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> A male child, though small, is yet like a small barracuda that braces against the flowing stream. The small barracuda (mersaod, a small ai) can be seen bracing, without apparent motion, against the stream, usually where fresh water flows into the lagoon, or where tide water runs off the reef, until suddenly it dashes into the stream to grab a small fish. Then it retreats once more to its place of watchfulness. This watchful, quiet, reserved, almost crafty approach to life is much admired, and parents will encourage their male children with this saying. |
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> It's like the feast of Ngchesar, postponed till tomorrow, then the next, and forever. You keep saying tomorrow, tomorrow. You're lucky there's a tomorrow. Presumably, in the past the village of Ngchesar in central Palau tried and tried again to schedule a mur, the largest, villagewide feast conducted in Palau. But for various reasons the feast was forever postponed. The saying applies to the risk of procrastination. |
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> Like the mud fish of the Bngei lagoon, drawn to the passing wind The reef fish mud seldom leaves a given rock or cleft in the reef, but according to this saying the mud of Bngei lagoon, near Airai, may be attracted away from their locus by the dust raised by a passing school of fish. The latter portion of this proverb is difficult to translate. The word melecheb may be applied to a person drawn forward by a current of water. Rrengor refers to a movement of air caused by one body passing another. The idiom is applied to a changeable person, a faddist, or a joiner |
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> Like eating a forked taro corm. Taro (Colocasia esculenta) generally grows like a single fat carrot. Some corms, however, develop one or more points or forks. The image conveyed by this idiom is that of a man beset by many tasks, trying to decide among them. |
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> That man is like a duck. The native duck, debar, doesn't fly very well, or high like other birds, it doesn't walk or run like some animals, it can't sing well, and it doesn't swim as well as a fish. But it can do all these things. Applied to a person who seemingly can do many different things, none of them expertly. "Jack of all trades." |
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