Folklore of the Santal Parganas Part 16

At last the girl got tired of having only fruit to eat; and demanded rice. So the monkey took her to a bazar, and leaving her on the outskirts of the village under a tree, he went and stole some pots from a potter and rice and salt and turmeric and pulse and sweetmeats from other shops, and brought them to the girl. Then she collected sticks and lit a fire and cooked a meal; and the monkey liked the cooked food, and asked her to cook for him every day. So they stayed there several days. Then the girl asked for more clothes and the monkey tried to steal them too, but the shopkeepers were on the watch and drove him away.

The girl soon got tired of sleeping under a tree so they went back to the cave and the monkey gathered mangoes and jackfruit and told her to go and sell them in the market and then she would be able to buy cloth. But when she had sold the fruit, she stayed in the village and took service with a well-to-do shopkeeper, and never returned to the monkey. The monkey watched for her and searched for her in vain, and returned sorrowfully to his hill; but the girl stayed on in the village and eventually married one of the villagers.

LXXI. Lakhan and the Wild Buffaloes.

Once upon a time there was the only son of a widow, who used to tend the sheep and goats of a Raja and his name was Lakhan. One day he harnessed one of the goats to a plough and ploughed up a piece of high land and sowed hemp there. The crop grew finely, but one night a herd of wild buffaloes came and ate it all up; at this Lakhan resolved to pursue the buffaloes and shoot them.

His mother did all she could to dissuade him but he made up a bundle of provisions, and set off on his journey with a stick, and a bow and arrows, and a flute made of the castor oil plant. He tracked the buffaloes for some days and one evening he came to the house of an old witch (hutibudhi) and he went up to it and asked the witch if he might sleep there. She answered "My house is rough and dirty, but you can choose a corner to sleep in; I can give you nothing more, as I have not a morsel of food in the house." "Then," said he, "I must go to bed hungry" and he lay down supperless.

In the middle of the night the witch began to gnaw at Lakhan's bow and he heard her gnawing and called out "What are you munching? Give me at bit," but she answered that it was only a little pulse which she had gleaned from the fields and she had finished it. So Lakhan said no more; but during the night the witch bit his bow to pieces and when he saw this in the morning, he was very unhappy; for it was useless to find the bison, if he had nothing to shoot them with.

So he went home and had an iron bow and arrows made by a blacksmith, and then started off again. As before he came to the witch's house and arranged to sleep there; and in the night the witch tried to bite the bow to pieces, and Lakhan heard her crunching it and asked her what she was eating: she said it was only a little grain which she had gleaned. In the morning he found the bow all right, but the witch's jaws were badly swollen. Lakhan laughed at her and asked what was the matter and she said that she had toothache.

So Lakhan went on his way rejoicing and at last reached the place where the wild buffaloes rested at night; he waited there and while he waited he swept away all the droppings and made the place clean, and then climbed up into a tree. At evening great herds of buffaloes came to the place and they were so many that Lakhan was afraid to shoot. So he stayed there, and every day he used to sweep the place clean, while the buffaloes were away, and at night time hid himself in the tree.

The buffaloes determined to find out who their benefactor was, and they chose an old cow to stay behind and watch. The next day the old cow pretended that she was too weak to rise, and was left behind when the herd went out to graze. Lakhan thought that she was too old to do him any harm, so, although she was there, he got down from the tree and cleaned up the place as usual, and even swept quite close up to the old cow buffalo. In the evening the other buffaloes came back and the old cow told them that it was a human being who swept their resting place clean; and when they promised not to hurt him, she pointed out the tree where Lakhan was. Then the buffaloes told him to come down and swore not to kill him but to support him and keep him as their servant. They told him to make a leaf bowl and they filled this with their milk, as much as he could drink, and they arranged that he should stay at the sleeping place and keep it clean, and when he wanted milk he was to play on his flute and they would come at the sound.

