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Tuesday 23 April 2013

Bougainville Poetry: Mungkas-man and his Buai


By Leonard Fong Roka
if you are a buai chewer as many are across Bougainville I know you will love this song from a Panguna man and regular lover of buai.
It is our Bougainville culture. We go down to Arawa with baskets of buai to attract attention from people or to openly social as extroverts.
 
Mungkas-man and his Buai
Chit-chat. Chat-chit; chit-chat

Sweet talk and peace to the soul

Sweet song and love to the soul

Sweet touch and joy to the soul

The Mungkas-man

Strolling down the road to Arawa

Staggering stoic to the store-man

Sweat singing down his face

Loins laughing in the shimmering lawns

For the basket are green mountain nuts of Kaino

For the pocket to be money

Earnings for the day

Chit-chat. Chat-chit; chit-chat

Sweet talk and peace to the soul

Sweet song and love to the soul

Sweet touch and joy to the soul

The Mungkas-man

Steals the show to his pride

The meet loves his crimson red mouth and the stream of his words

The day frisks the Kaino basket

The magicians just belch out more song

The Kaino lasso stretches out for more love

That is nothing but buai

That moves down her spine and across her heart

Singing ‘kara ko ameai, aung’.

Chit-chat. Chat-chit; chit-chat

Sweet talk and peace to the soul

Sweet song and love to the soul

Sweet touch and joy to the soul

Of the

Bougainvillean man.

 

Glossary

Mungkas— ‘black’ in Buin

Kara ko ameai— ‘give me areca nuts’ in Nasioi

Aung— ‘hey’ to a male

Buai— areca nut

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