The Lhota Nagas

This is a tale of the old days before deer and other animals became so different one from the other. The sambhur and the hanuman monkey became sworn friends. In those days the sambhur had a long tail, while the hanuman monkey had no tail at all. One day the hanuman monkey asked the sambhur for his tail and said, “Friend, I want to put on your tail and see how it becomes me. Please lend it to me.” Then the sambhur said, “Put on my tail, friend, and see how it becomes you,” and gave him his tail. But the hanuman monkey, as soon as he had put on the sambhur’s tail, climbed away up into a tree. Then the sambhur said, “Come down, friend, and give me back my tail,” but the hanuman monkey would not. Then the sambhur, wondering how he should make himself a tail, pulled out his own liver and made a tail of it and put it on. Men say that that is why even nowadays sambhur tail is so good and tastes like liver to eat.

The wild boar and the tiger were sworn friends. One day when they met in the jungle the wild boar said to the tiger, “My friend, let us two fight and see which will get the better of the other and which will fear the other. What will you take to protect yourself?” Then the tiger said to the boar, “I will take cane and wind it round my body,” but the boar said, “I shall smear clay all over myself.” They arranged that the fight should take place six days later. Then the boar for six days did nothing but smear clay over himself, letting it dry after each coating, and the tiger did nothing but cut lengths of cane and wind them round his body. Then when the six days were up they fell to and fought. Now whenever the tiger flew at the wild [176]boar and bit him, all he got was a mouthful of clay, but the boar, whenever he attacked and bit the tiger, bit through a piece of cane, till he had bitten them all through one by one and killed the tiger. But when the boar was going away after his victory a thin piece of bamboo ran into him. Then he said, “I have killed the tiger. What is this doing running into me?” and seized it in his mouth. But the thin bamboo cut his tongue off so that he died on the spot.3 Then another tiger came along and saw the body and ate it. That is why nowadays tigers eat wild boars. Yet it is said that because the tiger could not beat the wild boar at first, a tiger cannot catch one now unless he bides his time and stalks it for two or three months.

Rivalling in popularity the stories of animals is a large group of stories about a mythical individual whom the Northern Lhotas call Apfuho and the Southern Lhotas Yampfuho. He is spoken of as having lived in the old, old days when men and animals spoke the same language.4 In his day, it is believed, there was a terrible earthquake and the whole world became dark.5 Apfuho clung to a rock, and when light came and the world as we know it had come into being he had been turned into stone. Some Lhotas say that the rock, with Apfuho’s petrified dao-holder, can still be seen near Lakhuti, but most people hold that it is not known where he met his end. He corresponds exactly to the Sema character Iki,6 and many of the stories told of the two are identical. He is always represented as getting in and out of scrapes, and as tricking his fellow-villagers or his friend the tiger, usually in the meanest possible way. The name of his village is never mentioned and there is no tradition as to where he lived. The following are typical stories of his exploits. [177]

One day an old woman set her rice on the fire to boil and went into her outer room to pound oil seed. Apfuho came along carrying another man’s dog which he had killed, and called out to the old woman, “Your rice is boiling over.” When the old woman went back into the inner room to look at her rice, Apfuho put the dog which he was carrying on her pounding table and called out, “A dog is eating your oil seed, old woman.” Then the old woman came running out to see, and hit the dead dog which Apfuho had put on the pounding table. At this Apfuho cried out, “Oh dear, oh dear, you have killed another man’s dog. If you do not give me your pig I will tell the owner.” So the old woman said, “I will give you my pig. Do not tell the owner.” At dusk when Apfuho came to fetch the pig he fixed lighted torches all along the path, and said to the old woman, “Give me your pig. Look how many men are coming with the owner of the dog, carrying lighted torches in their hands.” To this the old woman replied, “I will give you my pig. Go and tell them not to come.” So he went and put out the torches and threw them away, and came back and took the pig. But as he was taking the pig away he murmured, “What a fool of an old woman.” Her daughter heard this and said, “He called you an old fool, mother.” But Apfuho heard her say this and replied. “I only said ‘oo,’ girl,”7 and the mother said, “Yes, yes, Apfuho only said ‘oo’.” So Apfuho went off with the pig.8

