Note 1 — The Frightened Yakā

When he was going away, the woman’s husband and boy, having gone on the journey, are coming back. The Yakā met them. Then the Yakā asked at the hand of those two, “Where did you go? I stayed seven years in the Murungā tree at the doorway of your house, to ‘possess’ your wife. To-day your wife, sharpening a bill-hook, came to the doorway, and looking in my direction said, ‘This bill-hook is indeed good for cutting a Yakā.’ Because of it, I am here, going away. Don’t you go; that wicked woman will cut you. Come, and go with me; I will give you a means of subsistence. I, having now gone in front, will ‘possess’ such and such a woman of such and such a village. You two having said that you are Yaksa Vedarālas,1 and having come [there], when you have told me to go I will go. Then the men having said that you are [really] Yaksa Vedarālas, will give you many things. When you have driven me from that woman, again I will ‘possess’ still [another] woman. Thus, in that manner, until the time when the articles are sufficient for you, I will ‘possess’ women. When they have become sufficient do not come [to drive me out].”