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n 01 r Northeast India

•v- Bhaskar Roy Barman

I Folktales of Northeast India

SX-'Si-

Bhaskar Roy Barman

Gisrosis Nurturing the Aspirations Preface

'THE story goes/ says Naoni Lewis in his Introduction to the World Classics : Ham Auderseit's Fairy Tales translated from the Danishby LW. Kingsland, published by Oxford University Press, New York, in 1959, "that when Andersen, in his honoured last years, was shown the plan for his projected national statue-a design which included acrowding cluster ofchildren - he 'angrily protested', 'I pointed out/ he wrote in his diary, 'that ...I could not hear anyone behind me, nor had I children on my back, on my lap, or between my legs when I read; that my fairy tales were as much for older people as for children... /" I have quoted this story to bring home the concept that has worked behind my selecting, editing and, in some cases, translating folk-tales ofNorti\east India. Older people will enjoy, as much as children, reading the folktales incorporated into this collection. There are, mainly, two purposes that have propelled me on to theonerous job ofcompiling a selection of folktales of Northeast India. Firstly, the folklore of Northeast India, particularly that of Tripura, has not yet been properly explored' though just a few books have been written on the folklore of Northeast India. Besides, I have not heard of any compilation of folktales of Northeast India in asingle book. Secondly, there is still awid^pread concept relating to the folk-tale that it is only meant for children, not for older people. If an old man happens to read afolktale collection he is sure to be mocked and ridiculed by his pwrs. With these purposes in mind, I have selected those folk- a es which will appeal to both older people and children, or rather young people, and have manoeuvred the language to suit my purposes. viii • Folktales of Northeast India

Ishould like toinform the reader how Ihavo grown interested in folklore. Long years back, in the 1980s, I was to do a research work on James Joyce's: Ulj/ssea at Gauhali University, Assam, India, under the guidance of the famous scholar in English literature, Dr Hiren Gohain, then the Head oftheDepartment of English. While I was progressing bit by bit through my research-work, he suddenly suggested to me to shelve the research project for the lime being and explore the folklore of Tripura which, he said, needed to be brought to light. Iobeyed his suggestion, because Ialways regards him as my teacher, and in compliance with his suggestion, I gathered a good number of folktales into a collection. The collection will be published in New Delhi. In preparing this collection of folk-tales of Northeast India, I am indebted to many journals in India and abroad thatpublished many folk-tales that have been incorporated into this collection, such as Pratibha India, India, Word Plus, India, Park Magazine, UK, to name just a few. The folklore Society of London has asked me lo write a comprehensive article on the folklore of Northeast India. I am really grateful to Mr Rayassam H. Sharma. Rditor, Jaico Publishing House, Mumbai, for egging me on lo compile folk tales of Northeast India. 1 am prudentially grateful to Authorspress for having undertaken the publication of this book to enable it to see the light of the world.

Dr. Bhaskar Roy Bannan Contents

Preface v General bttrodiiction—Dr. Bhaskar Roij Barman ix

PART I ARUNACHAL PRADESH

1. Arunachal Pradesh

Inlroduction Theipagali and His Yak Journey to the Land of Gold and Pearls The Guardian Lake A Cunning Singpho The Deer Family The Merchant of Mungluflut The Inhabitants on the Sun and the Moon Tell No Secret to a Woman Creation of Earth and Life War with Idus The Story of Chimboo

PART II ASSAM 2. Assam

Introduction The Creation of the River Brahmaputra i • Folktales of Northeast India

Tejimola Toola and Teja The Legend of Jayamala The Legend of Princess Hidimba The Staircase to the Moon The Tale of a Kite's Daughter The Storl< and the Priest The Princess with the Thirty-two Lucky Signs The Old Farmer and His Five Sons The Demon Teacher

PART III

MANIPUR Manipur

Introduction Madai and Saraiel The King, the Prince and the Rain Khamba and Toibi The Adventures of Ralngam How Mulali became Rich Test of Recognition Choosing a Successor The Legend of Ramheiba Two Brothers Sangnu The Devil

PART IV MEGHALAYA 4. Meghalaya Introduction U Rating Contents

Legend the Mount Sophet Bneng What Makes the Eclipse Legend of the Shillong Peak How the Peacock got His Beautiful Feathers How was the Earth Formed What Caused the Shadows on the Moon? U Ksuid Tynjang U Ramhah The Cunning Fox The Blessing of a Mendicant

