Dudugera

Overview

Dudugera is the child who becomes the sun in the Wagawaga tale The Birth of the Sun. His mother tends a garden above the beach and repeatedly meets a great fish called wadumo in the surf. After the fish rubs against her legs, her thigh swells painfully. Her father cuts it with obsidian, and a boy emerges. She washes and nurses him. The published story calls him the leg-child Dudugera.

Growing up among village children, Dudugera throws his toy spears at his companions rather than at trees and bushes. The angry boys taunt him about his fish father, and their mothers complain. His mother fears that his misconduct will bring him harm. Following her own mother’s advice, she takes him to the beach and gives him to the great fish, which carries him in its mouth to a distant country in the east.

Before leaving, Dudugera tells his mother to move her relatives, their sugar cane, taro and bananas beneath the overhanging rock Duyau. He will climb a pandanus tree into the sky, and his heat will destroy those without shelter. Water dries up, trees wither, gardens fail, and animals and people die. His mother then climbs a hill and sprinkles lime from a gourd across the rising sun’s face. Dudugera closes his eyes, the heat lessens, rain begins and clouds cover the sun the following morning. His warning and his mother’s intervention connect destructive solar power with the sheltered family’s survival and the return of gentler weather in this particular account.

Origins & earliest records

Wagawaga narrative published as The Birth of the Sun in C. G. Seligmann’s The Melanesians of British New Guinea (1910), chapter XXXIII, tale 1

Records & interpretation

Complete English tale and footnote, pp. 378–379; complete chapter method, pp. 376–377, and title/preface read. Native title-page and all four selected printed pages inspected.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

1. 01

   The Melanesians of British New Guinea

   C. G. Seligmann; Folk Tales chapter by C. G. Seligmann and E. L. Giblin · 1910

   Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1910. Chapter XXXIII, tale 1, The Birth of the Sun (Wagawaga), pp. 378–379.

Family & connections

A source-supported family tree or inspiration record has not yet been compiled for this profile. Related reading below indicates a connection in subject matter, not a proven lineage or creative influence.

References

Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.

1. Digitized original historical English publicationSeligmann and Giblin, Folk Tales: The Birth of the Sun (Wagawaga)Research access: 2026-10-21

Image credits

AI-generated interpretation of Dudugera in the historical Wagawaga tale; individual appearance and clothing imagined.