This is a tale of the olden days when men could understand the talk of animals. Apfuho and the tiger went across a river to hollow out vats from a log on the other side. When they had finished their vats and the time came to return, the [178]tiger asked Apfuho the best way to carry his vat across the river. Apfuho told him to carry it rim upwards,9 and the tiger did as Apfuho told him. But Apfuho carried his own vat upside down and was able to cross the river, while the tiger, try as he would, could not cross the river with his vat rim upwards. Apfuho called out, “I will pull you out,” but instead of doing so he threw stones into the tiger’s vat and pushed him away from land with a forked stick so that he was washed right downstream. Then Apfuho went along to see if the tiger was drowned or not, and found him lower down by the water’s edge. When the tiger saw Apfuho he cried, “Here is my enemy,” and tried to devour him. But Apfuho espied a hornets’ nest by the water and said, “The men of the ‘morung’ have set me to watch the ‘morung’ drum, father tiger, and see that no stranger beats it.” Then the tiger said, “May I beat it and see what it is like?” and Apfuho replied, “I will ask the men of the ‘morung.’ You stay here, and if they say you may beat it, I will shout and tell you.” So he went a long way off and shouted back, “They say you may beat it.” Then when the tiger hit the hornets’ nest all the hornets attacked and stung him,10 and he ran and ran until he fell down a cliff and was killed.

The villagers, meaning to put an end to Apfuho, took him with them down to a big pond. Then when they got to [179]the water they all began swinging out over the pool on a creeper swing. They made Apfuho use the swing last and went away and left him, thinking he would fall off into the middle of the pond and be drowned. Apfuho kept swinging and swinging and could hardly hold on any longer, when he espied a man and a woman wearing fine ornaments and leading a mithan by a rope. He saw that they were an eloping couple and called out to them, “Who are you? There is a beautiful breeze here which makes swinging very pleasant. Take off your ornaments and put them on the ground and tie up the mithan. Then pull me in with a hooked stick and come and have a swing yourselves.” So they did as Apfuho told them, and took their ornaments off and put them down and pulled Apfuho in with a forked stick, and both began to swing.

But when they asked Apfuho to pull them in, instead of doing so he let them fall into the water and drown. Then Apfuho put on their ornaments and took their mithan and went up to the village. And the villagers were astonished and said, “Where have you come from with those ornaments and that mithan, Apfuho?” And he said to them, “In the middle of the pond there are many ornaments and many mithan too. I only brought away these. If you too want to get some you should go and dive into the pond.” Then all the villagers said to him in chorus, “Take me, Apfuho; take me, Apfuho.” So a few days later Apfuho led the villagers in a body down to the water. There he picked them up one by one and threw them in. Of the men who sank quietly he said, “The ornaments and mithan he gets won’t be very good.” But when people struggled hard, with the water pouring from their mouth and nose, he said, “The ornaments and mithan he gets will be splendid.” So he let all the people of the village whom he had thrown into the water drown.11

Now a blind old woman was stumbling along, feeling her way by the water’s edge. Apfuho put an old worn dao in front of her, and when she found it as she groped she said, “Well, if a person like me can find this, people with no infirmities will get a lot.” Then Apfuho went up to her and [180]said, “Now, old woman, you go in too. What are you doing on the edge?” and with these words he caught her and threw her into the middle of the pond so that she was drowned.

The audience always appreciates a play upon words such as occurs in the story of Apfuho and the Old Woman. All Nagas love a pun. A good one is immortal. Ao women—a most pugnacious section of the human race—pun on the names of their adversaries most elaborately. In some Lhota stories practically the whole point depends on a pun. The following is an example.

Long, long ago, before the Great Darkness came, there lived a man who kept wild dogs, as men now call them. With his dogs he killed and ate many deer. But at last he got so old that he could no longer go into the jungle with his dogs. So he called them all to him and brought them to his house. There he cooked enough rice for each to have a share, but when he divided it up it did not go round properly and the youngest dog got none. Then the old man said, “My dogs, I am very old and can no longer go out hunting with you. But do not forget how I looked after you and cared for you. When you kill a deer, always leave a leg (ocho) for me at the cross-roads.” When the dogs had gone away they quite forgot what the old man had said to them. Now the youngest dog was angry with the old man because he had given him no rice. So when the other dogs asked him what the old man had said he replied, “The old man said, ‘Whenever you kill a deer, leave dung (ochü) for me at the cross-roads.’” That is why to this day wild dogs leave their droppings at the cross-roads.12 [181]

The types of story described so far have all been more or less humorous. Some tales, however, teach a definite moral lesson; for example, the following.

There were once two brothers. The elder was poor, but the younger was very rich. The younger brother ignored the elder and kept all his care and affection for his friend. One day the younger brother said to his friend, “My friend, to-day we will go and pick and eat red berries.” So saying they went. The younger brother climbed the tree, and while he was picking and eating the berries smeared himself all over with the red juice. Then he called out, “Friend, friend, I am falling,” and tumbled out of the tree. His friend climbed down and looked at him as he lay on the ground and said, “You are no relation of mine. I shall not look after you. I will go and tell your brother and get him to come.” With these words he went away without attending to him at all. But his brother came and saw him, and looking at him said, “My brother, forgetful one, when you were alive you scorned and neglected me and kept all your love and affection for your friends.” With these words he picked him up to carry him, but the younger brother said, “Brother, there is nothing the matter with me,” and got up and himself carried his elder brother home. Thereafter the friends were friends no more, but the two brothers loved one another. That is why men say that there is nothing in life equal to the love of one’s own relations.

