Stories from the Tanimbar Islands
There are a great many wonderful stories from the Tanimbar Islands. Perhaps the most famous of all these stories is that of Atuf, Tanimbar’s culture hero who speared the sun into a million pieces. This page has will have links to a few of my favourite Tanimbarese tales including Shit Baby, The Sacred Pool, which was told to me by a friend in the village of Lorulun, and Crab Girl, a particularly beautiful story collected by Petrus Drabbe in his ethnography.
These are all retellings, and they differ in some details from the originals. Nevertheless they retain the basic structure and flavour of the Tanimbarese versions.
Crab Girl
A girl born in the form of a crab, and her eleven wayward brothers. This story features a particularly fearsome fish.
Shit Baby
A woman moulds a beautiful baby from her own excrement; but tragedy is not far away.
The Sacred Pool
Talking fish, young lovers and why it is never sensible to bathe in sacred pools.