Abere is the wild woman of the Kiwai tale-world, a dangerous solitary being of the swamps and waterways of the Fly estuary and adjacent coast. She draws men to her, and when pursued or when closing on a victim she makes rushes and reeds spring up to hide her; the men she entraps she kills. She is an individual figure of the tales and is to be distinguished from the hiwai-abére, a whole class of malignant mythical women in Kiwai belief whose designation echoes her name.
Domains
marshland
Powers
to make rushes and reeds grow up around her and her victims
to lure men to her by her beauty
Sources
Landtman, Gunnar. The Folk-Tales of the Kiwai Papuans (Acta Societatis Scientiarum Fennicae XLVII). Helsingfors: Printing Office of the Finnish Society of Literature, 1917.
Landtman, Gunnar. The Kiwai Papuans of British New Guinea: A Nature-Born Instance of Rousseau's Ideal Community. London: Macmillan, 1927.
Knappert, Jan. Pacific Mythology: An Encyclopedia of Myth and Legend. London: Aquarian Press, 1992.