Old men say that when the Lhotas settled at Nungkamchung13 a widow had a big pig. One day the boys of the “morung” took the pig, promising to pay for it with rice. But they did not pay, though every day the widow came and said, “Give me back my pig which you bought for rice.” [182]At last she took her iron staff and poured magic powder14 into it and walked round the “morung,” saying, “Give me back my pig which you bought with rice. Give it back. Give it back,” tapping the ground with her staff as she went. Suddenly the ground opened wherever she had tapped it with her staff containing magic powder, and all the inmates of the “morung” were swallowed up, only those in the front room having time to jump to their feet and escape. The village all set to work to dig them out, but could not dig out a single man, only a wisp of thatch.

Stories of the Water Spirit (Tchhüpfu) are common, and usually describe a visit paid by someone to his lair in a deep pool, as in the following.

One day a boy went down to the Doyang to fish. When he did not return home in the evening his parents became very anxious, and in the morning his father took some men down to search for him; but he was nowhere to be found. Then his father was sad at heart and went wandering alone along the Doyang, determined to find at least the dead body of his son. As he went he saw a hair on the ground, and picked it up, thinking it belonged to his son. But it was so long that he only picked up one end of it, and walked on winding it round and round his finger. He went on and on until he had passed eight bends of the river, so long was the hair. At last he came to a Water Spirit, for the hair was one of the Water Spirit’s which he had forgotten to wind round his head. Then the Water Spirit cried out, “Let me go,” but the man replied, “You have seized my son and taken him to your home in the water. I will not let you go till you bring him out and give him back to me.” Then the Water Spirit said, “Let me go and I will bring your son and leave him here. If you do not believe me you may make me swear the most solemn oath known to men.” At this [183]the man let him go, and the Spirit gave him a gift of friendship, dried fish and fresh fish and fish paste, and said, “In the morning I will bring your son out of the water and leave him here. Come at the time when men go to their fields and you will find him.”

Obedient to the words of the Spirit the man came in the morning at the time when men go to their fields, and there sure enough was his son on the bank. The tale he told his father was this: “I saw a big fish in the water, and dived in and caught hold of it. It dragged me into a hole under the rocks in the pool, where there was no water. There on the dry sand was a hearth made of three human skulls. It was the lair of the Water Spirit.” The Water Spirit had not hurt the boy, but had brought him out and left him on the bank, as he had promised to his father. So the father found his son safe by the side of the water and they both went back home. The tale is remembered to this day.

Otherwise tales of supernatural beings are comparatively rare. The story of Sityingo and Ngazo, two jungle godlings, will serve as a sample.

Sityingo and Ngazo went to dig for bamboo rats.15 Sityingo caught many, but Ngazo, though he dug all day, only got one. Then Ngazo said to Sityingo, “I have only caught this and you have caught so many,” and showed him the rat. Then Sityingo replied, “Even that you only got because I gave it to you.” To which Ngazo replied, “What, I have dug out this rat after digging all day and you say you gave it me!” “Then let it go,” said Sityingo, “and see whether I gave it you or not.” So Ngazo let it go as Sityingo said, but the rat burrowed into the ground, and Ngazo, though he dug and dug after it, could not catch it again. Then said Sityingo, “You say I did not give it you and yet you cannot dig it out!” At these words [184]Ngazo became angry and they fell to wrestling, and Ngazo twisted Sityingo’s neck. That is why Sityingo can only look one way. Men say to this day that a hunter towards whom Sityingo looks is sure to get something, but that he from whom Sityingo’s face is turned away will get nothing at all.

Stories of human beings being turned into birds or beasts are not uncommon. The following are examples.

A man took a company of children down to his fields to work. When they had worked all morning and it was time for the midday meal they asked him to give them their rice. But the owner of the field and his family said it was not yet time and would not give them any rice. Then the children said they were going to bathe and all went off, and said, “They would not give us our rice in time, so we will become catfish.” With these words they turned into catfish, calling out, “We are catfish, we are catfish.” The owner of the field called out, “Come along, I will give you your rice,” but the children replied, “You would not give it us before. Now we have forgotten about men’s food. We will not come,” and swam away in the form of catfish. It is because these children were wearing dao-holders when they were turned into fish that catfish always have a mark on them like a dao-holder—so men say.

