Demon Flyer – The Right Phrase?
by admin on Dec.14, 2011, under Strange
Wikipedia, under “Ropen,” mentions the 2009 television show that MonsterQuest conducted “searching” for the “demon flyer” of Papua New Guinea (one of the participants in that expedition later revealed that the team was not there to do scientific investigating but to make a show). But recent writings on the ropen counter the idea that the word means “demon flyer.”
The second Umboi Island expedition of 2004 (a few weeks after mine) turned up an interesting perspective on the word “ropen.” Jacob Kepas, the native interpreter for the American cryptozoologists David Woetzel and Garth Guessman, knew the word but was puzzled. Why go to such trouble flying on a small plane to Umboi Island to search for a bird? In his village near Wau (mainland Papua New Guinea), “ropen” is the word used for a common bird. The large nocturnal flying creature that glows—that frightening creature they call “seklo-bali.”
The origin of the word “ropen” is something more likely meaning simply “flyer.”
