Exploring the islands of Melanesia allowed me not only to learn new languages, but also to discover a whole new world of mythology and literature, through the many stories of the oral tradition: myths, legends, folktales and other narratives.

These rich narratives form a subset of my fieldwork archives, most of which are accessible online. Indeed, during my years of fieldwork 1997–2011, I collected the following resources:

1069 fieldwork recordings (≈104 h), in Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands

⊃ 1034 recordings archived online, accessible through the CoCoON repository and its Pangloss Collection

⊃ 389 narratives transcribed in my text corpora (the basis for my linguistic analyses), in 21 different languages

⊃ 111 narratives transcribed and presented online
– usually with a full translation, in Eng. and/or French.

 

 

The present page proposes a selection of 84 such stories. These texts stand out for various reasons – whether due to their subject, their structure, the light they shed upon past or present societies, or due to the talented style of the storyteller. Not only can you listen to the original sound, but also read a transcript of the text in the original language [see the list of these languages]. As much as possible, texts come with a translation, either in French or in English.

To read a text, click on its title.
The table below shows what features come with the text:
 audio –  transcript of the text in the vernacular–
 French translation –  English translation.

Stories from Vanuatu
 

Language	Title	Storyteller
Araki	The rat, the hawk and the octopus	Lele Moli	•	•		•
Araki	A myth of origin: the island of Araki	Lele Moli	•	•		•
Araki	Hunting for coconut crab	Ropo	•	•		•
Araki	How the village of Sope was exorcised	Sohe Moli	•	•		•
Dorig	Wrisris, the Guardian of the Underworld – §1, §2, §3	Charles Maklen	•	•		•
Dorig	The woman who became volcano	John Collection	•	•		•
Dorig	The mysterious pixies	John Star	•	•	•	•
Dorig	The barracuda boy	Selwyn Wesur	•	•	•	•
Dorig	The tragic revenge of the two sisters	Charles Maklen	•	•		•
Hiw	The mat from the Other World	†Jimmy Tiwyoy	•	•		•
Hiw	About the grade system on Hiw, and about sorcery	†Jimmy Tiwyoy	•	•		•
Koro	The battle between Gods and Men	Banabas Womal	•	•	•	•
Koro	The boy who became a Flying fish	Derik Bogo	•	•		•
Koro	In love with an Eel Man	Banabas Womal	•	•		•
Lakon	Wuwut the orphan	†Klera Romalev	•	•	•	•
Lakon	Kpwat and his brothers	Moses Steven Weting	•	•		•
Lakon	On the significance of Hawks	Nelson Vagēl	•	•	•	•
Lakon	The origin of Gaua's great lake	Nikson Wevales	•	•		•
Lakon	The origin of dances magh and leng	Nikson Wevales	•	•	•	•
Mwerlap	On the people of Gaua	Rokatson	•	•		•
Mwesen	Kpwet, the trickster god	Tevēt Mesigteltōk	•	•	•	•
Mwotlap	The two enemies and the origin of mosquitoes	Charley Wesley	•	•		•
Mwotlap	The origin of kava	Edga Howard	•	•		•
Mwotlap	The dancing dead	†Hansel	•	•	•
Mwotlap	Romanmangan, the fairy from the Other world	Jenifa to Toglag	•	•	•	•
Mwotlap	The Cordyline man	†Masiro Numleas	•	•	•	•
Mwotlap	The three wives of the gecko	†Moses Meywēlgen	•	•	•	•
Mwotlap	The unyielding woman and the murdered prince	Railey	•	•	•
Mwotlap	How Ikpwet brought back the Night	†Taitus Lōlō	•	•	•
Olrat	John Young, one who went to Queensland	†Maten Womal	•	•	•	•
Olrat	The curse of the Eel	†Maten Womal	•	•	•	•
Olrat	The boy who bullied the Ogress	†Maten Womal	•	•		•
Vera'a	Stuck in the cave	Fredrik Qarngi	•	•		•
Volow	The Chief and the Orphan	†Wanhan	•	•	•

 

Stories from the Solomon Islands

 

Language	Title	Storyteller
Lovono	The shipwreck of Lapérouse §1 — §2	†Rubenson Lono	•	•	•
Tanema	The heron	†Emele Mamuli	•	•		•
Tanema	The shipwreck of Lapérouse	†Emele Mamuli	•	•	•
Teanu	Dragging the canoe to the sea	Mofet Bwana	•	•
Teanu	Lapérouse's treasure chest	†Teliki Thomas	•	•	•
Teanu	The message left by Lapérouse	†Teliki Thomas	•	•	•
Teanu	The origin of the kauri tree	†Teliki James Pae	•	•	•
Teanu	Mwasu and the forbidden woman	†Teliki James Pae	•	•		•
Teanu	The island of Dancing Spirits	†Teliki James Pae	•	•		•
Tikopia	The shipwreck of Lapérouse	Kaspa Niu Maketi	•	•	•

 

Raw stories, not yet translated

Some stories have no translation yet, and are only provided with a transcript: these may be of interest to members of the speaker communities, as well as linguists or other curious readers.
 