So every noon he used to blow the flute and the cows came, running and gave him more milk than he wanted so that he used even to bathe himself in milk, and this made his hair grow very long.

One day a parrot belonging to a Raja saw him drying his long hair in the sun and the parrot went to the Raja and told him that he had found a husband for the Raja's daughter, with beautiful long hair; but that no one could go near where he lived because of the wild buffaloes; however the parrot undertook to bring him with the help of a tame crow of the Raja's: so the crow and the parrot flew off to the jungle, and they decided that the best way to entice Lakhan away, was to carry off his flute. So when the cows gave him milk at noon and he put down his flute, the crow seized it in his beak and flew away to the top of a tree. When Lakhan missed the flute and saw the crow with it, he began to throw stones but the crow flew off with it, keeping just out of range; the crow flew from tree to tree and seemed to be always just about to drop the flute and in this way enticed Lakhan on, till they came to the Raja's palace and Lakhan followed the crow right inside and they shut the door on him and made him marry the princess.

After some time his wife's brothers began to talk rudely about him saying "I suppose this fellow is some poor orphan, without any relations" and when Lakhan heard this he said that if they wanted to see his cattle and buffaloes they must make a yard for them. So the Raja gave orders for a large cattle yard to be made, and when it was ready Lakhan took his flute and put his wife on the roof of the palace and he himself climbed a tree and blew on the flute. Then the wild buffaloes came running at the sound and gored to death every one they met, and Lakhan and his wife became Raja and Rani.

LXXII. The Boy with the Stag.

Once all the men of a village went out to hunt in the hills and a certain orphan boy wanted to go with them, and although they told him that there was no water in the hills and he would die of thirst, he insisted on starting. The first day they found no water, but the orphan boy managed to endure it; but the second day he suffered so much, that he begged the hunters to take him to water; they told him that there was no water and they could not take him to any. So he set off alone in the direction in which he understood there might be water, but he soon lost his way in the jungle; so in despair he climbed a _meral_ tree and picked the fruit and threw it in all directions and to his joy he heard one fruit splash as it fell into water; so he climbed down and sure enough close to the tree he found a pool and drank his fill.

And then he saw a fawn stuck fast in the mud at the edge of the pool, so he fixed an arrow to his bow and crept towards it, resolved to catch it alive if he could, but if it ran away, to shoot it. The fawn did not move and he managed to seize it and pulling it out of the mud, he rubbed it clean and put his bow string round its neck and took it home. The fawn grew up into a stag and he trained it to fight and one day he matched it to fight with a goat. The agreement was that the owner of the winner should take both the animals; in the fight the stag was victorious, so the boy won the goat. Then he matched his stag with a ram and a bullock and even with a buffalo, and the stag was always victorious and in this way he soon grew rich. Seeing him so rich one of the villagers gave him his daughter in marriage and took him to live in his house, and so he lived happily ever afterwards.

LXXIII. The Seven Brothers and the Bonga Girl.

Once upon a time there were seven brothers who lived all alone in the jungle, far from human habitations. None of them was married and they lived on the game they killed. It chanced that a _bonga_ maiden saw the youngest brother and fell deeply in love with him. So one day when all the brothers were away hunting, she placed in their house seven nicely cooked plates of rice.

When the brothers returned in the evening from the chase, they were astonished to find the rice waiting for them; all but the youngest said that it must be some plot to kill them and refused to touch the food, but the youngest wished to eat it. His brothers would not let him and told him to throw the rice away; so he took it outside the house, but instead of throwing it away, he ate up the whole seven plates full, without letting his brothers know. But when they went to bed that night, the youngest brother snored loudly, because he had eaten so much, and thereby his brothers guessed that he had eaten the rice, and they were very unhappy for they were sure that he was about to die. However in the morning he was none the worse; so they went out hunting as usual but the youngest brother suffered continually from thirst, the result of overeating, and this convinced his brothers that he had eaten the rice, though he denied it.