Once upon a time a man called Kimongthang called his sisters’ husbands’ relations together and gave them rice beer to drink and said to them, “I have cut a chentung tree ready for a sacrificial post.16 Go and drag it in for me, but do not let a single leaf fall to the ground.” So they went and began to drag the tree, but the leaves were half withered and they kept letting them fall. Then, determined not to [185]let the leaves fall, they tied them onto the twigs and set to work to drag the tree again. In spite of this all the leaves fell off. Then they were ashamed to go back to the village and meet Kimongthang. So they fled away into the jungle, and the men became mynas and called “Kyon, kyon.”17 But the women ground up rice flour to make rice beer and smeared it on their foreheads and called out, “Woka, woka,” and became gibbons. That is why the gibbon now has a white forehead.18

Another type of story is that which purports to give an account of some historical episode. Many of them tell of the origin of some particular clan. That relating to the Kithang clan will serve as an illustration. The episode of the hair being swallowed by the fish occurs in Assamese folk-lore,19 and curiously enough this is the only Lhota story known to the writer in which the Assamese are mentioned, though the Lhotas must have been in contact with them for a long period.

One day a man of the Kikung clan named Yanzo took his nine dogs with him and went to hunt deer. But they would do nothing but jump and give tongue round a tree with a hole in it. Then Yanzo, knowing that his dogs would not give tongue for nothing, cut down the tree to see what was inside it, and found in it a jungle man. This man he took home and brought up and called Kithamo. Kithamo had a son called Mering, for whom Yanzo arranged a wife called [186]Khamdrio. Now Khamdrio had wonderful long hair—once and a half as long as a man could span with outstretched arms. One day when she was washing her head at the river one of her hairs fell in and was swallowed by a little fish, which went down the stream and was caught by an Assamese. The fisherman was amazed when he split open the fish and saw the hair, and took and showed it to the king. Then the king gave orders that the woman to whom the hair belonged was to be brought to him,20 and sent one of his councillors with his soldiers to Mering’s village. But Mering had fenced his village with a hedge of stinging leaves,21 which the king’s soldiers could not penetrate. Then the councillor ordered his soldiers to pick one of the leaves and take it back with them. And he came to the king and said, “The village is fenced with a hedge of this, so that we could by no means force it.” And the king took and put the leaf on his stomach under his clothes to see how it would sting, and he understood how terrible the pain was. Then he sent the councillor to inquire of Mering whether there was anything of which he was afraid. And Mering made answer, “There is nothing in the whole world of which I am afraid. You can only make me afraid by sending up to my village nine elephants with cotton piled on their backs. That will make me afraid.” So the king sent up nine elephants to break down the nine hedges of stinging leaves. Then Mering heated his spear red hot, and waiting till the elephants had reached the fence, threw it at the first one. The cotton on its back caught alight, and when the flames reached its body it ran in among the other elephants and set them alight one after the other. Then the elephants fled and trampled many of the men to death. Then the king announced that he would cease to fight with Mering and would trade with him instead. And he called [187]an Assamese and said to him, “Take a pot of cornelian beads with you and go up to Mering’s village. If anyone wishes to buy from you, do not sell, but go on hawking your wares right through the village, and as you go scatter beads in the hedge of stinging leaves. Having done this come down to me again.” And he went and did as he was bade, and the men of Mering’s village cut down and destroyed all their hedge in their search for the beads which had been scattered there. Then the king sent men into the hills with dogs to hunt down Mering, and Mering fled to Yanzo’s village to take refuge with him. It so happened that Yanzo was building his house. He therefore made Mering hide under a heap of thatching grass which was lying ready to hand, and then went and eased himself on the top of the pile. When the Assamese came up with their dogs they began to toss the thatching grass to this side and that in their search for Mering. Then Yanzo said to them, “Your dogs are very clever. Perhaps they are looking for this filth here.” At these words all the Assamese were filled with shame and whipped off their dogs and departed.22 Because of this Mering and Yanzo broke an iron staff and swore23 on it that they would become one clan and would never intermarry. Afterwards a son was born to Mering whose name was Rapvu. He lived at Nungkamchung, where a bastard son was born to him of a woman of the Kikung clan. This son’s name was Lobemo and his descendants still live at Tsingaki. But the legitimate children of Rapvu are the ancestors of the Kithang clan.

Tales valued for their intrinsic merit as good stories of adventure are very numerous, some of them being of considerable length. Examples are the following.

Once upon a time wild pigs damaged a man’s crops very badly, so he went down to hunt them, and wounded one [188]with his spear. This he tracked and tracked till he came to the house of Lichao, the old man guardian of wild pigs. There he found two maidens feeding the pig he had wounded. They asked him what he had come for, but he was afraid to tell the truth and say that he was tracking a wild pig that he had wounded, so he replied, “Hearing that there were two beautiful maidens at your house I came to see, hoping that I might take one as my wife.” Then they told him to come another day, so he departed.

