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> From the mature tree the sapling dribbles. Eseos is a mature tree, dalm is a sapling; olengimech means to drip, drizzle, or dribble. Application is to the similarity of the child to its parents, generally its father. |
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> The wind sleeps in the eskiik bush. Around March the wind quiets at about dusk and begins to pick up the next morning. During the night the wind is said to sleep in the eskiik, a small shrub common on the hills of Palau. A quiet night is appropriate in the Palauan view because economically important fruit trees, such as breadfruit, are setting their buds at this time. This period of budding is thought to be analogous to the second or third month of human pregnancy, when exertion or shock may precipitate a miscarriage. If the winds blow strong at night during this time, elders note that the season will be poor as far as fruit harvest is concerned. The eskiik bush, where the wind sleeps, has a characteristic bad odor said to be caused by the wind performing its "natural functions." |
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> You're like the old man of Ngerechelong who uses a cloud to mark the location of his fishtrap. i.e. you depend too much on people who are unreliable. |
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> Like Kerosene, poling his canoe with no obvious destination Under the German administrator Winkler before World War I, a Palauan named Ngirakerisil (Mr. Kerosene) was employed as a canoe operator. Daily he would take the tireless administrator to a different part of Palau to inspect the various economic programs (largely coconut planting) instituted by the now legendary Winkler. The operator, least of all, could predict where they would be going next. The idiom is applied to any aimless person or action; indecision; a changeable person. |
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> Like the name of the community house at Ngerekabesang: "Buttressed." At Ngerekabesang in Koror (central Palau) there is a community house (bai) called Telkakl, which means "to buttress" or "to be buttressed." Some of the older bai in Palau were thus supported with beams from the ground to the eaves, and the implication has been added that a bai so supported must be very full of important possessions. This idiom is used of a person who is wealthy, or of one's self, meaning that one has cash on hand. |
