Mourning Nambi

Speaker: Ulumo

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(when a big man dies people give you food and see you, they would say we haven't seen him. so we wait for them. the other villages will come. there's an uncle in kobumbua, all the brothers will come. they will see the body, once they have seen him i will bury him. his wife is here, children and others will come and see him. he'll sleep here. to stop them fighting with us i'm waiting and then my kids will bury him. so he lays in the house and people mourn? yes people mourn, people will mourn in his garden, his house, over his machete, i'm his brother i will mourn, the children, his wife. he was the big brother, i'm small. he went around on the trails, now he's left it and we mourn. we're burying a big man.

will his children look after his ground? yes all the children with the wife, and me, everyone in my family will look after his ground.)

Speaker: Oronang

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(these two pigs from dad got big, and he's died and we killed them and we'll prepare them for people, the chickens here.
did you kill it for being sorry?
no, i killed them nating
where did you kill them?
we killed them for a wanbel for inda, and inda is not wanbel so we killed the pig for wanbel)

Speaker: Umendu

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(so you guys are mourning?
we came, sister and the kids and we're mourning, shouting, cutting the trunks of buai, cutting marita trunks, burning a house. we see the body and were talking till dawn, we're mourning over the death. they're going to eat and go, but i will stay.

so some people mourn just vocally, and others get angry, talk about that. that thinking is just our behaviour, that's the behaviour we were given. they heard and we do that. we don't hit our kids and brothers, we just break the house. we don't look at people, we're wanbel with people

so you're breaking the guy who won't be here's stuff, not people who will stay?
yes their food and buai will stay. the stuff he said we could break we break. we break the house.
dad was a big man and so the shouting is big, we mourned and stayed in the house till dawn.

was the house they broke in memetonn dad's house?
yes, the kids burned it, his uncle burned it. nambi was his uncle so he burned the house.)