I am going to tell you how the story of these ancestors happened, and how they lived, those ancestors of mine, in days gone by...
in the land over on the other side, to the east (of Tiabet) :
over there, in the place where they lived, in Nôômuja.
One day,
the ancestor decided
to go down and take a walk
on this side, in Hawawalic, in a little bay where some old people lived,
where some of his clan lived.
One day, he went down
and went to visit them, and stayed with them
until evening came.
That evening, they went to sleep
when night came,
and slept until the morning star rose,
then he woke up and went down onto the beach
there in Hawawalic,
he heard the sound of voices,
he went along the beach,
and he saw some people fishing with nets.
He went down to have a look
and then ... then he recognised them : they were his tutelary spirits
women of a midget species, she-spirits.
He came down among them, the women who had come to fish with nets,
who were fishing for dawas (Naso unicornis).
They fished over there, on the sandy headland, going away
towards the coast of the island called Bweebun.
On that spot, they killed whole shoals of dawas,
they carried them back and threw them down onto the beach.
But the sun came up, and rose in the sky
and some of them said:
"It's dawn!
The sun is already rising in the sky,
we had better go home".
Some of them said:
"Take the fish and go up ahead of us".
"Pick up the net!"
But while they were picking the net up from the ground,
my ancestor was making fast all the rest of the net.
He attached it to rocks
or to coral
to hold them up until they freed it.
But the sun had risen fast.
So, they said, "Let us leave the net!"
They ran away, leaving the net,
ran up towards the dry land and disappeared into the forest.
But my ancestor also went up with them,
he went up and met up with them, there, in the forest,
then he turned around and went back,
went back down onto the beach.
Once he was down there, he began gathering up the net (on a stick).
He gathered up the net, and picked it up quickly
then he went back up.
But he didn't go back to the old people he had come to visit,
he carried on up the path towards the Wiiwu Pass,
and he went up, went through the Wiiwu Pass, went down to Cabwi,
and he walked along the sand bank at Oony, went around Kalovaak Point and continued up towards the Nôômuja Bay.
He took the net with him, and then he went to hang it up there, in his house,
then, when evening came, he remained there and fell asleep.
He slept next to the fire,
with his feet pointing downwards towards the door and his head pointing upwards, towards the back of the house.
The women searched for their net, then realised that it had disappeared.
Some of them said:
"You go up and fetch it, for the old man has taken it!"
They went up and arrived on the other side.
Two of the women went up,
and they stopped outside the door.
The old man was asleep, and the two women called out to him, saying :
"Grandfather! Grandfather!"
He woke up with a jump,
went to the door and saw the two of them.
"What do you want?", he asked them. They replied : "We have come up here to your house,
we have come up here to fetch the net.
The others have sent us here to bring back the net".
"No! Listen, I can't give it to you
because I really must keep this net.
must keep it, at any price. I beg you, let me have the net to keep, for ever, let it be mine".
And the two women said :
"No! It's impossible. Because we only have one net
and this is it.
But, look
Here, take this .... this "medicine" (magic)
and put it on your nets from now on,
so that it may be useful to you in the future,
in the days to come when you will be living here
and for the clans.
But I beseech you, give that net back to us".
So the ancestor took it,
he took the "medicine" from them
and, having got up, he gave them their net back
so that they could both go back.
That is the tale of what happened with this net.
and how they gave that "medicine" in exchange for the net
which belonged to my ancestors,
those she-spirits.
That's the end.