Thado Folk Tales.
Benglama is the equivalent of the Lushai Chhura, and there are many tales about him which are common to both clans and in fact seem to be known to almost all representatives of the Kuki-Lushai race. The following is a translation of a portion of a tale written down in Lushai for me, but told by a Thado. Benglama had visited a village and got himself much disliked, and everyone was trying to catch him:—“Once they made a ladder and cut the lower side partly through and made a great quagmire underneath. Benglama climbed up it, it broke, and he fell down into the mud. Then a tiger came up. ‘My friend, if you help me out you may eat me,’ said Benglama. Then the tiger pulled him out. Then the tiger—‘I will eat you up,’ he said. Benglama—‘I will just go and wash myself clean,’ he said. ‘Presently I will eat you up,’ he said again. Benglama—‘I will go and ease myself,’ he said, ‘otherwise you will dislike my dung,’ he said. Where he went to ease himself he cut a cane. The tiger—‘Why do you do that?’ he asked. Then Benglama—‘It is going to blow and rain like anything, therefore I am going to tie myself to the stump of a tree,’ he said. Then the tiger—‘If that is so, tie me up first,’ he said. He tied him up. Then he (Benglama) also put a mallet, that all who passed by might beat the tiger. Benglama went away. Then the wild-cat came along. The tiger—‘My friend, you and I are just alike; we two are friends, we are brothers—undo me,’ he said. He undid him. Then the wild-cat left him, going into a pangolin’s hole. Then just as he was going in, the tiger caught him by the foot. ‘What you have got hold of, that is not me, it is a tree root,’ he said. The tiger let him go, but remained watching for him, but the wild-cat always slipped out at the other side, and was always eating fowls by Benglama’s house. The tiger—‘My friend, what is it you are eating?’ he said. Then the wild-cat—‘Oh, I am only just eating the bones of my hand,’ he said. The tiger was always eating his paw, and it hurt very, very much indeed. Presently the wild-cat went to the tiger and said to him, ‘If you were to take a torch and go near to Benglama’s house you would be able to catch some fowls,’ he said. So the tiger went up, but Benglama saw him, and heated some water. When it was very hot indeed, he poured it into a tui-um (bamboo tube for holding water) and threw it over the tiger. The tiger said, ‘My friend! My friend! I am dying, I am all burnt up,’ he said. The wild-cat—‘There is a waterfall some way down stream; if you roll down that you will be well,’ he said. He rolled down and so he died.”
How Benglama Tried to Climb to the Top of the Big “Bung” Tree.
“This Benglama—his wife was going to start for the jhum, and she spoke thus to him. To her husband his wife said, ‘Benglam, when the sun shines through our doorway, cook the rice, do,’ she said. ‘When the sun shines on the top of the bung tree in front of our house, then clean the rice and tie up the goat,’ she said, and she also left her child with him. His wife then left him to go to the jhum. Then he, according to his wife’s orders, when the sun shone in the doorway prepared to cook the rice. As often as he put the pot on the fire it fell off again. Presently the sun shone on the top of the bung tree. ‘Did my wife say cook the food on the top of the bung tree?’ he said. Then saying, ‘I will clean the rice,’ he prepared to climb to the top of the bung tree with the rice, mortar, and pounder, with the goat and the basket of fowls; but he could not climb up, he kept on falling down again. Just then his child, being hungry, began to cry and cry. Then Benglama, saying, ‘Is his fontanel hurting?’ pricked it with his hairpin. Then the child died. Benglama, saying, ‘Has it gone to sleep?’ laid it down on the sleeping machan; he did not know that it was dead. Then his wife came back from the jhum, and Benglama just before had fallen from the bung tree and was nearly dead, and lay on the sleeping platform groaning terribly. His wife said, ‘Are you ill?’ and he—‘Speak! Why, I can hardly speak, I have fallen from the top of the bung tree and am nearly dead, don’t you know?’ he said to her. Then she looked at her child; and his wife—‘Our child here is dead; how has it happened?’ she said. Then Benglama—‘Go on! it’s not dead, its head was hurting and I pricked it; it is just asleep,’ he said to her. Then his wife—‘It is dead indeed; go and bury it,’ she said. Then Benglama wrapped it up in a mat and carried it over his shoulder, and the body dropped out behind him, and he placed the mat only in a cave, and on his way back he saw his child’s body. ‘Whose child is this?’ he said, and kicked it about with his feet.”
The Story of Ngamboma and Khuptingi.
