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> Without looking afield, it was cut down behind the house. From the folk tale concerning Mesubed Dingal, the inventor of the Palauan kite (see also No. 73). After his wife had been kidnapped, he constructed a kite using feathers from all the birds of Palau and he needed also wood from an Edebsungel tree to fashion the body of the bird-kite. After looking all over Palau and being on the point of giving up, he found the tree he needed behind his own house. The saying may be applied to anyone who does things the hard way, or who goes far afield to find something which is close at hand. |
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> Our nose is close (to the mouth), but cannot be licked. i.e. we shouldn't be too sure of, or overconfident in, ourselves. The nose is very close to the mouth, but, no matter how reassuringly available, it cannot be licked by the tongue. The idiom cautions those who are careless with their possessions to be less assured about wealth. |
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> If it is my lunch it can be divided, if it is yours then it cannot Two men habitually trapped fish in the same region of the lagoon. One would occasionally ask the other to join him at lunch, the other would always refuse. One day the man who refused arrived with no lunch. When the usual invitation was extended the man refused, saying that, anyway, he had no lunch. The invitation was insistently pressed until the reluctant one gave in. As they split the taro between them the one who shared made the above statement. The idiom is a mild rebuke of a retentive person |
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> An ukall tree won't become a titimel tree. i.e., a child will resemble its father; human nature will not change. The ukall, a lumber tree, resembles the titimel, a fruit bearing tree, at least to the extent that both are trees and become quite large. Both have assets but are quite different. The idiom is applied in the sense that a child resembles its father and will become what its father was. It may also be used to mean "human nature can't be changed." |
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> Like Kerosene, poling his canoe with no obvious destination Under the German administrator Winkler before World War I, a Palauan named Ngirakerisil (Mr. Kerosene) was employed as a canoe operator. Daily he would take the tireless administrator to a different part of Palau to inspect the various economic programs (largely coconut planting) instituted by the now legendary Winkler. The operator, least of all, could predict where they would be going next. The idiom is applied to any aimless person or action; indecision; a changeable person. |
