The leriko child who stole food

This is a story about a child Leriko, a male, that was at Lokopi.

Once it happened that this Leriko child was at its house, and when he saw the tide was out, and the people away from the village and cried,

“ Marapiawa talilui (a thing with a face like an owl at front and back).

”One face looks shoreward, one looks to the sea. On two other occasions he cried and went down to the village, and when he had eaten the villager’ food he cried out and then went again into his door. One morning when all the village people were on the reef he went down and again ate their pau and plantains, and cooked taro pudding. When those who were at the shore came up he said,

“Perhaps a man may see me, “ and he fled.

A man was sitting under the eaves of the house, and as the Leriko child fled he took hold of the child’s mile-long hair. The child wished to flee right off but the man held his hair firmly, and when he went up he found his hair fast. Go, the child said,

“Up and down: go down to the inside of your house, “

and then the man let go and hid. The Leriko child came back and said,

“it is all right, it is all right.”

He went back, and the man grasped the hair again. When the child got up he found his hair fast again and said,

“Up and down : go down to the inside of your house.”

When he came down the man at the side of the house let go and hid.

The Leriko child looked and said,

“It is all right.”

Then he went up again, and just then the men from the beach came up. He was still going up when they arrived, and the man went and seized the hair saying,

“Come quickly, I have caught that thing that has always been eating our food from inside the houses.”

They came and hauled on his hair, and pulled the Leriko child down to them, and they smote him. They took all kinds of sticks to smite him with but it was useless. Then they took the kirasimevia (false kava) and smote him and killed him. They tried to cook him on all kinds of sticks but he remained uncooked. Then they took his long hair and cooked him with it, and it roasted him.