‘What did I do?’

You may have heard that a lot of tribal languages have no way of saying “thank you” or “please.”

The reason is that those concepts are foreign to their culture.

“I’m sorry” is another concept foreign to many tribal cultures, so Stephen Crockett was happy to see the Moi believers he was teaching not only use the term, but live it out.

Now, you have to understand that the Mois of Indonesia, like most tribal people, don’t just go around making up new words on the spot. And while they sometimes adopt foreign words for concrete things like airplanes, they seldom use foreign words for abstract concepts like “I’m sorry.”

Instead, they come up with phrases – or in this case, entire sentences – that express the concept. In Moi, “I’m sorry” is Wai, wai, awan keo, naawitenaae.

“It’s sort of a mouthful," wrote missionary Stephen Crockett. "[The] literal meaning is, ‘My, my, what did I do? Go ahead and dislike me.’"

And of course, the Mois had to do something to be sorry about before they could use the term. So there they were in the classroom, learning to read and write their own language, when someone threw a nut – hard – at Ayaioma.

When tears came to his eyes, the other students started laughing at him, so he grabbed his stuff and headed back to his own village – a ten-hour hike away.

Stephen tried to reason with the students, but they didn’t seem to care.

At least, they didn’t seem to care until the next morning. A group of the students headed off down the trail to ask Ayaioma to come back. They didn’t catch up to him, but word reached him and he came back.

"Amazing, really, for the Mois to show that sort of love," wrote Stephen.

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