Custom Stories from Epi, Vanuatu
The origin of counting
A girl was wandering in the cover of the bush, when a spirit came and climbed up a Kinai (almond nut, pometia pinnata) tree, picked ten kinai nuts and threw them down. The girl took away the tenth. When the spirit climbed down he gathered the nuts and then counted them saying: -
“Kinateta, kinaloa, ligan, plakito, vero, verovero, kotu, mligani, plakito, lualima.”
Having found one missing he again climed to get one in its place saying: -
“Tagka, luangak, tetuka, vari-ka, limka, kona, visi, paro, siwe kuru.” (This last spoken in falsetto.)
The girl went to bring her father and mother and said,
“My father and mother : let us go down there and see a strange thing doing something down there,”
but her father said to her,
“ Oh no you go along.”
She said, “ Oh no, we will go together and see.”
They went wit her to that place and she said,
“Listen to the man counting kinai nuts over there. “
They stopped and listened, and she said,
“ I have got he tenth kinai nut ther.”
Her mother said to her,
“ Put it back.”
She put it down with the other nine. The spirit came down and counted again :
“Kinateta, kinaloa, ligan, plakito, vero, verovero, kotu, mligani, plakito, lualima Tagka, luangak, tel’ka, vari’ka, lim’ka kona, visi, paro, siwe, kuru.”
They set them in order and then the spirit went down into the valley and went to the sea at Pulu longoro.
(NB – Epi numerals are tanga, lua, telu, vari, lima, orai olua, orelu, ovari lualima, so therese may be archaie or fanciful forms of the first five kinateta, kina loa may also be similar forms of one and two. – T.E.R)
Another old count given by the father of the oldest woman at Nkaura, when she was young and he and old man.
© 2004 Peter Murgatroyd, USP.