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> Narrow was our birth as humans. The saying defines life as a confined, perilous journey, symbolized by the painful narrowness of the birth canal. Generally applied to the trials of life, or sometimes by a parent to a child that does not want to do his chores. |
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> You're like the old man of Ngerechelong who uses a cloud to mark the location of his fishtrap. i.e. you depend too much on people who are unreliable. |
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> Like Ngiramesemong, rehashing what has been finished. Pertains to a person who repeatedly reminds another of past favors or continually recalls the mistakes of others. (My sources no longer recalled the episode or story from which this idiom derives.) |
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> Firebrand politics extinguished with water. In a sense this is a response to "Fire brand politics," but it appears to be a fully developed technique none the less. It involves responding to anger with quiet calm and kind words. If it has a character of its own it would be called compromise. Buying the opponent off is approved. J. Useem names this strategy, but was perhaps unaware of the wider significance, For him the phrase pertained to "a small time official who use his authority for his own benefit but shrewdly avoids being detected by superiors." I think that most Palauan political leaders would agree that any political tactitian,knowingly using the strategy of his training, would expect to accomplish as much. |
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> She's like the clams at Murael, lying face up (and open) and asking for news. i.e., she just sits at home asking passersby about what's going on outside. Murael is a reef near Ngerechelong where, as elsewhere in Palau, the various kinds of tradacna shell bask, open and feeding, in the shallow lagoon. The saying applies to gullibility combined with high curiosity for news and to persons who simply sit at home, letting the happenings of the community come to them via passing persons. |
