(From the Penyahbongs; kampong Tamaloë)
Two young girls, not yet married, went to fish, each carrying the small oblong basket which the Penyahbong woman is wont to use when fishing, holding it in one hand and passing it through the water. A very young serpent, of the huge kind called penganun, entered a basket and the child caught it and placed it on the bark tray to take it home.
Penganun ate all the fish on the tray, and the girls kept it in the house, catching fish for it, and it remained thus a long time. When it grew to be large it tried to eat the two girls, and they ran away to their mother, who was working on sago, while their father was sleeping near by. Penganun was pursuing them, and he caught the smaller one around the ankle, but the father killed the monster with his sumpitan and its spear point. With his parang he cut it in many pieces and his wife cooked the meat in bamboo, and they all ate it.
NOTE.—Penganun, see preceding tale. The sumpitan (blow-pipe) has a spear point lashed to one end, and thus also may serve as a spear.
8. THE FATHERLESS BOY
(From the Saputans; kampong Data Láong)
A woman was going to the ladang in the morning, and she said to her young son, Amon Amang, whose father was dead: "When the sun comes over the tree there you must begin to husk paddi." She then went away to the ladang while the boy remained at home. He carried the paddi, as well as the oblong wooden mortar, up into a tree. There he began to work, and the mortar and the paddi and the boy all tumbled down because the branch broke. A man helped the half-dead boy to come to his senses again, throwing water on him, and when the mother returned she was very angry to see the mortar broken and the paddi strewed all about. "I told you to husk paddi in the house when the sun came over the tree," she said. "Better that you now go and hunt birds."
The boy then decided to hunt. He climbed a tree and put up snares to catch birds. He caught a great many big hornbills, which he fastened alive to his loin cloth, and they began to fly, carrying the boy with them to a big tree, where they loosened themselves from him, left him in a cleft, and all flew away. The tree was very tall, but he climbed down a fig tree which grew beside it, descended to the ground, and went home.
His mother was not pleased that he did not bring any birds, and he told her what had happened. "Why all this?" she said. "You fell from the tree! You should have killed the birds," she declared reproachfully.
NOTE.—Amon Amang means the husband's child. (Amon = father; Amang = child.)