PART V MIZORAM

Mizoram

Introduction The Story of Nara The Girl who Married a Monkey The Story of Korabaibu A Wild Cat, a Hen and an Egg Sibuti and Darlaii •Porcupine and Barking Deer How Man Emerged from the Cave The Story of a Dog and a Goat The Creation of Mushroom The Monkey and the Bear The Hunting Parly to Tan

PART VI NAGALAND Nagaland Introduction The Divine Ancestors The Ogress xxvlii • Folktales of Northeast India

The Tiger and the Monkey The Orphan Girl The Monkey and the Jackal The Spirit, the Tiger and Man The Grateful Doe The Sun and the Cock A Youth and Two Lovers The Wagtail The Squirrel and the Quail

PART VII TRIPURA 7. Tripura 237

Introduction Uncle Wind The Brave Jemichhalang Kalampakanya How Brother and Sister Turned into Elephants The Story of a Tiger and a Fox King Nuyal Bigrachha Story of a Monkey and a Couple Ngama and Tlingi Two Sisters The Cuckoo Doctor

Bibliography 294 Index 295 General Introduction —Dr. Bhaskar Roy Barman

I IN dealing with folklore as a genre we come across some related terms such as folklore, mythology and tall tale and we must seek a plausible answer to the pertinent question, 'How far are these terms related to one another?' Alongsideof this question crop up other relevant questions: 'Does mythology mean the same thing as folklore? What is talltale? How are these three different genres, used differently, related to one another?' A majority of us have heard of folklore and mythology — and they are often used in different meanings -but very few of us have heard of 'tall-tale'. In all probability the term 'talltale originated in America. But talltale is another form of folktale. I shall touch upon tall-tale later on. Before dealing with it we should peep deep into folklore and mythology. By folklore is generally meant the traditions, beliefs, legends, saying stories and customs current among the common people. This meaning has now been universally considered a plausible definition, though a universally acceptable definition of folklore has not yet been settled on. But it appears as difficult for us to premise our discussion on folklore, as it is for other folklorists to premise any discussion on this postulated definition approved by Oxford and Webster Dictionaries. We have seen 'saying stories' mentioned in the definition and these two words serve to relate folklore to talltale The main motif of folklore is 'saying a story' or'telling atale' but itis not 'writing astory ortale.'. But literature involves writing. The question is whether we should study

