Legend of How the Mutunnenea Channel was Formed

Before passable roads were formed on Kosrae, the channels were the main routes of transportation for the people. There are channels most of the way around the island that were used for many purposes such as traveling from place to place for social gatherings, to bring food from the mountains and many other purposes. According to legend a very large snake originally made this channel.

One day the King of Kosrae went to visit his relatives on the opposite side of the island. As he came to the harbor of Okat, he saw a very beautiful girl swimming nearby. He ordered his servants to capture the girl and take her with them to the king’s palace in Lelu. This girl happened to be the daughter of a snake.

After a while the snake mother became worried about her daughter because she had been gone for almost two days. The mother left her home to look for her daughter and slid to the South but she was not there. Then she went West, but she was not there either. Nor was she to the North or East. Everywhere the snake went she gorged out a big channel in her tracks that we see as the channels around Kosrae today.

The snake finally came to Lelu Harbor. There she crawled beside a rock under a boathouse to rest. The next morning one of the Kings servants went out to throw garbage and saw a big snake resting her head on a rock. He hurried back to the palace and the first person he saw was the daughter. He told her about the snake and she knew it was her mother. So she begged the servant to keep silent about what he had seen, and he agreed not to tell anyone. That night the girl went to her mother and told her to crawl to the King’s palace and hide herself in the rafters of the ceiling of one of the big houses there. By morning after working all night to hide herself the snake mother was well concealed.

One day a servant was out walking beside the King’s court when he heard a strange noise. He looked all around but could not find where it came from. He began to walk away when he again heard the unfamiliar sound at the top of the house. When he spotted the snake he could hardly believe his eyes and quickly ran off to tell the king what he had seen. The King suspected that it was the girl’s mother and that she had come to take her away. So he made a plan to kill the snake mother. He ordered all women to go to the Innem River to wash clothes. While they were gone he then ordered the men to set fire to the house where the snake was hiding.

They set fire to the house and as it burned, ashes from the fire carried by the wind floated down into the girl’s lap. She knew what was happening and hurried back to the Kings Palace, her mother had been burned to death. The only thing left as a reminder of this sad story is the irregular channel made by the mother snake while searching for her beautiful daughter long ago.

With the arrival of cars, the channel has fallen mainly into disuse. Perhaps it will disappear someday but today we can provide a very special experience when you take a tour in a Kayak through the lush tropical jungle along the mangrove channel named MUTUNNENEA. Located and leaving from directly behind Nautilus Resort.

In addition to their beauty, mangroves play a vital role in the island.