Folklore of the Santal Parganas - Cecil Henry Bompas (paper ebook reader .TXT) 📗

sheep tinkling its bell." The

jackal heard the crocodile's exclamation and so detected the trick;

he at once went and fetched a light and set fire to the heap of straw

and the crocodile was burnt to death.

 

CXXIV. (The Fool and His Dinner.)

 

A man once went to visit his mother-in-law and for dinner they gave

him rice with a relish made of young bamboo shoots. The man liked it

extremely and thought that it was meat, but he saw no pieces of meat;

so he asked his mother-in-law what it was made of; and behind him was

a door made of bamboos: so the mother-in-law said, "I have cooked

that which is behind you;" and he looked round and saw the door;

so he resolved to carry off the door, as it made such good eating,

and in the middle of the night he took it off the hinges and ran away

with it. In the morning the door was missed and the mother-in-law

guessed what had happened and had a hearty laugh.

 

Meanwhile the man went home with the door and chopped it up and gave

the pieces to his wife to cook; the wife said that it was useless

to cook dry chips but he insisted and said that her mother had made

a beautiful dish of them. So they were cooked and the man sat down

to eat; but they were all hard and tasteless; then he scolded his

wife and she told him to cook them himself if he was not pleased;

so he cooked some himself and the result was the same; and his wife

laughed at him and when the villagers heard of it they nicknamed him

"Silly", and used to call the name after him when they met him.

 

 

 

CXXV. (The Stingy Daughter.)

 

Once a man went to visit his married daughter: he intended to arrive

in time for dinner; so though he passed some edible herbs on the way

he did not stop to eat them.

 

When he arrived he was duly welcomed and after some conversation he

told his daughter that he must return the same day; she said "All

right, but wait till it gets hot." (The father understood this to be

a metaphorical way of saying "Wait till the dinner is cooked.") But

the daughter was determined not to cook the rice while her father was

there: so they sat talking and when the sun was high the daughter

went into the yard and felt the ground with her foot and finding

it scorching she said "Now father, it is time for you to be going:

it has got hot" Then the old man understood that she was not going

to give him his dinner. So he took his stick and got up to go.

 

Now the son-in-law was a great hunter and that day he had killed

and brought home a peacock; as he was leaving, the father said "My

daughter, if your husband ever brings home a peacock I advise you

to cook it with mowah oil cake; that makes it taste very nice." So

directly her father had gone, the woman set to work and cooked

the peacock with mowah oil cake; but when her husband and children

began to eat it they found it horribly bitter and she herself tasted

it and found it uneatable; then she told them that her father had

made fun of her and made her spoil all the meat. Her husband asked

whether she had cooked rice for her father; and when she said "No"

he said that this was the way in which he had punished her; he had

had nothing to eat and so he had prevented their having any either;

she should entertain all visitors and especially her father. So they

threw away the meat and had no dinner.

CXXVI. (The Backwards and Forwards Dance.)

 

There was once a Santal who owed money to a money-lender: the lender

went to dun him every day but as he had nothing to pay with he used

to hide in the jungle and as he had no warm clothes he used to light a

fire to warm himself by; and when the fire was low he would sit near it

and when it blazed up he would move back from it. When the money-lender

asked the man's wife where he was, she always replied "He is dancing

the 'Backwards and Forwards' dance." The money-lender got curious

about this; and said that he would like to learn the dance. So one

evening the Santal met him and offered to teach him the dance but,

he said he must be paid and what would the money-lender give? The

money-lender said that he would give any thing that was asked; so the

Santal called two witnesses and before them the money-lender promised

that if the Santal taught him the dance he would let him off his debt.

 

The next morning the Santal took the money-lender to the jungle and

told him to take off his clothes as they would dance with only loin

cloths on; then he lit a heap of straw and they sat by it warming

themselves; and he purposely made only a small fire at first. Then

the money-lender asked when they were going to begin to dance but the

Santal said "Let us warm ourselves first, I am very cold," so saying he

piled on more straw and as the fire blazed up they moved away from it;

and when it sank they drew nearer again. While this was going on the

two witnesses came up and the money-lender began to object that he was

not being taught to dance; but the Santal said, "What more do you want;

don't you keep moving backwards and forwards in front of the fire? This

is the 'Backwards and Forwards' dance." Seeing how he had been tricked

the money-lender was much upset and he appealed to the witnesses, but

they decided against him; and he went home crying and lost his money.

 

CXXVII. (The Deaf Family.)

 

Formerly Santals were very stupid and much afraid of Hindus; and once

a Santal was ploughing at a place where two roads met and a Hindu

came along and asked him, in Hindi, where the two roads went to; now

the Santal did not understand Hindi and was also deaf and he thought

that the Hindu said "These two bullocks are mine,"--and he answered

"When did I take your bullocks?" The Hindu sat down and repeated his

question; but the Santal did not understand and continued to assert

that the bullocks were his and were named Rice eater and Jaituk [2]

and had formed part of his wife's dowry; the Hindu kept on asking

about the roads and at last the Santal got frightened and thought

"perhaps my father-in-law took the bullocks from this man and at

any rate he will beat me and take them by force"; so he unyoked his

bullocks and handed them over to the stranger; and the Hindu when he

found out what was meant went off with them as fast as he could.

 

Soon after the Santal's mother brought him out his dinner and he

told her what had happened about the bullocks! And she also was deaf

and thought that he was complaining that the rice had no salt in

it; so she answered, "Your wife gave it to me like this; I cannot

say whether she put salt into it; come, eat it up." After he had

eaten his dinner the old woman took the dishes home; and she found

her husband cutting out a rice pounder; and she told him how their

son had scolded her because there was no salt in the rice; and the

husband was also deaf and he thought that she wanted to know what

he was making and he answered crossly "It may be a rice pounder and

it may be a rice mortar." And as often as she repeated her story he

made this answer and told her not to worry him. Then she went to her

daughter-in-law who was also deaf and sat spinning in the verandah;

and she scolded her for not putting salt in the rice; and she answered

"Who knows what I am spinning; the thread may be all knotty, but

still I reel it up." And this is the end of the story. Thus the man

lost his bullocks through cross questions and crooked answers; and

as the whole family talked like that they soon became poor.

 

CXXVIII. (The Father-in-Law's Visit.)

 

A man once went to visit his married daughter in the month of October

and he went round the fields with his son-in-law to see how his crop

was growing. At each rice field they came to, the father-in-law said

"You have not dammed up the outlets" and the son-in-law said "Yes,

I have; the water