xiv • Folktales of Northeast India General Introduction • xv

primitive man as terrified by the presence of the grave and, hence, and sociological truth. This vocabulary, pondered and more or anxious to propitiate them so much so that the roots of the myths less understood in the primitive, oriental and archaic and and rituals went down to the black subsoil of the grave-cult and mediaeval societies, has suddenly lost its meaning and been fear of death. pronounced insane in the wake of Enlightenment. The fourth theory was put forward by the French sociologist, Now let us switch our attention over to the tales (both folk Emile Durlmyth, the folk tale is aform of entertainment experienced by every participating member of the group as an and in proportion to the entertainment or amusement he affords impersonal, infectious power (mana) which would be thought to to his listeners, the storyteller fails or succeeds. Though his motifs emanate out of the clan or tribal emblem (totem). This emblem may be plucked from tine tree of myth, his craft is never precisely would be set apart from all other objects, as filled with mana. The of the mythological order. His productions have to be judged, not mana, this first cult object, woyld then infect with mana all from a scientific, sociological, psychological ormetaphysical point associated things, beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, of view, but as an individual art discoverable at discoverable uniting in a single moral community all believers. This theory, as periods, in discoverable stages, which often prompts us into propounded by Emile Durkheim, represented religion, not as a asking: What principle of craftsmanship inspired the narrators morbid exaggeration, false hypothesis, or unenlightened fear, but who gave shape to these stories in the long reaches of the past? as a truth emotionally experienced. The truth the theory insists on The Indian, Celtic, Arabian and Mediaeval masters of is the relationship of the individual to the group. narrative - we owe to them the most exquisite of tales that have It is interesting to note that the recognition by Durkheim of come down to us - practised acraft which strove to reveal through a kind of truth residing at the root of the image-world of myth mortal things the brilliance of eternal forms. The quality of their is supported and elaborated by the psychoanalysts by work was a spiritual precision and their power was instructive demonstrating that dreams are but precipitations of unconscious wonder. To us there exists no distinction between their craftand desires, ideals and fears, and further that the images of dream metaphysics, inasmuch as the connotation of the term, resemble often to the detail the motifs of folk tale and myth. 'metaphysical' has been enlarged to include everything Through their study of symbol-inventing, myth-motif-producing untranslatable into positivistic discourse. But the peoples of the level of the psyche, this level of psyche construed as a source of pre-modern type, be they gothic, oriental, archaic, totemistic, or all those universal themes which men have read into the primitive, took for granted the operation of a transcendent energy phenomena of nature, into the shadows of the tomb, the lives of in the form of space and time. It is, thus, imperative of every artist, the heroes and the emblems of the society, the psychoanalysts no matter what the craft, to get his product to show its sign of have doubtlessly touched the central moment of the multifarious spirit and to serve its mechanical end. The function of the craft problem. is, on the other hand, to fill the vacant hour with symbolic fare. To sum up, the 'monstrous, irrational and unnatural' motifs The fascination of the tale increases in proportion to the richness of folktale and myth arederived from thereservoirs ofdream and of its symbolic content, symbolization being one of the mam vision. Such images represent on the dream level the total state characteristics of the tale. of individual dreaming psyche, but, when clarified of personal In this context comes up the tall tale. The moment the tall tale distortions and propounded, at thesametime, by poets, prophets has come up a pertinent question proposes itself: Is the tall ta e and other visionaries, turnssymbolic ofthespiritual norm for man synonymous with tall story? But the essence of the tall story is no themascrocosm. They are, thus, phrases thathave originated from in a true sense the same as the essence of the tall tale. I ave an image-language, suggestive of psychological, metaphysical brought up the comparison between the tall story and tal ta e, or

xvt Folktales of Northeast India General Introduction • xvii

the reader confuses the two different terms, because we often tend somewhat paralleled the tall tale to the tall story. But the tall tale to regard the two terms as synonymous. A tall story is usually an is, unlike the tall story, a comic fiction disguised as a fact, but extravagant, outlandish or highly improbable story, often intentionally and deliberately exaggerated to the limits of regarded as false. Tall stories are of the same family as fantasy or credibility or sometimes beyond the limits with the sole purpose fairy tale. The epic tradition, and especially the primary epic, of revealing emotional truths and defining and binding a social contains a good many episodes which are classified as tall stories. group. The most artistically successful talltale writers were those Tiie tall story has generally flourished in the environments and who most creatively transformed folklore's subtle functions and atmospheres of frontier life, bad lands, pioneering endeavours, meanings into tall literature. among many sporting fraternities, among fishermen and sailors, Although neither invented innor restricted to North America, and especially in rural areas. It should be mentioned in this the tall tale has held a high place of special significance in connexion that though tall stories are not in a proper sense American life. Almost from the beginning the incomprehensible folktales, there are no mean number of folk tales, the product of vastness of the continent, the extraordinary fertility of the land rural environments, which have all the traditional elements of a and the varieties of natural peculiarities stimulated the tall tale good tall story (i.e.. Jack the Giant-killer); not a few of the best tall with a humour of extravagance and exaggeration, while the stories belong to the oral tradition, like the famous R.A.F., one (of American's need was felt to affirm the value of a culture in many the Second World War) about the squadron that bombed a ways independent of European refinements, constraints and dummy aeroplane on a German airfield with wooden bombs. mores that endangered a humour that was sociable, though Here we have seen that all folktales are not tall stories and ail tall exclusive. stories are not folktales. The flush time of the American literary tall tale roughly tits Now let us see how the tail tale corresponds to the folklore into the period 1831 to 1860. The year 1831 witnessed the first and this necessitates a brief discussion of the talltale. Though the performance of James Kirke Paulding's tall comedy The Lion of the tall tale is greatly difficult to trace through history, it has been West and the founding of William Trotter Porter's sporting surely around a long time. The Odx/sseij, a Creek epic poem weekly. The Spirit of the Times. During the next few decades, when attributed to Homer, describing the adventures of Odysseus in any itinerant judge or small-time editor in the Southwest could courseof hisreturn from theTrojan War tohis kingdom of Ithaca, become a writer of backwoods sketches, tail tales written by them musthave its source inoral yam spinning, and literature from the were printed in newspapers, almanacs and gift books, and were first century AD onwards abounds in tall tales. Considering the reprinted and circulated throughout the country. They described constraint on space, we should not saunter around the history of eccentrics, old-timers, jokers and hunters who told of huge and tall tale; we'd rather pass over to the texts of the tall tale. clever bears, giant mosquitoes, extraordinary marksmen and vas Tlie telling ofany tall tale is a communicative event, as is any deserts and boiling springs of the Far East. Many of the tale folktale. It is, like any folktale, acomplex intertwining of text and purport to be dose transcripts of folktales and others are bu context, form and function. To attempt to separate the inseparable purely inventions in imitation of the previously pnnted versions becomes enlightening when one can approach it with a sense of of American and European folktales. humour, proportion and humility, expecting the division to be neither clean nor permanent, but simply and temporarily useful. In the above short discussion it is evident that tal'm European and American folklorists have judged the folktale America is what we call folktale outside North Amen • hp more peculiarly American than any other types of humour. 11 P Iv visitors to America as well as those who just read the II .r'« accounts or imported American plays agreed upon Before we touch on the folklore of ofIndia- ^ration .nnd extravagance of American humour wh.ch partoffolklore ofIndia, let usroam through the xvt Folktales of Northeast India General Introduction • xvii