When the man came a little later Lichao made his slave-girl put on beautiful ornaments and fine clothes, but his real daughter he made to sit all in rags and dirty in the outside room. But the man was not to be deceived. He loved Lichao’s daughter and would only take her.24 Now Lichao used to turn into a tiger and eat human flesh. Therefore he set his son-in-law hard tasks, meaning to devour him if he did not fulfil them. But when she knew this the maiden said to him, “Whatever task my father gives you to perform, tell me and I will reveal to you his purpose.” So one day Lichao said to the man, “Go and pick the leaves of kotyoh thorns and koremyoi thorns, and bring them without a single leaf being torn and without a single scratch on your body. If you do this I will let you depart with my daughter.” Then the girl said to her husband,25 “If you come home with the slightest scratch on your body, or with a single leaf torn, my father will devour you.” So her husband went and picked the leaves without a single one being torn and without scratching his body in the least, and rolled them into a very tight bundle and brought and gave them to Lichao. Then Lichao said, “Only that amount will not be enough for us,” but when he opened the [189]bundle to look, the leaves covered all the ground in front of his house.

A few days later Lichao said, “If you can catch and tie up one of my pigs alone I will let you take my daughter and go,” and with these words gave him a length of unsplit cane. Then the man fell to thinking how he could catch one of the pigs, for they were wild pigs; and his wife said to him, “If you cannot catch a pig my father will devour you.” At last he caught a pig, and his wife beat the cane on the ground to fray it and gave it to him. Thus holding the pig with one hand he pulled off strips of cane with the other and bound the pig fast. Then Lichao let him take his daughter and go.

So the girl came to her husband’s house. But there she could get no human flesh to eat, and soon became so weak and thin that she could not work. One day her husband said to her, “Why are you so weak and thin?” To which his wife replied, “I am thin and weak because I cannot get the food which my parents used to give me.” Then when her husband asked what her parents used to give her to eat she replied, “I will send you to fetch a parcel of meat wrapped in leaves from my parents’ house. But bring it straight here. Do not open it and look to see what is inside.” So he went, and his wife’s parents gave him some pieces of human flesh wrapped up in leaves. This he brought straight home to his wife without opening the leaves to look to see what was inside, and when she ate it it made her as plump and strong as ever. But in a day or two, because she could get no more human flesh to eat, she again became so thin and weak that she could not work. Then she spoke to her husband again and told him to go and fetch some more meat from her parents’ house. Now her husband was determined to open the bundle and see what kind of meat it was that made his wife get well again when she was so thin and weak that she could not work. But Lichao sent a little bird to go back with him so that he should not open the parcel of human flesh on the way. When the man fingered the parcel which Lichao had given him, having it in his heart to open it, the little bird said to him, “If you [190]open it I shall tell my father; if you open it I shall tell my father.” So he did not open it and look inside. But when he had given the parcel of meat to his wife he went and hid and watched quietly to see what kind of meat her father had given him to bring. Now it was nothing but human fingers tied up in leaves that her father had given him to bring. And his wife undid the leaves and roasted the fingers lightly in the fire and ate them one after another. Now when he saw this her husband was much troubled and said, “What meat have your parents sent you? What meat is that you are eating?” But she said, “Nay, I will not tell you. You will only be troubled at heart and filled with fear.” But he said, “I shall not be afraid. Tell me.” Then his wife said, “I shall turn into a tiger. When I go about the house showing my fangs and roaring you must slip a basket over me. If you cannot slip a basket over me I shall devour even you.” With these words she turned into a tiger, and her husband tried to cover her with a basket but could not, so she caught and ate him. That is the end of the story.

A woman one day went down to her field to fetch some vegetables. She saw a fine gourd there and was just going to pick it, when a tiger saw her and said, “That is my gourd. Why were you going to pick it? I shall kill you.” With these words he caught her, but the woman, who was about to become a mother, said, “Do not kill me, and I will give you my baby when it is born,” so the tiger let her go. In due time a daughter was born to the woman. When the tiger heard of this he kept asking the woman if her child was born yet, till at last she told the tiger that it had been born. Soon the tiger asked her if her daughter was strong enough to fetch firewood and water yet, and whether she was old enough to be married. But the woman kept putting him off by saying that her daughter was not yet old enough to carry wood and water and was too young to marry; till at last she saw that she must keep the bargain [191]she had made, and told the tiger that the girl was old enough to work as his wife. But as she sat weaving a cloth for her daughter to wear on her wedding-day she was overcome with grief when she thought how her child would surely be killed and eaten by the tiger, and her tears fell fast on the cloth she was making. Her husband, too, was sad as he worked at a basket he was making for his daughter to carry when she went to her husband’s house, and his tears fell fast on the basket. When the girl saw this she said, “Why are you crying, mother?” and her mother answered, “I poked myself in the eye with my bobbin.” To her father, too, the girl said, “Why are you crying, father?” And her father replied, “I poked myself in the eye with a slip of bamboo.” Then when the day came her parents gave her in marriage to the tiger.

