Folklore of the Santal Parganas

by Cecil Henry Bompas

Once upon a time three men were sitting at the foot of a tamarind tree and a stranger came up to them with a bunch of plantains on his shoulder and he put the plantains on the ground in front of them and bowed and went away. Thereupon the three men began to quarrel as to who was to have the plantains; each said that they were his because it was to him that the man had bowed. So they started calling each other “Fool” and after quarrelling for some time one said “Well, yes, I admit that I am a great fool” and the other two asked why he thought himself a fool and he said “Well one day my wife went to the jungle with the other village women to get firewood and left our baby in my charge; as she was a long time coming back the child became hungry and began to cry; I walked him about but he would not stop crying; I tried to feed him with rice and with rice water and with Gur and with cow’s milk but he would not eat or stop crying; I was in despair when his mother came back and took him up and gave him the breast and the child was quiet at once.

Seeing this I said to my wife “Human milk must be sweeter than anything else.” My wife said “Who can say whether it is nice; we all drink it when we are infants; but when we grow up we cannot say what it is like.” Then I said that I would try what it was like and I sucked her breast and found that it was much sweeter than cow’s milk; after that I formed the habit and used to drink her milk every day; and as I left none for the child it died soon afterwards of starvation; this shows what a fool I am.”

Then one of the other men said “But I am a bigger fool than you.” And they asked him in what way; and he said “I was married and was very much in love with my wife; once when she had gone on a visit to her father’s I went to fetch her home; and she was got up in all her finery, with her hair well dressed and vermilion on her forehead and red arta on her feet. On our way home it began to rain and we took shelter in a village; and when the shower was over we went on; and we came to a river which was in flood from the rain; the water was up to a man’s armpits and I decided to carry my wife across so that the arta on her feet might not get washed off. So I took her on my shoulder and to prevent her feet getting wet I held her feet uppermost and as her head was under water when I got across I found that she had been drowned; and if I had not been such a fool she would not have been killed.”

Then the third man said “And I also am a fool. I had quarrelled with my own family so I lived with my wife in a house alone at the end of the village and we had no children. Now I was very fond of smoking; and one night I wanted a light for my hookah but there was none in the house; so I started to go and ask for a light from some neighbour; but as it was very dark I did not like to leave my wife all alone: nor did I like to send her out alone to ask for the light; so at last I took my hookah in my hand and set my wife astride on my shoulder and went round from house to house like that, asking for a light; and all the villagers laughed like anything; so I am a fool.” Then they agreed that they were all three fools and had better divide the plantains equally among them and go home; and that is what they did.

CXXXII. The Cure for Laziness.

There was once a man who lived happily with his wife, but she was very lazy; when work in the fields was at its height she would pretend to be ill. In June and July, she would begin to moan as if in pain, and when every one else had gone off to work she would eat any rice that they had left over; or if there were none, would cook some for herself; Her father-in-law decided to call in some ojhas to examine her and if they could not cure her, then to send her back to her father: so he called in two ojhas and told them to do their best, as he did not want the woman’s relations to complain that she had not been properly treated.

So the first ojha felt her pulse and smiled and said nothing, and the second ojha felt her pulse and smiled and said nothing, and when the father-in-law asked them if they knew what was the matter, they answered that the illness was very serious and medicines must be applied; the father-in-law said “Yes; but you must get the medicines or tell me exactly what is wanted and I will arrange for it;” this conversation took place before the woman; the ojhas said “Very well, we will do what you want but before applying the medicine we shall have to do some incantations;” the father-in-law answered “Do whatever is necessary to make a good job of it. Don’t spare anything; try and get everything ready by to-morrow: for we are in great difficulty; I do not like to leave the patient alone in the house and yet I cannot spare anyone to look after her;” the ojhas promised and got up and went out with the father-in-law, and in the village street they told him that laziness was all that was the matter with the woman, but that they knew a medicine which would cure her; so they went to the jungle and dug up two very big tubers of the tirra plant, as big as pumpkins, and in the evening they went to the man’s house and told him that they had found the medicine, and that the whole household was to come to the cross roads at the end of the village very early the next morning with the patient and they would exorcise the disease and apply remedies.

At cockcrow the next morning the two ojhas brought the two tubers and put them down at the end of the village street, and then went to the house where the sick woman lived and awoke the inmates, and they borrowed a pot of water and some vermilion and an old winnowing fan and then they all went to the place where the tubers had been left, and the ojhas made the patient sit on the winnowing fan facing the east and painted her with vermilion; then they waved pig’s dung round her head and tied the two tubers round her neck and told her to walk up and down the village street three times; and that would remove the spell that was on her. So the woman began to walk up the village street and every one laughed at her and the children ran after her and smacked her and jumped and shouted for joy and the ojhas called out to her “You must not take off the tubers until you are cured.”

The woman walked up and down twice, but then she was so ashamed at being laughed at that she threw away the tubers and ran off home; then they all laughed the more; and followed her to the house, and the ojhas asked whether she was cured that she had taken off the remedies they had applied; she only smiled in answer and they told her to take care because if she ever got ill again they would apply the same remedy; but from that day the woman completely recovered and did her fair share of all the work.