Madang Province

(map)

A big python once lived in a hole at the base of a tree. One day, children came and played in the area of tree. The boys gathered coconuts and threw them down. The python gathered them into its hole where it slept. After a while, the boys noticed their coconuts missing and, searching for them, found the python in its hole. They ran back to their village and told the people there.

The leaders were happy to hear about the big python. They took ginger leaves, tied up the python with them, and carried it back to the village. Then they told everyone to prepare for a big feast. When the preparations were done, they slept.

In the morning, they appointed two girls and their brothers to watch over the python. When the people went away to get the food, the python turned into a young man. He said, "Don't be afraid, I am a young man like you." He asked for betel nuts and chewed betel with them.

He told the girls, "If the men kill me, ask them to give you my belly. If something happens, take the two boys and some fire and go to the top of that coconut tree."

When the people returned in the afternoon, the girls told them that the snake was a person. The men laughed at the girls and said they probably dreamed it. Then they killed and butchered the python. The girls took the snake's guts down to the river and washed them. They found it was filled with traditional adornments such as the teeth of dogs and flying foxes. They took these and adorned their two brothers who had been with them when the snake became a man.

In the afternoon, everyone came to eat. As they ate, a strong wind and rain arose, and a big flood came up. It covered the village and everyone and everything in it.

The two girls and two boys had climbed the coconut tree. After two days, they threw down a green coconut to see if the flood had receded, but it had not. Later, they threw down another and saw that the flood had receded just a little.

While they waited, two big masalai stones came and ground up the bones of all the people and animals from the village. Then two big chickens came and swept all the bones into the forest. As they did so, they said, "Manag gu bar pu, manag gu bar pu," "Where are you going? Nowhere, huh." Then the village was clean, and the two girls and two boys came down.

The boys grew into men, and each married the other's sister. They are the origin of the clan called Rangai.

Slone, 2001, 1: 467-468.