Cheapen Yathyath Nge L’agrow i Bulyel Ni yow ba Gafugow (Yathyath and Two Poor Girls)
This audio is a story of two poor, young girls and a demon by the name of Yathyath that transformed into a rock. This history was told by Fithingmew, Mu’ut, and Bapilung from the Old Age Program in Yap back in the 1970s. There was a family, a couple and their two young daughters, who lived in Alog village, in the middle of the island far from the shoreline. The family was so poor that they always lacked food. When the girls grew old enough to walk far distances, their parents sometimes sent them to gather seashells on the west shore of the island. But their father taught them not to pass through the peninsula by Arngel village, so the girls had to walk a far distance from their home to the shore to collect shells and clams for the family. They never went near the peninsula. However, one evening, when they collected shells and clams across from Kanif shoreline, their torch went out. They looked ahead of them and saw a soft, shimmering light by the peninsula. They thought it was someone’s torch, so they started walking toward the light in the hope of asking for fire to light up their own torch. Soon after, they noticed that it was not fire, but phosphorescent light on a demon’s body. They were so scared that they turned around and ran as fast as they could. Yathyath, the demon, kept chasing them. The younger sister was so scared. She cried out in fear, and the older sister told her to dump some of the shells and clams from their basket to distract the demon. The demon slowed down and started eating the shells and clams, but it soon chased them again. The younger sister cried out again for help. As they got closer to their village, their father heard his little girl crying out and knew that the demon was after them. He quickly filled up the fireplace in the house with big pieces of flint stones and clamshells to heat them up. The girls made it home and were quickly let in by their father. The demon also ran into their house, where the stones and clamshells in the fire were extremely hot. The father fooled the demon, telling it to stand by the door and open its mouth wide so he could throw the two girls in its mouth. The demon did so, wishing for a big meal. Instead, the father slightly opened the fireplace and dumped the hot stones and clamshells into the demon’s mouth. The demon turned away in pain and headed back away from the village. Along its way on wulk’uf savannah, the demon threw up all the flint stones it had swallowed earlier. It fell to the ground and died on wulk’uf savannah, between Alog and Maa’ villages in Weloy municipality. Then the demon transformed into a big, black rock. The black rock and the pieces of flint stones still stand near the wulk’uf savannah.
Micronesia
1970