the reader confuses the two different terms, because we often tend somewhat paralleled the tall tale to the tall story. But the tall tale to regard the two terms as synonymous. A tall story is usually an is, unlike the tall story, a comic fiction disguised as a fact, but extravagant, outlandish or highly improbable story, often intentionally and deliberately exaggerated to the limits of regarded as false. Tall stories are of the same family as fantasy or credibility or sometimes beyond the limits with the sole purpose fairy tale. The epic tradition, and especially the primary epic, of revealing emotional truths and defining and binding a social contains a good many episodes which are classified as tall stories. group. The most artistically successful talltale writers were those Tiie tall story has generally flourished in the environments and who most creatively transformed folklore's subtle functions and atmospheres of frontier life, bad lands, pioneering endeavours, meanings into tall literature. among many sporting fraternities, among fishermen and sailors, Although neither invented innor restricted to North America, and especially in rural areas. It should be mentioned in this the tall tale has held a high place of special significance in connexion that though tall stories are not in a proper sense American life. Almost from the beginning the incomprehensible folktales, there are no mean number of folk tales, the product of vastness of the continent, the extraordinary fertility of the land rural environments, which have all the traditional elements of a and the varieties of natural peculiarities stimulated the tall tale good tall story (i.e.. Jack the Giant-killer); not a few of the best tall with a humour of extravagance and exaggeration, while the stories belong to the oral tradition, like the famous R.A.F., one (of American's need was felt to affirm the value of a culture in many the Second World War) about the squadron that bombed a ways independent of European refinements, constraints and dummy aeroplane on a German airfield with wooden bombs. mores that endangered a humour that was sociable, though Here we have seen that all folktales are not tall stories and ail tall exclusive. stories are not folktales. The flush time of the American literary tall tale roughly tits Now let us see how the tail tale corresponds to the folklore into the period 1831 to 1860. The year 1831 witnessed the first and this necessitates a brief discussion of the talltale. Though the performance of James Kirke Paulding's tall comedy The Lion of the tall tale is greatly difficult to trace through history, it has been West and the founding of William Trotter Porter's sporting surely around a long time. The Odx/sseij, a Creek epic poem weekly. The Spirit of the Times. During the next few decades, when attributed to Homer, describing the adventures of Odysseus in any itinerant judge or small-time editor in the Southwest could courseof hisreturn from theTrojan War tohis kingdom of Ithaca, become a writer of backwoods sketches, tail tales written by them musthave its source inoral yam spinning, and literature from the were printed in newspapers, almanacs and gift books, and were first century AD onwards abounds in tall tales. Considering the reprinted and circulated throughout the country. They described constraint on space, we should not saunter around the history of eccentrics, old-timers, jokers and hunters who told of huge and tall tale; we'd rather pass over to the texts of the tall tale. clever bears, giant mosquitoes, extraordinary marksmen and vas Tlie telling ofany tall tale is a communicative event, as is any deserts and boiling springs of the Far East. Many of the tale folktale. It is, like any folktale, acomplex intertwining of text and purport to be dose transcripts of folktales and others are bu context, form and function. To attempt to separate the inseparable purely inventions in imitation of the previously pnnted versions becomes enlightening when one can approach it with a sense of of American and European folktales. humour, proportion and humility, expecting the division to be neither clean nor permanent, but simply and temporarily useful. In the above short discussion it is evident that tal'm European and American folklorists have judged the folktale America is what we call folktale outside North Amen • hp more peculiarly American than any other types of humour. 11 P Iv visitors to America as well as those who just read the II .r'« accounts or imported American plays agreed upon Before we touch on the folklore of ofIndia- ^ration .nnd extravagance of American humour wh.ch partoffolklore ofIndia, let usroam through the