About a year later a little daughter was born to the tiger and his wife. When her mother carried her she never cried, but when her father carried her she cried all the time. So the woman said to the tiger, “Why do you make our daughter cry so much?” The tiger replied, “It is because my beard pricks her.” But one day the woman hid herself and watched, and saw the tiger knock his little daughter’s head “tap, tap” against a hearthstone and lick up the blood which dripped down. When she saw this the woman resolved to run away from the tiger, and said to him, “I am going to fetch some wood. Hold the baby till I come back.” But the tiger said, “I am coming too.” And whenever she asked him to look after the baby while she went to get water, or went to the fields or into the jungle, the tiger always replied, “I am coming too,” and never let her out of his sight. At last one day she asked him to look after the child while she went down to the spring to wash its carrying cloth.26 So he took the child and she went down to the spring and set a louse and a flea to wash the cloth, “chuck-chuck, chuck-chuck,” while she ran off and made for her parents’ house. The tiger, thinking the noise made by the [192]louse and the flea was his wife washing the cloth, kept calling out, “The baby is crying. Come up and nurse it.” But when she did not come up he went down to look for himself, and found his wife gone and the louse and the flea there instead. Then he said, “You would play tricks on me, would you?” and crushed the louse with his thumb-nail, but the flea jumped and got away.

Then the tiger set out to search for his wife and asked everyone he met whether they had seen her pass. All replied that they had not seen her, till at last he came to the sangalia creeper, who said she had just gone by that way. Then he chased and chased her till he came up with her at dusk at the door of her parents’ house. The woman cried out, “Mother, come out of the inner room and open the door for me.” But her mother replied, “Who is that? I have no daughter. My daughter disappeared long ago,” and would not come out and open the door. Then the woman said again, “I am your own daughter, mother, whom years ago, when I was little, you hit on the head with the pigs’ food ladle. Do you not know me now?” With these words she began to squeeze through the little opening by the door left for the dogs, but the tiger seized her legs while her mother seized her head and shoulders. And they pulled and pulled till she was torn in two and the tiger was left with her lower half and her mother with the upper half. Then the tiger took his half to his house and kept watch over it with a whisk so that not a single fly should settle on it, and buried it. And he wept, saying, “O my wife, when you were alive I loved you so much that I was careful always to give you good meat to eat as relish with your rice. You never had to eat leaves and such-like poor fare.” But her mother said, “Why do you weep so? We have torn her in half. Now we will cook and eat her.” And she cooked a little of the flesh from the upper half of the girl and offered it to the tiger, who refused it, saying, “How can I eat the flesh of the mother of my daughter?” But at last he ate it. Then he said, “Human flesh is good,” and went and dug up the portion he had buried and ate that too. That is how the tiger came to eat human flesh, and [193]that is why to this day tigers sometimes kill and devour men.

The ordinary Lhota believes the founders of the tribe came out of the earth, and does not worry his head as to how they originated in the world below. The following story, however, is an example of the widely spread myth that the world was populated by the offspring of a brother and sister.27

In the days of our ancestors there lived a woman called Lankongrhoni. She had a son who was very handsome. His name was Arilao. All the girls admired him only and wished to marry him. They cared nothing for the other men. So all the men of the village planned to kill him treacherously. They agreed that on any day when they should all go down to the river to poison fish, whoever failed to come was to be fined a big pig. Two or three days later they went down. Then Arilao’s mother said to him, “Son, do not go.” But he said, “Do you want us to lose our big pig, mother?” and went. And the men felled a tree on the river bank and hewed a trough out of it and said, “Let every man lie in the trough in turn and see if he looks a fine man.” So they each lay down in turn, but as each man lay in the trough the others kept repeating, “You don’t look nice, you don’t look nice.” At last they said, “Let Arilao lie down,” and made him get into the trough, and calling out, “Arilao looks nice; we are pounding up Arilao, we are pounding up Arilao,” they pounded him up with the fish poison. Now Arilao had a friend, and he was very sad because Arilao had been killed that day, and waited weeping further down stream. Soon the finger-nail of his friend Arilao came floating down and lodged against him. Then he said, “Is this all there is left of my friend?” and with [194]these words lifted the nail off the water, and wrapping it in a leaf slipped it into his belt. The villagers made a fine haul of fish, but Arilao’s friend was so sad that he did not trouble to catch a single one. When the villagers trooped off up towards the village he hung back to the last.

