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> Like coconut syrup. A general reference to incestuous relations. That this is a recent idiom, probably first used during the period of Japanese administration, is suggested by the Japanese word "ameyu," used in Palau to mean coconut syrup. The incident from which the idiom derives is said to be one in which a Palauan coconut-syrup maker had relations with his wife's sister. |
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> Like a squatting bat, hanging but looking down. Bats hang upside down from the tree and may be thought to have an inverted view of things. Refers to a comment or action that is clearly out of line; rarely said of a person who is present, since the implication is that of weak mindedness. |
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> Like the blind man of Ngetmel, twisting twine into the fire. The image is that of a blind elder, warming his frail body beside the fire while twisting strands of fiber into twine against his thigh. Only as he pulls the finished twine away, he pushes it into the flames. The saying may be applied to any utterly pointless activity or dissipation of wealth. |
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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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> Like the crotch of an aristocratic woman. Women of the wealthy elite in old Palau would be tattooed up the entire leg and about the thighs and hips. Reference is to the black color of such tattooing and the phrase may be applied to any dark occasion, but usually to dark clouds. |
