Bidja was the first man to catch fish, for up to that time the Mawáta people only collected shell-fish. They called ordinary fish ebihare and ran away from them.

How Mawáta people began to eat fish. Folk-tale of the kiwai papuans (876: p.212)

According to folk beliefs of the kiwai papuans, the words bihare, ebihare (in Kiwai obisare) and less commontly giriwuro are applied to all such mysterious beings, particularly those living in the sea, which are not known under a special name. At the same time the bihare are spoken of as definite beings, all more or less alike.

The people are much afraid of places in the sea where the bihare dwell, as indicated by otherwise inexplicable breakers and eddies in the water. The bihare cause the sea to "make noise" and the water to "come up all same saucepan he boil".

According to folk-tale, a Kubira man named Méuri, who had been put to shame before his people, on a fighting expedition to Daváre let himself be killed by the enemy, and his wife too was slain. Some time afterwards their children wanted to go to Daváre and set out in a canoe, but the canoe sank on the way and those on board were drowned. They were transformed into bihare (876: p.214).