When they reached home that evening, they again found seven dishes of rice placed ready for them. And that day the youngest brother and the youngest but one ate; and the day after there was the rice again, and the three youngest ate it. Then the eldest brother said: "To-morrow I will stay behind and watch, and see who it is who brings the rice; we have no servant, if I can catch the person who is so kind to us, I will engage him as a cook for us, and we need have no more of this mystery. Do you bring back my share of the game you shoot."

So the next morning the eldest brother stayed behind and hid himself and watched. But he could not see the _bonga_, though she brought the rice as usual; and when he told his brothers this, it was decided that the second brother should stay behind the next day, and see if he had better luck; and that day they all ate the rice, except the eldest brother, who said that he would never eat it, until he knew who brought it; so the next day the second brother watched but he also could not see the _bonga_.

One by one all the brothers watched in vain, until only the youngest one was left. Then they said to the youngest brother: "Now it is your turn and if our friend does not show himself to you, we will eat no more of his rice." So the next day the other brothers went off to hunt and the youngest stayed at home; he did not trouble to hide himself, but sat in the house making a bow. At noon he saw the _bonga_ girl coming with the rice on her head, but he took no notice and pretended to be looking down at something. Then the _bonga_ came into the courtyard and put down the rice and looked about and said: "I saw something like a man here, where has he got to?" and she looked into the house and still the youngest brother kept silent; then she spoke to him and asked whether he was ill, that he had not gone hunting. He answered her that he was not ill, but had been left to watch for the person who brought them rice every day. Thereupon the _bonga_ went outside and brought in the rice and putting it down, said: "It is I who do it. Come, wash your hands and I will give you your dinner," but he said: "First tell me what all this means," and she said: "It means that I want to live with you." He objected. "How can I marry you when my brothers are not married?" She answered that if he married her, they would soon find wives for his brothers. Then she urged him to eat, but he said that if he ate one plateful, his brothers would question him, so the _bonga_ girl went and brought an extra dish and he ate that. And as they talked together, he soon fell deeply in love with her, and promised to consult his brothers about her living with them; but he saw a difficulty which would arise if she married him, for his elder brothers would not care even to ask her for water, and thus she would be really of very little use in the house; so with some hesitation he proposed that she should marry the eldest brother and then they could all talk freely to her; but the girl would not agree to this and said that there would be no harm at all in their talking to her, provided that they did not touch her, and she would not mind giving his elder brothers water.

So they plighted their troth to each other, subject to the consent of the brothers, and towards evening the _bonga_ girl left, promising to return on the morrow. When the brothers returned they discussed the matter and agreed that the youngest should marry the girl, provided that she promised to keep house for them. So the next day the girl came back and stayed with them; and they found wives for the other brothers, and got cattle and buffaloes and broke up land for cultivation and though the brothers did not altogether give up hunting, they became rich.

A certain jogi found out where they lived and once every year he came to ask for alms; one year he came just after the _bonga_ girl had borne a child, so as she was doing no work, it was her sisters-in-law who brought out food for the jogi. But at this he was displeased, and said that he would only eat at the hands of the girl, who had given him food the year before. They told him that she was in child-bed and could not come out. Then he said: "Go and tell her that the Jhades Jogi has come and wants her arm ta.s.sel." So she sent out her arm ta.s.sel to him and he put it in his bag and got up and went away. Thereupon the _bonga_ girl arose and left her baby, and followed him, and never came back. At evening the brothers returned from hunting, and heard what had happened. They were very distressed and told their wives to look after the baby while they went in pursuit. They followed as hard as they could and caught up the Jogi on the banks of a river; then they tried to shoot him, but their arrows were powerless against him, and he by magic turned the seven brothers into stones.

