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> He's like the sea urchins between Ngiwal and Melekeok, on the ocean floor with its cover. The sea urchin can be seen lying quietly on the lagoon floor, occasionally with a leaf like a hat covering its head. Applied to a man who acquires a wife or great wealth without working for it. |
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> When the purple swamp hen appears, it brings remembrance There is a song (Oumachas) from which this saying derives: Once there was a young couple who made love in a secluded spot in the taro garden. While they were lying together a purple swamp hen darted out of the brush startling the couple. Eventually love cooled, but thereafter whenever the girl saw a purple swamp hen while she worked in the gardens, she recalled her lover. Hence any occurrence that brings back fond memories. |
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> Like the cockroach of Ngerdobotar, staying on till it became white. Presumably if a cockroach remains in the darkness for a long time, as one at Ngerdobotar (in Aimeliik) apparently did, it will turn white. Application pertains to a visitor who stays on and on, especially one who is not helpful in the household. Such behavior is not properly human; the person is somehow different, like a white cockroach. |
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> You're like a fish bait which can be eaten or pecked from the top and bottom. You don't know what to do because chores keep coming in from left and right. |
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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. |
