle and throw it away”. The chief beckons to one of his warriors and thrusts the leaves into his hands. He whispers in the man’s ear, and the man runs off.

He comes again, with his shining face, the man whose name I know. He reaches out his hand, and I must take it. I must go with him. My father shows us to a hut at the edge of the village.
 
 
 
 

He is a good man. He brings us food. He brings us meat. My mother eats well. Our children, the two boys and the little girl, eat well. I should be content; but in the evenings, the pig awakes. I smell the air and hear the sounds so clearly. He watches me, and when he sees me restless, he stands in front of the door.

He comes to me. “I have spoken to your father”, he says. “Five years I have worked for you, and for your father, and for your mother. I have worked in their gardens. I have brought them meat from the jungle. A man should live in his father’s house. We will go”.

The pig pricks up her ears. The pig snuffles the water, the bright water and the muddy water. The water of man and the water of pigs. The pig’s ears hear the birds of the jungle, and the buzzing of the insects. She hears footsteps through the jungle.

We wade across the first river. I let her cross in front of me, with the children, the two boys by her side and the little one in her arms. They cannot move quickly. It is good; we will reach the river of pigs at nightfall, and I will tell her that we cannot cross until the next day.

 “Sleep”, he tells us, and the children sleep. Something will happen. He watches me. He sniffs at my scent. I will close my eyes, but I will not sleep. He moves in the darkness. In the darkness he gently takes me in his arms. I feel him bind my arms and my legs to rough wood, and I tense my muscles. I think of what I must do. What I ought to do. What I will do. He is a good man.

The pig opens her eyes. A pig looks into my eyes; we snuffle at each other’s skin. I close my eyes. The rough wood rocks as he binds my children to the tree-trunk.

 I tied them to the tree-trunk. Then I collected the vines from the trees along the banks of the river of pigs. I collected wood. With my spear, I linked bank to bank, and laboured from bank to bank. When the light broke in the East, I had a bridge to cross. I pulled the tree-trunk with my wife and my children lashed to it. I pulled it towards the bridge. Their eyes trembled and opened. Her eyes met mine. A pig looked into my eyes. A pig looked for a pig.

When the man was halfway across the bridge, the woman slipped her arms out of the vines. She twisted and her body was free. She twisted again, and she fell from the log. She fell into the water. A pig swam towards the Western bank.

My wife called to her children. My elder son awoke and struggled with his bonds. He is a strong boy. My younger son awoke and struggled with his bonds. He is a strong boy. My daughter is not yet strong. Three pigs stand on the Western bank. I watch them. My daughter watches them. They turn and run into the trees. If I wish to eat pig, I must do my hunting in the East.

My daughter is tall and beautiful; the young men all love her. There is something about her eyes. That is why they call her “Miss Piggy”.

(adapted from a tale told in Papua New Guinea. An attempt at reading this story will be found here. And another one is here)

Comments to me at tmason@timothyjpmason.com.