Now Lankongrhoni came to meet her son on the way and asked each of her fellow-villagers, “Where is your companion?” or “Where is your friend?” or “Where is your younger brother?” or “Where is your elder brother?” And each man replied, “He is coming behind, laughing and talking with the girls. He is just coming.” At last came Arilao’s friend, weeping and very sad. When Lankongrhoni asked him where his friend was he said, “The news would make you sad, mother. I will not tell you.” But she replied, “Do not give way to grief, my son. Tell me.” Then he said, “Mother, this is all that is left of my friend,” and gave her his friend’s nail which he had carried up in his belt. Then Lankongrhoni was very sad, but she hid her grief, and a few days later gave notice to the village saying, “To-morrow bring all the children to my house. I am going to kill my big pig and give them a feast there.” So the next day the villagers brought all their children to Lankongrhoni’s house and left them there and went down to their fields. Then Lankongrhoni killed her big pig and feasted the village children on it. Afterwards she made the children remain shut up in her house while she went outside and said, “Children, tell me where there are holes in my house,” and they replied, “There is a hole here, granny,” or “There is a hole there, granny,” and she stopped up the holes as the children told her of them. At last she called from outside and said, “Are there any more holes, children?” And they replied, “There are no more holes, granny.” Then she said, “I want to light my pipe now. Give me a brand.” So they gave her a brand and she set fire to the house and burnt all the children to ashes. But she herself climbed away up a thread thrown down from the sky and disappeared.28 [195]

Now the villagers knew nothing of what had happened. But a crow went from field to field and hopped about in front of the workers dressed in a skirt like a little girl, and said, “Arilao’s mother has utterly destroyed the children of the village.” Then the villagers said, “What does it mean to-day, a crow behaving like that? Surely something has happened,” and so saying they all went off home. And when they saw that all their children had been burnt up, each said to his neighbour, “This is your fault, this is your fault,” and they fell upon each other and killed each other so that they all died. But two orphans, a brother and sister, were frightened when they saw this and climbed up into a fowl-house and hid. Afterwards, all the villagers being dead, there were none for them to marry, so they became husband and wife, and from these two, even from their fingers and toes, were born all the men there are in the world. This is one of the stories which men tell.

A few stories like the following are found which purport to give the origin of some common saying.

A man and his wife lived together. Now at night the husband was a man, but in the day he turned into a hairy caterpillar. His wife did not know this. One night before she went to sleep she said, “To-morrow I am going to gather some leaves to eat.” Early in the morning her husband left the house first and turned into a caterpillar and nipped off the leaves and waited at the place. Then the woman came and at the sight of the leaves exclaimed, “Strange, a caterpillar has nipped off the leaves. I will take them and go.” So saying she took the leaves and went. But that night when they were in bed she said to her husband, “To-day I found that a caterpillar had nipped off the leaves I went to gather.” Then her husband said, “It was I.” At these words she was greatly troubled, and when he was asleep she gently pushed and pushed her husband till he fell off the bed into the fire and was burnt. After that the [196]woman swallowed caterpillar hairs with her food, whenever she ate, and coughed and coughed till she died. Therefore nowadays if anyone coughs much people say, “You should not burn a caterpillar.”

The forces of Nature form the subjects of several folk-tales, as the two following stories show.

At the beginning of time what is now the sun was the moon, and what is now the moon was the sun. In those days when what is now the moon was the sun it was very hot, so that all the leaves and the trees in the jungle shrivelled up and died, and men suffered torments from the heat. Then what is now the sun said to the moon (which was the sun in those days), “Why do you shine so fiercely that you make all the leaves and trees in the jungle shrivel up and die, and cause men to suffer torments from the heat? You by being the sun are making men and leaves to die from heat and the world will be destroyed. Therefore from to-day I will not let you be the sun.” With these words he smeared the face of what is now the moon with cow-dung, and what is now the sun become the sun. Therefore men say that the dark marks on the moon are where the sun smeared cow-dung on its face.29

Long, long ago, about the time that the Great Darkness came upon the earth, all the birds—for in those days the kinds were not as different as they are now—met in council [197]to decide how night should follow day. With one voice they called on the owlet to give his opinion. Then the owlet said, “Let there be nine days’ darkness and nine days’ light.” “No, no,” said all the birds, and smacked him on this side of his head and on that. That is why nowadays the owlet has a flat head. Then all the birds said, “Who will speak now?” And the wagtail said, “Listen to me, then; I will speak. Let us make darkness and light alternately, day by day.” “Yes, yes,” said all the birds, and stroked the wagtail30 all over. He used to be as big as a village cock, but because all the birds stroked him so much he is now very small.

