A breadfruit origin story from Kosrae

This term I realized that I should not stand in A101 and read legends and stories to the class, not if that could be avoided. Inspired by Hamilson Phillip I had already laid the groundwork that no one version of a story is the authoritative version. Stories belong to story tellers and their families. One has to shake free of the western concept of a single correct version of events. All versions are equally and simultaneously true. I also knew that like Hamilson, or any other story teller, I could not read the story. I had to tell the story, orally, recalling the details without reference to notes. In this term of working to be fully paperless, I arrived in class empty handed. I did not take role, I did not refer to notes, I left my phone holstered out of view.

Only three or four students were at the classroom at 3:30, so I headed down towards the dipwopw tree thinking to maybe hold class there. Then I decided to get a breadfruit leaf from across the road as a prop. The class, however, is well trained in following me, and dutifully followed me down to the breadfruit tree. That was the appropriate place to tell a story from memory.

As I walked down, the state police escorted the earthly remains of a woman named Memory back to Enipein

On my way down to the breadfruit tree a funerary procession passed by the college, a state employee had passed away all too young. The body was being returned to her home in Kitti, escorted by the state police and long line of vehicles moving in silence. 

The core of my thoroughly unauthorized version of the story is originally from a translation of a German expedition into Micronesia one hundred and fourteen years ago. 

An excerpt from Translation of Thilenius, ed., Results of the South Seas - Expedition, 1908-1910, Sarfert: Kusae, 2 Half-Volume, by Carmen C.H. Petrosian-Husa, Anthropological Report 2008/1b Kosrae Historic Preservation Office, Kosrae Island 2008 © Kosrae Historic Preservation Office. Page 432.

10. The Origin of the Breadfruit on Kosrae. (samsam)

A Ton-eel lived in Infäl-sisik, a small river in Wukat. From there he swam to the rivulet Ineläka and from there to the mountain Ineläka, beyond the source of the river. There he lay down. A tomon anüt from Tafinkol, Neko, saw him there lying on dry ground. Neko walked in a wide circle around him in order to pass him. Then the eel talked to him, »Why are you afraid of me?

I am afraid because you are so big and lying on dry ground.

The eel replied, »Do not be afraid. Tell your people they shall bring me over to the Tafonkol-River.«

Thus, Neko sent his people away to cut wood in order to build a stretcher. When they were finished with it, they placed the eel on top of it and took him with them to Tafonkol, where they placed him into the water. The eel swam downriver to the sea and away to an island in the west. As a fare well he said to Neko, »I go away from Kusae, but I will send you something because you brought me here.« On that island the eel took the root of a breadfruit tree, wrapped it into 30 mats and sent the bundle by 12 men to Kusae.

A woman from Menka went fishing at nighttime. This was when she heard the men in their canoe talking about the bundle. The canoe landed at the place Muotä in Menka. Immediately after the men had placed the bundle on the ground they left again. The woman called the people together, and they went to the place and brought the bundle into the house and opened it. In it they found roots. They did not know what they were, nevertheless, they planted them and when the tree had grown tall it bore different kinds of breadfruits: fok sesak, mos in oä, pataktäk, fok keikei, fok fas, earkon, but no ik un lal. That tree was still standing not so long ago. Many people supposedly had seen it. When the fruits were big, all the people wanted to have roots from the tree. Thus, the breadfruit was distributed all over Kusae.

However, nobody had yet tasted the fruit. Once 2 boys from Mot went with other people to Lölö. There, in Kala, stood 2 breadfruit trees. One could see the beautiful fruits, but nobody dared to eat them. People did not know if you could die from them. The two boys tried one fruit. It tasted very good. Since then, people from Kusae eat breadfruit.

When Neko heard about the fruit and its origin, he knew that they were a present of the eel and told the people so.

~~~

As with any story there are omissions, some perhaps more obvious than others. Why would the twelve men abandon the bundle on the beach after such a long perilous journey? Perhaps the men felt that they were only instructed to take the breadfruit roots to Kosrae. Perhaps the eel never actually said they had to deliver the roots to any particular person on Kosrae. Too, strangers arriving at an island in a canoe were always at risk of being attacked by the residents of the island. To the west were islands known as "the islands of arrows" where all arrivals were greeted with a hailstorm of arrows. And there are still islands in the Indian ocean where anyone who approaches is attacked, anyone who manages to land on the island is summarily killed. 

Every island has their own language, it is unlikely the women could have understood what the men said. On a dark night, with perhaps no moon, the men might not have been able to see the women fishing up in the shallows on the reef. Voices carry further over the water than one can see in the dark. The women would have heard foreign voices. If the women had the mangrove behind them, they would have been all but invisible from the sea in a place such as Utwe harbor. The men, however, could have been visible to the night adapted vision of the women against the background of stars over the open ocean - even the planet Jupiter provides just enough light to make out figures in the dark.

One can argue the women could see the men were hefting something and then left, they then went to see what the men had done, perhaps had brought. 

Another odd part of the story is of the two boys who tried the fruit. This part of the story cannot be right: breadfruit must be cooked to be edible. And in ancient times that meant using an um, a ground stone oven of basaltic rocks. So perhaps the boys were using the breadfruit as a ball, tossing it back and forth. If their breadfruit were to land in the um, their father would be more than displeased. In his anger he wouldn't return the ball to the boys, telling them he would incinerate their ball for having disturbed his um. Of course the breadfruit was not incinerated. And the smell of breadfruit fresh from an um is enough to make anyone want to taste the breadfruit. Sure, a long reach interpolation, but no one ate the fruit raw.

Kiste, Robert, “Antab working on the section of the breadfruit tree that will be the main part of the hull on his new canoe.,” Kili island, Marshall Islands. UHM Library Digital Image Collections, accessed November 22, 2022, https://digital.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/items/show/8960.

So why would people have spread the tree around the island if they did not realize that the fruit was edible? Canoe hulls can be made from breadfruit trees with the breadfruit tree's latex like sap used as a sealant on seams. Perhaps the wood was found useful in local construction or the making of implements. 

The story is, after all, a legend. And as Luelen Bernart might have said, "Now this is not the direct story, for what I say has glanced off it, but let those who know hear later and set this story straight." The late Dr. Rufino Mauricio added a similar coda when he related a legend or story. What I have interpolated is certainly not the direct story, and definitely not straight. The challenge is that few youth know any stories or legends. This is the generation of social media and smartphones. Many of my students do not know a single story or legend concerning a plant, some do not know any story or legend. Setting the story straight may soon be impossible. 

After class I remained haunted by the image of Memory being returned to Enipein for burial, a terribly sad and tragic coincidence during a session on the loss of stories, of forgotten legends, the loss of memories of the past.