“Formerly Ngamboma and Khuptingi, before they were born, while in their mothers’ wombs, they loved each other. When the time for them to be born came near their mothers’ bellies pained them. Then if their mothers put their bellies near to each other they got well. Then the children were born. In the jhums when they were placed apart in the jhum house while their mothers were at work they always got together. When they grew bigger they loved each other, and Ngamboma wanted to marry Khuptingi, but their fathers and mothers did not think it wise. Then Ngamboma made an image of Khuptingi in beeswax and tied it to a stump of a tree on the bank of the stream, and whenever the water rose Khuptingi got ill and when it went down she got better. Thus it went on for one year. One day the stream rose and carried away Khuptingi’s image, then Khuptingi died. They placed her body in a dead-house. From the decaying matter which fell from her body flowers sprang up, and Ngamboma watched them always. One day a wild cat was going to take away those flowers, but Ngamboma caught it and said, ‘Why did you think to steal my flowers—I’ll just kill you?’ he said. Then the wild cat—‘Protector! Do not kill me; I am sent by Khuptingi,’ he said. Then Ngamboma—‘Where is Khuptingi, then?’ he said. Then the wild cat—‘If you catch hold of my tail we will both go (to her),’ he said. Then the wild cat towed him to the village in which Khuptingi was in the sky, in Mi-thi-khua (the dead-people’s-village), and they arrived at Khuptingi’s house and they slept there, and they ate rice also together. When they slept together Khuptingi was only bare bones, and Ngamboma said, ‘What bones are these?’ and he threw them to the top of the wall and to the bottom of the wall (i.e., all about the room). Then the next day Khuptingi—‘I am not well,’ she said. Ngamboma—‘What is the reason?’ he said. The Khuptingi—‘Last night when I was sleeping near you you threw me to the top of the wall and to the bottom of the wall; for that reason I am in pain,’ she said. Then their villagers said, ‘Let us go and fish,’ they said. They went. The place where they caught fish—indeed it was not a stream, it was a patch of bamboo. The dead called the bamboo leaves fish, and they filled their baskets cram-full, but Ngamboma said to himself, ‘They will stop the holes in the baskets with the leaves when they come to the stream so that the fish may not fall out by accident,’ he said, and he stopped the holes (in his basket) with leaves. Then they all returned to the village. Ngamboma, by diverting a stream, caught a few fish and returned. When they reached their houses the dead roasted the leaves which they called fish, but when Ngamboma tried to roast them the leaves all burnt up. Then Khuptingi said to Ngamboma, ‘The others have caught so many fish; why have you caught so few?’ Ngamboma roasted the real fish which he had caught, but they burnt up just like the bamboo leaves. Then one day the people again went out to hunt. In the place where they went hunting they saw a huge black caterpillar; the dead called it a bear. Ngamboma did not see it, and by accident trod on it and killed it. Then the dead said to Ngamboma, ‘That bear which ran towards you, have you seen it?’ they said. Ngamboma—‘I have not seen it,’ he said. Presently they saw the caterpillar which he had trodden on, ‘Hei-le! Why, you have shot it!’ they said. They carried it up to the village and all the dead ate up its flesh entirely. Ngamboma, however, did not care to eat any of it. Then Khuptingi said to Ngamboma, ‘Living people and dead people, we shall not be able to live together comfortably; therefore, if you now build yourself a house here and then return to your home, when you die you will be able to live in it?’—thus Khuptingi said. So he set to work to build a house. The dead called the arum trees, and they split them with axes and built (with them), but Ngamboma just split those arums with his nail very quickly. ‘Can one build houses with such stuff?’ he said. Then, splitting real trees into planks, he built his house. Then Khuptingi said to Ngamboma, ‘If you go to your house and call all the villagers together and sacrifice a mithan, and when you have finished eating its flesh you put on very good cloths and wear round your neck the sacrificial rope (the rope the mithan was bound with), and call on my name, then you will die and will be able to come to our village,’ she said. Just as Khuptingi said it came to pass; he died as he was lying on his bed, then they were able to live together with comfort. When he saw the house that he had built in Mi-thi-khua, he said, ‘Who built that house?’ The dead said to him, ‘You built it while you were alive.’ Then they married in Mi-thi-khua, it is said.
“It is because of this story of Ngamboma and Khuptingi that we say nowadays people are in Mi-thi-khua.”
CHAPTER V
THE LAKHER OR MARA CLAN
This clan emigrated from the neighbourhood of Thlan-tlang (called by the Chin Hills officers Klang-klang) in comparatively recent times. They are closely allied to the Southern Chins, and a description of them belongs more properly to the Chin Monograph. Much of the information in Messrs Carey and Tuck’s Gazetteer regarding the Southern Chins applies to the Lakhers. I therefore propose to give only a brief description here.
