Balawaia - Lexico Stats

Description:

Balawaia (Rigo) -- 1. Kemabolo Village (Raga Kopi 27 yrs) -- - SAW's list -- - Story in Vernacular about informant's work as Patrol officer. -- - Story by Bale Kalai (Kemabolo Vill.) 1. Balawaia Lexicon A list of words organised and grouped. Motu language was used to support English word in the interviews. a) Parts of the body - Head, Hair, Forehead, Eye, Nose, Ear, Tooth, Tongue, Chin, Throat, Neck, Mouth, Shoulder, Elbow, Palm of the hand, Finger, Chest, Breast of a woman, Back, Thigh, Knee, Sole of the foot, Skin, Hair on my body b) Sun/moon/star/sky/cloud c) Precipitation: fog/rain d) Water/river/lake e) Ground /stone/stand/mountain f) Bush/garden g) Fence/wind/wind blows/fire/smoke/ashes/path h) Tree - parts of a tree. i) Food j) Domestic animals - Pig k) Short sentences: -I sleep in the house -I lie on the ground -I see it -I hear it -I cry -I sing l) Numbers 2. Somewhere in Sepik Province: A story about the informant’s life. Customs - marriage Some of you probably know me, we are Barawaia. I am telling you my story about a trip that I made. That place is far away. I got on a plane to get to that place, 4, 5 hours. I went from Moresby, to Lae, to Madang, Madang to Wewak. Like I said, it was 5 hours, the land was far away. All my relatives, you will think that I am lying but I am telling you what I saw. There are only eight villages, and their way of life is different. If we compare our lives to theirs, their life is not good. I kind of felt sorry for them. I am saying that because some people walked around without clothes. Their custom is different from ours. Their way of making gardens is different from ours. Two people will talk and agree and then they will make a garden. Because their forests are bog, they chop down one tree and then plant their taros and bananas around the stump of this tree. Their gardens are not big. We have a variety of bananas, they do not. They eat these food with greens and bamboo shoots. They can’t catch protein because there aren’t many of them. They do not work together. We do things together. They have a lot of protein but they cannot kill them because they work alone. Their houses are not big. Their houses are made on the ground so their floor is the ground. They make their fire in the house and their staple diet is sago. That is why they do not really make gardens. They do not marry until they have gray hair, then they marry small girls. When a girl is born, they go and tell the parents that that is their wife. When the child is walking, the mother gives the child to the husband. The husband looks after her until she is old enough for him to marry her. Because he is an older man, he dies first. His younger brother then marries the widow. 3. Marriage for the people of Balawaia When we want a woman, we go and leave gifts with the parents of the girl. We tell them our intentions. If the parents say yes, every time we find something, we bring it to her house. For one whole year that is what we do. At the end of that period, they give us the woman. Then we cook, her parents to cook, and they bring it to us man. When all these is over, we do the big payment. We put food and money and pigs. When a boy is born, the father and mother will dress that child up when he is old and they will take this boy with gifts to the brothers of the wife. We will not fight each other because of that woman. Our friendship will be forever. Transcribed by Eileen Bobone (Steven Gagau, January 2021). Language as given: Balawaia. You can access this item at the PARADISEC website. You will need to sign up or sign in first.

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Sound

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PARADISEC Catalog

Contributors:

Tom Dutton

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PARADISEC

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