Folklore And Fairy Tales

Birds of Paradise

In the Fak-fak area, precisely in the mountainous area of Bumberi, there lived an old woman with a female dog. The old woman and the female dog get food from the forest in the form of fruits and cuscuses. Forests are their mothers who provide food for life. They both live freely and happily in nature.

Once, as usual, the two of them went to the forest to find food. The journey that took a long time had taken them, but they had not yet obtained food. The dog was tired from running out of energy. In such a situation came the two of them to a place overgrown with pandan trees full of fruit.

The old woman immediately picked up the fruit and presented it to the hungry female dog. With pleasure, the female dog devoured the fresh treat. The dog felt fresh and full.

However, the dog began to feel strange things in his stomach. The dog's stomach is starting to grow. The old woman began to examine him and felt sure that his best friend (the female dog) was bunting. Not long after that, a puppy was born. Seeing the strangeness, the old woman immediately picked up pandan fruit to eat, then she also experienced the same thing with her best friend.

The old woman gave birth to a son. Both took care of their children with affection. The boy was given the name Kweiya.

After Kweiya became big and mature, he began to open the forest and create a garden to grow various foodstuffs and vegetables. The tool used to cut down trees is just a chisel (the shape of a stone axe), so Kweiya can only cut down one tree every day. His mother helped by burning the leaves of a fallen tree to clean the place so that thick smoke billowed into the sky. Both of them did not realize that they had attracted the attention of people with the smoke puff.

It is said that there was an Old Man who was nailing in the middle of the sea glued to see a pillar of smoke billowing high into the sky as if contacting the wilderness with the sky. He was stunned to think about how and who the mysterious smoke maker was. Curiosity drove him to go find the place where the smoke had occurred. Then he immediately prepared himself with enough supplies and armed with an iron axe, he immediately set out with a cuscus that he had been keeping for a long time. The journey turned out to be quite time consuming. After a week of walking, he finally reached the place where the smoke had occurred.

Upon arrival at that place, it turns out that the one who was met was a handsome man who was slamming bones cutting down a tree under the hot sun using a chisel-shaped stone axe. Seeing that, he approached and then gave his greetings : “weing weinggiha pohi” (meaning, “happy noon”), while giving Kweiya an iron axe to cut down the trees in the jungle. Since then the trees have fallen. Kweiya's mother who was resting in her cottage became astonished. He asked Kweiya what he had cut down the tree so that it could fall down so quickly.

Since Kweiya asked for food to be prepared, her mother immediately prepared as much food as possible. After the food is ready Kweiya called to go home to eat. Kweiya intended to invite the man to come to their home with the intention of introducing him to his mother so that he could be accepted as his life friend.

On the way to the house, Kweiya cut a number of sugarcane complete with leaves to wrap the old man. Then upon arrival near the house, Kweiya put the “package of sugarcane” outside the house. Inside the house, Kweiya pretends to be thirsty and begs her mother to get her a cane to eat as an antidote to thirst. His mother complied with his son's request and went out to pick up a cane. But when his mother opened the bag of sugar cane earlier, he was surprised to see a man who was in the package. Sera and her mother screamed in fear, but Kweiya tried to calm her down while explaining that she was the one who outsmarted her mother that way. He hoped that his mother would accept the man as his life companion, because the man had done good to them. He has given an axe that is very useful in their lives later. The mother immediately accepted the child's proposal, and since then the three of them have lived together.

After some time, several children were born in the middle of the small family, and the two parents considered Kweiya as their first child. The children born were later considered to be the siblings of Kweiya. But in the later development, the brotherly relationship between them worsened because Kweiya's half-siblings felt jealous of Kweiya.

One day, while their parents were looking for fish, the two sisters agreed to gang up on Kweiya and slice her body to wounds. Feeling upset over the actions of his two sisters, Kweiya hid himself in one corner of the house while spinning the rope from the bark of the tree “Pogak Ngggein” (genemo) as much as possible. When both of their parents came home, they asked where Kweiya was, but her two half-sisters did not dare to tell her where Kweiya was. Then their youngest sister, a girl who had witnessed the fight told it to their parents. Heard that cherta. The old mother felt sorry for her biological child. He tried to call Kweiya to come. But what comes is not Kweiya but a voice that reads: “Eek.ek,ek,ek,ek!” while saying that, Kweiya inserted a twine on his leg and jumped on the ridge of the house and then moved on to one of the branches near their house.

His mother who saw the situation then cried bitterly while wondering if there was a part for him. Kweiya who had transformed himself into a magical bird said that, the part for his mother is there and inserted on the cobwebs (umbrella mats) located in the corner of the house. The old mother then immediately looked for the cobwebs and then the twine was inserted into her armpits and followed her son Kweiya to the top of a tree high in the forest of their home. The two fought on the tree while chirping in a voice: wong,wong,wong,wong,ko,ko,ko,wo-wik!!

Since then, birds of paradise have appeared on the surface of the earth. There is a difference between male and female birds of paradise, long bird of paradise called “siangga” while female bird of paradise called “hanggam tombor” which means female or female. Both are derived from the Iha language in the Onin area, Fak-fak.

Kweiya's sisters who witnessed the miraculous event felt sorry and accused each other of who was wrong so abandoned by their mother and sister. Finally they pelted each other with the ashes of the hearth furnace so that their faces became gray black, some were gray and some were red-red, some were gray, then they turned into birds. They flew out of their homes into the jungle with their own colors. Since then the forest is filled with a variety of birds that are generally less attractive than paradise.

Their father called Kweiya and his wife and told them to change the color of the fur, but they did not want to. Their father was worried that the beautiful fur was wreaking havoc for them. He thought one day someone would hunt them down, including his three other children. Father felt disappointed that they did not heed their request to change feathers. Now his father is lonely and sad, he folded his legs and threw himself into the sea and became the ruler of the sea “Katdundur”.