Flying Sister of Kudayuri

The Kudayuri myth names not only the two brothers but also their sisters, who were yoyova, flying witches, able to fly in their own bodies without any canoe. After Toweyre'i killed Mokatuboda, the sisters, angered at the loss of the flying magic, took to the air and dispersed across the Kula region, turning into stones or settling in distant islands. Na'ukuwakula flew westward from Kitava through the Trobriand lagoon and settled at Simsim in the Lusancay group, and Trobriand tradition derives the flying witchcraft of the western islands from her. She thus provides the mythic charter linking the Kudayuri canoe myth with the feared mulukwausi, the flying witches of the open sea.

Domains

• witchcraft

Powers

• to fly through the air by her own inborn witchcraft

Relations

• sibling: Slayer of the Flying-Canoe MasterNa'ukuwakula was one of the sisters of the Kudayuri brothers Mokatuboda and Toweyre'i on Kitava.Malinowski, Bronislaw. Argonauts of the Western Pacific. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1922, ch. XII. (secondary)

Sources

• Na'ukuwakula is one of the named sisters of the Kudayuri myth, a flying witch who left Kitava after her brother Mokatuboda's murder and flew westward to Simsim in the Lusancay Islands, whence the flying-witch craft of the western islands is traced.: Malinowski, Bronislaw. Argonauts of the Western Pacific. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1922, ch. XII. (secondary); Tambiah, S. J. 'On Flying Witches and Flying Canoes: The Coding of Male and Female Values.' In J. W. Leach and E. Leach (eds.), The Kula: New Perspectives on Massim Exchange. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. (secondary)