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1. For those of us not privileged to have seen extreme cassowary
behaviour, the following two dramatic eye-witness accounts (sent to me
off line) are notable:<br>
<br>
(i). from Dan Jorgensen (Telefomin area, West Sepik P):<br>
<br>
re: <i>"...in both captive birds and wild ones, I have seen them
running around in a frenzy, kicking trees and bashing into things.
Could be a conceptual link to epilepsy... " AM</i> <br>
<br>
“I can confirm this from witnessing a truly scary incident in which a
captive (adolescent) bird got loose in a village and began running up and
down the line of houses, pinwheeling its legs, and leaving deep score
marks on houseposts. Kids ran into houses, adults scattered, and a very
nervous village eventually calmed it, rounded it up and herded it back to
its enclosure. The incident did not seem motivated or an act of rage -
the bird did not respond one way or another to humans around it until the
'frenzy' passed. When I later asked folks about it, they said it was
<i>pasin bilong muruk</i>. They claim to have witnessed such behaviour in
the bush, and on the part of isolated animals (this not duelling or
display, apparently). They said a muruk would just kirap nogut and start
running and kicking out at trees, and said there are lots of scarred tree
trunks to bear witness to this.”<br>
<br>
<br>
(ii). From Andy Mack (at Varirata Park, outside Moresby, Central
Province).<br>
<br>
“Oddly, the very first cassowary I ever saw in the wild, on my
first excited trip to Varirata a day after arriving at the luxurious old
Jackson’s Airport was of a cassowary fight or frenzy. It was so
nutty and fast in dense vegetation, it looked like two birds, but rather
than just fighting, they seemed to both be in a frenzy. Or maybe
they were fighting and chasing. But it seemed the entire
undergrowth around me was alive with thrashing cassowaries. I’ve
not seen anything like it since. Perhaps they were pissed off that
some punky graduate student had arrived to pry into their secret lives…”.
<br>
<br>
<br>
2. Interestingly, Bryant’s earlier ‘death throes’ discussion of <i>sik
muruk</i> in tok pisin closely mirrors the apparent logic involved in the
term for epilepsy in the Nissan Island (Bougainville) language of Nehan
(though the species are different):<br>
Thus:<br>
<br>
<i>lolong kapul</i> (from:<i> lolong kapulu</i>) n. <b>epilepsy</b>, name
means hanging possum, refers to the jerking movements made by a dying
possum.<br>
Halia: <i>kotskotsibong.<br>
</i><b>Nehan-English Dictionary</b>, p. 104<br>
<a href="http://208.145.80.1/pacific/png/pubs/0000020/Nehan_dictionary.pdf">http://208.145.80.1/pacific/png/pubs/0000020/Nehan_dictionary.pdf</a><br>
<br>
Robin Hide<br>
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