[Mihalic] Re: sik muruk

[Darja Hoenigman]

Could 'lolong' (in 'lolong kapul') possibly be *longlong*? Namely, in
Kanjimei, East Sepik Province, I heard a Tok Pisin term "sik longlong" used
for epilepsy.

Darja Hoenigman


On 10/21/06, mihalic-request at anu.edu.au <mihalic-request at anu.edu.au> wrote:
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>   1. Re: sik muruk (Robin Hide)
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> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2006 13:32:06 +1000
> From: Robin Hide <rhide at coombs.anu.edu.au>
> Subject: Re: [Mihalic] sik muruk
> To: mihalic at anu.edu.au
> Message-ID: <6.1.0.6.1.20061020132457.02eb86a0 at mail.coombs.anu.edu.au>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> 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:
>
> (i). from Dan Jorgensen (Telefomin area, West Sepik P):
>
> re: "...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 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 pasin bilong
> muruk. 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."
>
>
> (ii). From Andy Mack (at Varirata Park, outside Moresby, Central
> Province).
>
> "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…".
>
>
> 2. Interestingly, Bryant's earlier 'death throes' discussion of sik muruk
> 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):
> Thus:
>
> lolong kapul (from: lolong kapulu) n. epilepsy, name means hanging possum,
> refers to the jerking movements made by a dying possum.
> Halia: kotskotsibong.
> Nehan-English Dictionary, p. 104
> <http://208.145.80.1/pacific/png/pubs/0000020/Nehan_dictionary.pdf>
> http://208.145.80.1/pacific/png/pubs/0000020/Nehan_dictionary.pdf
>
> Robin Hide
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