So the Jogi carried off the woman to his home. He was a Raja in his own country and he had a big garden; and an old woman who looked after it used to make garlands every day and bring them to the Rani, and the Rani used to pay their weight in silver for them. In the course of time the child who was left behind grew up and when he used to play with his fellows at pitch and toss and there was any dispute about the game his playmates would say "Fatherless boy, you want to cheat!" So he asked his aunts whether it was true that he had no father and they told him that the Jhades jogi had carried off his mother, and how his father and uncles had gone in pursuit and had never returned. So the boy decided to go in search of his mother and he set off, and first he met some goatherds and he sang to them:--

"Ho, Ho, goatherds Have you seen the Jhades Jogi On this road?"

But they could tell him nothing. And then he met some shepherd boys, and he sang to them:--

"Ho, Ho, shepherds, Have you seen the Jhades jogi On this road?"

But they could tell him nothing. Then he met some boys tending buffaloes and he sang;--

"Ho, ho, buffalo herds, Have you seen the Jhades jogi On this road?"

But they could tell him nothing. Then he came to a thorn bush, with a number of rags fluttering on it, and he sang:--

"Ho, ho, plum bush, Have you seen the Jhades jogi On this road?"

And the plum tree said "The Jhades jogi brought your mother this way, and I did my best to stop them. If you don't believe me see the rags as a proof." And he put his hand on the tree and went on. And then he came to a squirrel which was chattering in a banyan tree, and he sang:--

"Ho, ho, squirrel, Have you seen the Jhades jogi On this road?"

And the squirrel said "I have been calling you since yesterday. The jogi brought your mother this way, go on and you will overtake them. And your father and uncles also came this road." The boy was cheered by this news and he put his hand on the squirrel's back and said "You are a fine fellow to give me this clue" and the marks of his fingers were imprinted on the squirrel and that is why squirrels have striped backs to the present day.

Then he went on and came to a river and he decided to sit and have his lunch there; he did not know that his father and uncles had been turned into stones in that very place, but as he sat and ate, his eyes were opened and he saw the stones weeping, and he recognised them, and he dropt a little food on each that they might eat, and pursued his way, until he came to the Jhades jogi's kingdom, and he went to the old woman who kept the Jogi's garden and asked to be allowed to stay with her and help her to make the garlands.

One day when he had made a garland, he tied to it a ring which had belonged to his mother. So when the old woman took the garland to the Rani, the Rani wondered why it weighed so heavy, and when she examined it she saw her own ring. Then she asked the old woman who had tied the ring there, and when she heard that a strange boy had come, she at once ran to him and recognised her own son.

Then they planned how they could kill the Jhades jogi and escape! The mother agreed to find out in what lay the life of the Jogi. So she questioned him and worried him till he told her that his life lay in a certain pumpkin vine. Then the boy went and cut down the pumpkin vine, but the Jogi did not die; then the Rani worried and worried the Jogi till he told her that his life lay in his sword; then the boy stole the sword and burnt it in a fire of cowdung, but still the Jogi did not die; then his mother again worried and plagued the Jogi till at last he told her the truth and said "In the middle of the sea is a cotton tree, and on the tree are two Bohmae birds; if they are killed I shall die."

So the boy set off to the sea and on the road he met three old women and one had a stool stuck to her back, and one had a bundle of thatching gra.s.s stuck on her head, and the third had her foot stuck fast to a rice-pounder, and they asked him where he was going, and he told them, "to visit the shrine of the Bohmae bird": then they asked him to consult the oracle and find out how they could be freed from the things which were stuck fast to them, and he promised to do so.

By-and-bye he came to the sea and was puzzled as to how he was to cross it. As he walked up and down the sh.o.r.e he saw an alligator rolling about in pain with a swollen stomach; and when it saw the boy it said "I am like to die with this pain in my stomach, how can I be cured?" and the boy proposed that it should take him to the cotton tree in the midst of the sea and there they might learn a remedy from the Bohmae birds. The alligator agreed, so the boy got on its back and was taken across the water. Then the boy sat at the foot of the cotton tree and sang:--

"Come down, Bohmae birds, I wish to consult the oracle."