How the Dugong Came To Be

How the Dugong Came To Be

(A Legend from Palau)

On the faraway island of Palau lived a young woman who carefully kept the ways of the island. She was gentle and kind, moving quietly from one task to another, watching, watching, especially when the children were at play near her home. She was married to a young man who would someday become chief if they both showed themselves to be worthy. They lived in a simple hut nestled beneath coconut palms and near the ocean. The constant pounding and crashing of surf against the black lava cliffs was a soothing, distant song. But they were not happy. They longed for the sweet sounds of children to fill their home.

As the young woman sat weaving in the shade of the tall, slender palms, her gaze would wander. She watched the fronds overhead swaying and tossing, as if playing with the teasing whispers of the sea wind. Maybe someday her own child would play next to her, laughing as the wind shook the fronds into clatter and dance. Maybe someday.

Each morning her husband climbed the sturdy limbs of a towering breadfruit tree. He tossed down the ripe green fruit. She laughed as she tried to catch the breadfruit, imagining their own child running in the sand, chasing after the tumbling fruit. Maybe, maybe someday.

In the afternoons when the sea crept low, she waded in the tide pools, catching crabs and searching for shells. She stopped to watch as waves washed over the glassy smooth surface, wrinkling the water and sending sparkles of sunshine into the air. It was then that tears would slide down her cheeks. She longed to hold a child in her arms and caress it as joyfully as the sun kissed the sea. Maybe, maybe someday.

And then it came to be. A child was conceived, began to grow, and soon moved within her.

But she was afraid. As the movements of the child grew stronger, the darkness that chilled her heart grew colder. Her husband laughed at her fears and chided: “Follow the ways of the island women. Follow each rule, and our child will be healthy.”

“But our child will not be safe.”

“Safe from what?"

She did not have an answer.

“Fallow each rule.” And he turned away from her. And so she did. In the evenings she no longer went down to the shore to gather crabs and shells and wash off the day's dust. She knew that at dusk the dark spirits are hungry for unborn babies. As darkness thickens, these spirits gather near the water's edge, waiting for foolish young women heavy with growing infants.

She did not eat the foods forbidden to women who are nourishing the child within them. Her husband too was careful not to quarrel or hunt fish in the lagoon at night. They both carefully kept the rules of their island.

The time for birth drew near. The young woman's heart now seemed divided like a half moon. One side glowed warm from the happiness of new life growing strong within her. One half felt dark and cold, heavy with foreboding and sadness. About what? Surely just the fear of birthing, the fears that all women share.

She wove new pandanus mats for her child, new mats to make a soft bed. She collected leaves, stripped, soaked, and pounded them. She selected the straightest and softest ones for weaving. Only one more moon cycle to wait. Her time to deliver was a few weeks away, when the moon would be ripening into fullness and light. “Wait, little one, wait. This dark phase of the moon must pass before you are born.” She knew that a child born during the moon’s darkness was a child filled with evil, doomed to cause chaos and destruction. Thus, doomed to die.

She sang over and over to her child as she wove. “Wait, little one, for the moon to shine, if only a sliver, if only a sliver. Wait, little one, for the brightness needed to assure your life.”

But the child would not wait.

That evening, as the blood-red washes of sunset soaked the horizon, her labor pains began.

“No! No!” she cried to her husband. “Run. Find the Old One. Find the woman with herbs that can stop this birthing. Hurry! Run, before it’s too late.”

Her husband did not answer. Tears clouded his eyes. He looked at the hut's dark opening that showed only the blackness of the night. “The meaning is clear,” he said. He turned away.

Her labor quickened. In the darkest hour of the night, the child was born. She cut the cord, washed any uncleanness away, and held her child, saying nothing, knowing that death would come soon. Once the villagers learned that a baby was born during this dark phase of the moon, the baby would be destroyed.

Already she could see that torches were being flamed. A stirring of voices shouting and calling whispered up from the village. She knew the older men were gathering, calling, and encouraging each other. Soon they would come, chanting out words of death, singing appeasement to the spirits.

She gazed at her baby. The child looked back at her. His eyes were wide and bright. They seemed to be filled with an understanding that these few minutes were precious.

She caressed his cheek with her hand. His little arms reached up to her. His tiny fist encircled her finger and grasped it tightly. She could feel his strength and eagerness for life.

“No. This child cannot die. There is no darkness, no evil within him.”

The chanting of the village men was growing louder, louder.

What could she do? Where could she run?

“Hide us. Hide us!” she pleaded with her husband.

“This island has oa place to hide,” was his reply.

Her husband was right. There was nowhere to run, no place to hide.

The voices of the men were loud, very loud. The drumming of their words and the slapping of their hands was near, very near.

Nowhere to hide. No way to plead.

She clasped her baby tightly to her chest. She stood in front of her home. It was no longer a place of safety. It was no longer her place, her home.

She could already see the angry faces of the men. But their eyes would not look at her. Their feet kept marching and their shouting voices rushed toward her like a wall of sea water about to curl and wash over her and the tiny life she held.

Sea water. Ocean... ocean. An enemy, a friend.

“I have no friends here. I have no home. I have only the ocean.”

She ran. More swiftly than she had ever run before, she fled down the path between the nodding trunks of the coconut palms, nodding, nodding. She raced past hibiscus bushes trembling in the wind, whispering, whispering. She ran faster, faster, until she could feel the knife edges of the volcanic rocks cutting her bare soles. She ran until she could hear the surf crashing against the cliff, just a little farther, a little faster. The men were close behind now, wailing, cursing. Hurry, yes, yes. Between gulps of air, she breathed out the words of her own death prayer. “Ocean mother, ocean mother, this child is born of light. No child is born of evil. No child needs to die. No more. No more.”

Would the ocean receive them? She must take the chance or the old ways would claim her child's life. In her heart she knew the old ways were wrong. Somehow the ocean would teach her people, a lesson to those still island-bound.

At the cliff's edge she stood holding her baby. She looked down at the swirling waters, the white froth of laughing foam. She looked back at the dark faces of her people. She saw their fists shaking at her, their arms reaching, grabbing.

She shouted back. “Never again, not another baby need die!” The young mother leaped.

The men crowded to the edge of the cliff. They looked down but saw no drowning woman or child. Instead they saw the silvery-gray back of an animal they had never seen before, an animal since named the dugong. She was slowly swimming away. Beside her was her infant, splashing and playing in the waves made by his mother.

Source:

Pacific Island legends: tales from Micronesia, Melanesia, Polynesia, and Australia

Nancy Bo Flood, Beret E. Strong, William Flood

1999

Pages: 33-38