Essays on the Marshallese Past
The Story of Lojeik
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Lojeik was a man who lived on Enekoien, Ebon Atoll. One day a whaling boat arrived and and
came near to the reef on the ocean side of Enekoien. The man Lojeik swam to the whaling boat
and climbed on board. There was little wind and the whaling ship slowly tacked to and fro.
Lojeik did not return to the island of Enekoien. The whaler belonged to an America company
and took Lojeik to America. Lojeik stayed there for 10 years until the time when the boat
returned again to Ebon.
The people on Ebon had forgotten the man Lojeik. They thought that the whalers on the boat
had beat up Lojeik and that he had died during the time that the boat was on the ocean side
of Enekoien. When the ship once more returned to Enekoien the islanders went to the small
boat coming ashore from the whaler and helped bring it up on to the beach under the coconut
trees. The people of Enekoien they did not recognize Lojeik because he was wearing foreign
clothing and he was just like the foreigners from the whaling ship.
On the island where they were, the men islanders said together "men, let us choose
which person we will each fight, and kill the foreigners." During this time Lojeik had
not forgotten Marshallese and he said to the islanders "Watch out if you kill us because
we will shoot you." But during this time there had never been guns brought to the Marshall
Islands, and the islanders didn't know what a gun was. When they heard Lojeik speak
Marshallese they said "one of the foreigners (dribelle) knows the language of our islands,"
and they were very surprised.
All the men of Enekoien they said "the man (Lojeik) is lying, and we will prepare to each
fight until all are dead and no one can escape." Lojeik said to them "do you see the pieces
of wood we are holding, they are not wood but they are for fighting. You won't be able to go
against us." When the people didn't believe Lojeik, he gave them a warning, and told them to
look up at a certain coconut tree because the foreigners were going to shoot at the tree
and show them how powerful the guns were. After they shot at the coconut tree and the
palm fronds, coconuts, and the heart of the coconut tree all fell to the ground, Lojeik
said "that's what will happen to you if we shoot you. All of you will be gone and dead.
There won't be one man, woman, old man, old woman, child alive, if we shoot you."
Every foreigner had his own gun that was the kind Lijjikolkol. Now during this time when
the islanders were thinking this over, there was a woman who came who was Lojeik's younger
sister. And she heard Lojeik speak Marshallese, and she said "who is the man who knows our
language?" The woman, the younger sister of Lojeik came close to Lojeik and looked at him
closely and studied his face. When she recognized that this man looked like her older brother
and they had thought that the whalers had killed him, she asked "who are you?" Lojeik was not
anxious to reveal who he was, and he said to his younger sister, "I come from close to heaven."
The woman now began to really recognize Lojeik and she wanted look to see if this man had a
tattoo on his chest. The tattoo she was looking for was a bunch of spears tied together.
When she said to Lojeik to show his chest, he unbuttoned his shirt and the woman saw the tattoo
and recognized that this was her brother Lojeik. The woman cried and held her brother and
said "It's true this is Lojeik." Lojeik stood in the middle of all the people and showed that
it was true, that he had returned from America where he had disappeared to many years ago from
Ebon
. This is the end of the story.
Bibliographic citation for this document
Spennemann, Dirk H.R. (1998). Essays on the Marshallese Past Second edition.
Albury:
URL: http://marshall.csu.edu.au/Marshalls/html/essays/es-2-2.html
CONTACT:
Dirk H.R. Spennemann,
Institute of Land, Water and Society,
Charles Sturt University, P.O.Box 789,
Albury NSW 2640, Australia.
e-mail: dspennemann@csu.edu.au
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