xviii • Folktales of Northeast India General Introduction • xlx

Anyone, ifheor shedesires to study the culture ofIndia, requires enclosed in those mythic entities which are called self-sufficient himself or herself to study not only its written classics, but also village communities. It is often said of folklore pieces that they its oral tradition of which folklore is an important part. Folklore are autotelic, their purpose being to travel by themselves without spreads through childhoods, families and communities as the any movement of populations. The moment a folklore piece is symbolic parts of the non-literate parts of the people and the told, it starts travelling by itself, delighting in crossing linguistic culture. Even in large modern cities, and even in Western-style boundaries. Though folklore pieces or items arise or are current nuclear families folklore is only a suburb or grandmother away in apparently narrow incommunicable dialects and localized and flourishes in the back streets of a city like Chennai. Wherever dialects, they do not confine themselves to travelling within the people live, folklore grows. New jokes, proverbs (like the new country or culture; they become part of international network. campus proverb. To xerox is to know'), rhymes, tales and songs circulate in the folk tradition. Verbal folklore, in the sense of a largely oral tradition with specific genres (such as proverb, riddle, The seven states which 'the Northeastern region comprises have lullaby, tale, ballad, prose narrative, song), non-verbal modes for long shared certain features in terms of their social and cultural (such as dances, games, floor or oral designs, artefacts from toys history. The shared tradition in history, linguistics, demography to outdoor clay horses particularly in villages) and composite and sociology stresses the fact of two or three broad streams of performing arts (such as street magic and street theatre, which culture flowing through the region to evolve a kind of synthesis combine prose, verse, song, dance, various local objects, costume still today judged as a continuous and unifying process, ^ere is and so on), are woven in and out of every aspect of city, village attached to each tradition a certain dialinctiveness in relation to and small-town life. the tribes who inhabit the region. Whoever speaks of India or Indian can't help adding that Cihe tribal societies in the Northeastern region are not all of India contains many Indias. In this connexion 1 quote A.K. a piece, but the point of ethnicity and the physical conditions of Ramanujan as saying in his Introduction to Folldnles from India living give unto them certain common features amidst their published by Penguin Books, India m1994, Over a hundred diversities in modes of thought and social behaviou^ Most languages, ten major script systems and several minor ones, many studies, centred on rites and rituals inconformity with theknown old religions with innumerable sects and cults, racial mixttire over scales of social anthropology, seem to have missed out on such millennia, a variety of landscapes and so on have contributed to aspects as could have been brought into focus if the range of an incredibly complex braiding of traditions and studies had been enlarged to include those aspects. countertraditions." (p. xv) Although the relation of the creation myths and the primitive rituals with their vegetation and cultivation cults to the Let us examine two traditions: Great Tradition and Little agriculture system obtaining in the tribal societies, their intricate Tradition. It is commonly held that Traditions arc pan- bearing on the evolution of tribal language and folklore has vet to be explored. Yet the studies carried on of the folklore systems, particularly of the myths and the folktales, shed light on the meaningful difference in the perception and conceptualization of variety F that the so-called thoughts and ideas between the food-gathering and food- Benaras. It should be note thr^msolves to small producing societies on one hand, and the food-producing ^XTradUions do not of necessity confine themselves to small societies grov/ing paddy and other crops through jhum jocalitics or; dialectsd for proverbs, riddles, and stones andembodiedtunes cultivation (shifting cultivation) and wet cultivation. The custom """h dialed confined to aregion. They seem to be I e head-hunting and the corresponding rituals acquire, as they