Finally, there is the story of the hero Ramphan and his dao. According to one tradition Ramphan is supposed to have lived when the Lhotas and Rengmas were still one tribe, and some Rengmas from Themokedima once even came to Akuk and claimed the dao, which is still preserved there as an heirloom. It is a long, thin piece of iron about two feet long and three inches broad. The spike of the haft is long and evidently protruded through the wooden haft, which probably existed once. It is rarely shown to strangers, and never to Southern Lhotas, on the ground that they approach Akuk from the direction of the Land of the Dead. The story given below is that told by the present possessors of the dao, and places the scene of the exploit at Longcham, an abandoned site on Wokha Hill, whence the Lhotas are supposed to have spread into the country now occupied by them.

When the Lhotas were living at Longcham a tiger caused them grievous loss. One day it killed all of a party of nine women. Among them was Ramphan’s wife, who was about to become a mother. At this disaster all clamoured to abandon the village, but Ramphan said he would go and face [198]the tiger. First he put on each of his fingers a section of thin bamboo. Then he took his long dao and lay down among the corpses of the nine women and waited for the tiger. Soon the tiger came and went to each corpse and ate a little of the flesh and laid it on one side, saying as he did so, “This one I killed on her way to the fields,” or “This one I killed when she went to cut wood,” or “This one I killed on her way to fetch water,” or “This one I killed when she went to pick jungle leaves,” or “This one I killed when she went to get vegetables,” or “This one I killed when she was going down to fish.” At last he came to Ramphan and said, “This one I do not remember,” and picked him up and laid him aside, and then settled himself down to sleep. Then one by one Ramphan began to snap the pieces of bamboo on his fingers to see if the tiger was asleep or not. But at each snap the tiger pricked up his ears. At last when he had snapped nine of the pieces of bamboo and there was only one left, Ramphan thought to himself, “If the tiger is not asleep when I snap this I am done for.” But when he snapped the last remaining piece of bamboo the tiger did not prick up its ears, for it was fast asleep. Then Ramphan rose up and cut off the tiger’s head with his long dao, and climbed with it up to the top of a high spur and shouted the shout of a warrior who has taken a head. But he was sad when he thought of his wife lying dead in the valley below. And he called to his village men and said, “I have slain our enemy. Do not desert your village. Wait for me.” But when he reached home he found that the villagers had already abandoned the place. From far away they shouted back to him, “We have sprinkled the back of one of our sows with rice husks, which fall as she walks. Follow the track of that and come.” Now as Ramphan followed the trail of rice husks he caught up on the path a woman who was a leper. And the woman, whose name was Mangtsilo, said to Ramphan, “What does this mean, father? A poisonous snake here said, ‘Snake-plant, snake-plant, Mangtsilo,’ and glided over my leg. What does it mean?” Then Ramphan told her to crush up some leaves of the snake-plant and lay them on her leg. And she did [199]as he told her and her leprosy was cured.31 Then Ramphan took her as his wife.

One day when Mangtsilo was weaving outside her house, Ramphan’s slaves began to spin their tops near by. They made Mangtsilo’s brothers join in, and drew them on and on till they came close to her house. Then one of the brothers recognized his sister Mangtsilo, and went and told his parents that he had seen a woman exactly like his sister. But his parents said, “Your sister was lost long ago. Her very bones have rotted away by now. How could you have seen her?” But he said again and again that he had seen a woman exactly like his sister, so that at last his parents went to see and found that it was indeed Mangtsilo. Then they demanded her marriage price from Ramphan, but Ramphan said, “First give me the marriage feast and then I will give you the marriage price.” So her father said, “What can I do? Make and give me only a bamboo spoon and a bamboo rice-stirrer.” So Ramphan made and gave him only a bamboo spoon and a rice-stirrer. That is why Ramphan and Mangtsilo only had one son and one daughter born to them. [200]

Not only have the Lhotas a number of traditional songs, but they are also experts at making up topical songs about any events of local interest. The singing is unaccompanied either by instrumental music or dancing. The following is given as an example of a traditional song. It is sung by men lopping the branches off trees when clearing jungle for new jhums. The Lhota version with a free prose translation is given, as no verse translation would give any idea of the swing of the song. It runs as follows:—

The interpretation of this song is as follows:—

The music of this song will serve as a specimen of Lhota harmony. I am indebted to Mrs. Hutton for the notation.

[[MP3] | MuseScore]

The introductory and final chants precede and follow each verse and are sung on the syllable a.

Another traditional song is the following lullaby sung by a widow to her child:—

This may be translated as follows, omitting the meaningless chant of Ole iyi le he-e, etc.:—

Songs composed to celebrate some particular event are meaningless to anyone who does not know the full details of the circumstances to which they relate. An interlined [203]and much expanded translation will help to explain the following specimen. It tells of the various people who were concerned in the founding of the new village of Japfu from Mekula, a migration which greatly annoyed those who remained in the old village.

The recruiting of the Lhotas for the Naga Labour Corps, and their service in France and return have been celebrated in song at Pangti. A free translation of the song runs as follows.

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