Women were the first navigators, and Pulap was the first navigator island. It started with a kuling bird (sandpiper), which was a ghost and not just a bird. The kuling flew from the Marshall Islands to Pohnpei, Chuuk, and Pulap and ate everyone along the way but not the people of Pulap.

The kuling said to the chiefs daughter, If you feed me enough, I won't eat the people here. The girl told her father this, and he said, Take her a piece of wot (taro) and a coconut. The girl did, and the kuling ate until she was really full. Then she said, Tell your father to build me a house so I can teach you to be a navigator.

Every evening, the girl learned from the kuling. She learned more and more. Then one day, the father said to the girl, I know the story of the kuling and do you know how we will kill her? Tell the kuling not to leave yet we are going to give her something.
The chief told the women of Pulap to get many baskets of wot and the men to get many coconuts. They loaded everything onto the kuling bird. The kuling took off and flew between Chuuk and Pafang, but then she fell down and changed into an octopus. Every navigator always protects himself from this octopus by using pwanur (a mystical way that navigators use to protect themselves from danger).

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