Kenoriya, the favourite daughter of To’ulawa, the chief of Omarakana, while on a visit to another village, was deprived of her internal organs by the mulukwausi. When brought home, she could neither move nor speak, and lay down as if dead. Her mother and other relatives already began their mortuary wailing over her, the chief himself broke out into loud lamentations. But nevertheless, as a forlorn hope, they sent for a woman from Wawela, a well-known yoyova, who after receiving valuables and food, flew out as a mulukwausi, and the very next night found Kenoriya’s insides somewhere in the raybwag, near the beach of Kaulukuba, and restored her to health.
Another authentic story is that of the daughter of a Greek trader and a Kiriwinian woman from Oburaku. This story was told me by the lady herself, in perfectly correct English, learnt in one of the white settlements of New Guinea, where she had been brought up in the house of a leading missionary. But the story was not spoilt by any scepticism; it was told with perfect simplicity and conviction.
When she was a little girl, a woman called Sewawela, from the Island of Kitava, but married to a man of Wawela, came to her parents’ house and wanted to sell a mat. They did not buy it, and gave her only a little food, which, as she was a renowned yoyova and accustomed therefore to deferential treatment, made her angry.
When night came, the little one was playing on the beach in front of the house, when the parents saw a big firefly hovering about the child. The insect then flew round the parents and went into the room. Seeing that there was something strange about the firefly, they called the girl and put her to bed at once.
But she fell ill immediately, could not sleep all night, and the parents, with many native attendants, had to keep watch over her. Next morning, added the Kiriwinian mother, who was listening to her daughter telling me the tale, the girl “boge ikarige; kukula wala ipipisi,” “she was dead already, but her heart was still beating.” All the women present broke out into the ceremonial lamentations.
The father of the girl’s mother, however, went to Wawela, and got hold of another yoyova, called Bomrimwari. She took some herbs and smeared her own body all over. Then she went out in the form of a mulukwausi in search of the girl’s lopoulo (inside).
She searched about and found it in the hut of Sewawela, where it lay on the shelf on which are kept the big clay-pots, in which the mona (taro pudding), is cooked ceremonially. There it lay “red as calico.” Sewawela had left it there, while she went into the garden with her husband, meaning to eat it on her return. Had this happened, the girl could not have been saved.
As soon as Bomrimwari found it, she made some magic over it then and there. Then she came back to the trader’s compound, made some more magic over ginger-root, and water, and caused the lopoulo to return to its place. After that, the little girl soon got better.
A substantial payment was given by the parents to the yoyova for saving their child.
Living in Oburaku, a village on the Southern half of Boyowa, I was on the boundary between the district where the yoyova do not exist, and the other one, to the East, where they are plentiful. On the other side of the Island, which is very narrow at this part, is the village of Wawela, where almost every woman is reputed to be a witch, and some are quite notorious.