The clan calls itself Mara, Lakher being the name used by the Lushais. The Chins, I believe, call them Zo, and the Arracan name for them is Klongshai. The following extract from my diary, dated 10th February, 1891, gives a brief account of the advent of this clan:—“In the evening I had a long talk with the chiefs and found out the origin, according to them, of the feud with the Mrungs (in the Chittagong Hill tracts). In the lifetime of Thonglien’s father, the Bohmong of that time sent to ask the Mara clan to come and make friends. A deputation went, taking with them two large elephant tusks as a peace offering. The Bohmong had two of the party treacherously killed, and hence the feud which has led to so much bloodshed. I am told that the first Mara to come here (Saiha) were a colony under one of Thonglien’s ancestors. They came from Thlan-tlang to where Vongthu now is, and then moved further east till they settled somewhere on the Blue Mountain. Finding themselves too small a colony to hold their own, they sent for the rest of the clan, who, under Lianchi, Hmunklinga’s great-grandfather, came and settled where Ramri now is. After a few years a few of the Chinja tribe arrived and were received into the village. These were followed by more and more until eventually the Mara left the Chinja in possession of Ramri and moved across the Blue Mountain, where they have remained ever since.” There are other Lakher villages besides those referred to in the above extract, and the clan is found in considerable strength to the south of the Lushai Hills boundary, in territory which is at present unadministered. Members of the clan are also found in the Lushai and Chin villages adjoining the real Lakher country, which lies in the loop of the Koladyne or Kaladan river, south of latitude 22°3´.
Their villages are more permanent than those of the Lushais though the houses are built of the same materials, the proximity of large supplies of bamboos having led the immigrants to abandon the substantial timber buildings of the land of their origin for more flimsy structures. The sites are, however, levelled and the villages are seldom moved. Before the reign of peace which has followed our occupation of the Hills, each village was surrounded by a triple line of stockading or by an impenetrable belt of thorny jungle, through which a narrow pathway, defended by three gates, led to the village. Inside the houses the sleeping platforms of the Lushais are absent and the hearth is in the middle of the floor. If the owner has slaves or a married son, the interior is divided into compartments by partitions which extend three-quarters of the way across the house.
The men smoke but little, but much relish the nicotine water from the women’s pipes, which differ slightly in shape from those used by their Lushai cousins.
Dress.—I have been unable to detect any difference in dress between the Lakhers and the Southern Chins. The men wear a narrow loin-cloth twisted round the waist, one end being passed between the legs and slipped under the waist-band, the only other garment being a cloth about 7 feet by 5, worn as the Lushais wear theirs, and made either of cotton or silk. Blue and white check cloths are very much fancied, but are imported from Burma, whence also comes a very rough cotton cloth with large brown checks. The silk cloths are made by the women and are fine pieces of work, taking an industrious woman as much as a year to weave.
LAKHER CHIEF AND FAMILY
The dress of the women is more elaborate—several petticoats reaching almost to the ground and held up by a massive brass girdle, made after the pattern of the chain of a cog-wheel. These petticoats are generally of dark blue cotton, but sometimes the outer one is a very elaborately worked piece of silk, similar in pattern to the man’s cloth. Each petticoat is merely a strip of cloth wide enough to go one and a half times or even twice round the body.
While clothing her nether extremities thus decently, the Lakher woman wears a jacket which consists really of little more than two very short sleeves joined at the back and tied loosely together in front. This absurd little garment does not by several inches reach to her petticoat. The jacket is generally of home-made cloth or silk of a pattern similar to the men’s cloths. A loose cloth of the favourite blue and white check is wrapped round the body for warmth, but discarded when any work is being done.
The men wear the hair tied in a knot above the forehead. A very narrow turban is often worn, being passed round the back of the head low down and the ends twisted round the knot of hair. Chiefs affect the high turban of the Thlan-tlangs.
Women wear nothing on their heads, except in wet weather, when both sexes wear hats like the Lushais. The raincoat of the Chins is also used. Special cloths and plumes are worn by those who have killed men or given certain feasts, as among the Lushais.
Ornaments.—The amber necklaces so dear to the Lushais do not find much favour with this clan, who value especially necklaces of a stuff known as “pumtek,” but as this is very rare, necklaces of glass-beads, cornelians, buttons, coins, etc., are generally all that commoners can obtain. The women are particularly fond of necklaces; the men wear but few, which is in marked contrast to the custom of the Lushais.
The men ornament their top-knots with combs, the backs of which are sometimes of ivory, sometimes of wood lacquered in various patterns. A long pin of iron or bone is always worn in the top-knot, and is used for scratching the head as well as for cleaning out the pipe.
The women wear their hair rolled round a very heavy two-pronged brass skewer, the weight of which, sometimes as much as 3 lbs., keeps the hair low down on the nape of the neck.