Language	Title	Storyteller
Dorig	The Heron and the Demon	Charles Maklen	•	•
Hiw	The two yams	†Jimmy Tiwyoy	•	•
Hiw	Spirits and demons	†Jimmy Tiwyoy	•	•
Hiw	The origin of newēt music	†Jimmy Tiwyoy	•	•
Hiw	Mer̄ëmpē, the river eel	†Jimmy Tiwyoy	•	•
Hiw	Mer̄avtit and his brothers	†Jimmy Tiwyoy	•	•
Hiw	About ancient altars (ne tuye)	†Jimmy Tiwyoy	•	•
Hiw	Toyöë and Wor̄tötë	†Jimmy Tiwyoy	•	•
Hiw	The Lyretail grouper	Sedrak Liqëlë	•	•
Hiw	Meravtit’s journey	Sedrak Liqëlë	•	•
Lakon	The Bird on the Great Lake	Wini Rovalēs	•	•
Lehali	The mother resurrected	Stanley Lengson	•	•
Lemerig	The rock that floated to the Torres Islands	†Wolta Robin	•	•
Lemerig	Kpwet and his brothers against the Ogre	†Wolta Robin	•	•
Lo-Toga	The origin of yams	Aisak Rongroriw	•	•
Lo-Toga	Merawehih creates Night and Day	Aisak Rongroriw	•	•
Lo-Toga	Merawehih and his brothers against the Ogre	Aisak Rongroriw	•	•
Lo-Toga	Merawehih and his brothers in the oven	Aisak Rongroriw	•	•
Lo-Toga	Merawehih and the coconut crab	Aisak Rongroriw	•	•
Lo-Toga	The Ogress who killed her own children	†Ben Rana	•	•
Lo-Toga	A demon	†Ben Rana	•	•
Lo-Toga	Qaheteveri the Cannibal	Elton Gëgeliqe	•	•
Lo-Toga	The story of Rëlol beach	Livai Metrië	•	•
Lo-Toga	Merawehih frees his mother	Peretin Wokmagene	•	•
Lo-Toga	The octopus	Pita Woteqō	•	•
Löyöp	The giant swine of the Reef Islands	Fred William Qasvarong	•	•
Löyöp	The two ogres Al and Oydin	Fred William Qasvarong	•	•
Mota	Two sisters-in-law	Ro Pansi Salevaglea	•	•
Mwesen	Selected stories of Kpwet	Tevēt Mesigteltōk	•	•
Mwesen	Varvang against the Giant	Tevēt Mesigteltōk	•	•
Mwotlap	The revenge of Kpwētlas	Charley Wesley	•	•
Mwotlap	The wild boy (recorded by †B. Vienne)	†Jif Mika (1978)	•	•
Mwotlap	The great dance of the fish	†Morris Emboi	•	•
Mwotlap	Two brothers: one selfish, one generous	†Moses Meywēlgen	•	•
Mwotlap	Ikpwet and his brothers against the Ogre	†Taitus Lōlō	•	•
Mwotlap	Venventey and the mystery island	Wit Samson	•	•
Mwotlap	The fisher from the hill	Woklo	•	•
Vera'a	How Sēwēes'i'i songs came to be	Eli Field	•	•
Vurës	The dancing dead	Alban Mofet	•	•

All these stories were first transcribed by hand in the field, with the help of native speakers of the languages; later on, I would type these notes and add them to my digital text corpus (in Toolbox). This work of transcription and translation is still in progress. Later again, the workflow included a stage of time-aligning text and sound, sentence by sentence, aimed at a web publication on the Pangloss interface. (Among the 80+ texts listed above, about 50 were time-aligned in 2013, thanks to the support of the LabEx EFL "Empirical Foundations of Linguistics".)

I intend to keep enriching these corpora in the future, by adding in more stories or more translations. The present selection, however, already gives a fair idea of the diversity of narratives that can be heard in the field, on an evening of storytelling.