Birth
is no Longer Death
(A Legend from Marshall Islands)
On the island of Airok the women were few. Girls died
giving birth. No one knew how to help them. When a baby was born, a woman died.
On the island the mejenkwaad* were many. If a man went
away before his pregnant wife gave birth, she’d become a mejenkwaad ready to
devour her husband when he returned.
Only two women grew old on that island. They never
gave birth. The old women collected the abandoned wives turned mejenkwaad. They
treated them like daughters. Together they lived on the ocean side of Airok.
No one ever crossed to that side for fear of being devoured.
At the middle of the island, the part called Kañal,
there lived a different girl, a smart girl. She got pregnant and she didn’t
want to die. She ran away to the ocean side of the island. A big rock, the one
that still stands, was there. The girl lay down and fell asleep under the rock.
“I want to have a child. I want to hold the child,” the girl said to the
mejenkwaad.
“Oh, we must take care of that girl,” said the two.“We must have our
first child.”
The two old women helped the pregnant girl give birth
to a boy. They showed her how to give birth and live. She and her son went back
to the middle of the island. The people there said, “We thought you died
already.”
When she showed her baby, the people spoke music and
danced in their joy. The new mother taught the people how to birth. No more of
the island’s girls had to die.
* A female demon
Source
Marshall
Islands Legends and Stories
Daniel A. Kelin II and Nashton T. Nashon
2003
Pages: 40-41
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