Folklore of the Santal Parganas

by Cecil Henry Bompas

There was once a man named Dhuju, and he had sons named Ret Mongla, Saru Sama and Chapat champa; and their wives were named Chibo, Porbet and Palo.

One rainy season the family was busy with the ploughing: Ret Mongla used to take the plough cattle out to get some grazing before the sun rose; and his two brothers took the ploughs to the fields a little later and the old father used to look on and tell them what to do. It was their practice when they wanted to attract each other’s attention to call out: “Ho!” and not “Ya!” or “Brother.” One day it had been arranged that they should sow gundli in a field; but when the eldest brother arrived at the place with the bullocks ready to plough he found that his two brothers had not turned up with the ploughs; so he began to call “Pal, ho!” (Pal = plough share).

Now just then the wife of the youngest brother, Palo, had gone towards that field to throw away the sweepings of the cowshed and she thought Ret Mongla was calling her name; this surprised her and made her very angry; and she made up her mind to pay him back and then if she were scolded for not paying proper respect to her husband’s eldest brother to explain that he had insulted her first. So that morning when she took out their breakfast to the men working in the field, she pretended to be in great hurry, and putting down her basket near the place where the three brothers were ploughing, called out to them: “Come, stop ploughing,” and then with scarcely an interval: “Look sharp and come and eat; or if you don’t I will take your breakfast away again.” So the brothers stopped their work and ate their breakfasts.

But when Palo had gone back and they were sitting having a chew of tobacco, the eldest brother began: “Did you notice how that girl behaved to me just now; she spoke to me in a most rude way as if I were not a person to whom she owed respect.” The other two said that they had noticed it themselves, and her husband Chapat Champa said that he would punish her for it when he got home. Directly he got to the house he began scolding her and she made no answer, but that night when they were alone together she told him that what she had done was because Ret Mongla had insulted her by calling her by name. The next day her mother-in-law took her to task but Palo gave the same explanation.

Then Ret Mongla’s mother went to him and asked him whether there was any truth in this counter-charge; he saw at once what had happened and explained that he had never called out his sister-in-law by name; he had called out for the plough; “Pal ho! Pal ho!” because his brothers had not got the ploughs ready; when Palo understood what a mistake she had made, she was covered with confusion and they brought water and she washed Ret Mongla’s feet as she had done on the day of her marriage, and they salaamed to each other and peace was restored. But if the mistake had not been explained Palo would have been turned out of the family.

CXXXVI. The Women’s Sacrifice.

This is a story of the old days when the Santals both men and women were very stupid. Once upon a time the men of a certain village had fixed a day for sacrificing a bullock; but the very day before the sacrifice was to take place, the Raja’s sipahis came to the village and carried off all the men to do five days forced labour at the Raja’s capital. The women thus left alone suffered the greatest anxiety; they thought it quite possible that their husbands and fathers would never be allowed to return or even be put to death; so they met in conclave and decided that the best thing they could do would be to carry out the sacrifice which the men had intended to make and which had been interrupted so unexpectedly.

So they made haste to wash their clothes and bathe, and by way of purification they fasted that evening and slept on the bare ground. Then at dawn they made ready everything wanted for the sacrifice and went to the jungle with the bullock that was to be the victim. There at the foot of a sal tree they scraped a piece of ground bare and smeared it with cow dung; then they put little heaps of rice at the four corners of a square and marked the place with vermilion; then they sprinkled water over the bullock and led it up to the square.

But here their difficulties began for none of them knew what incantations the men said on such an occasion; they wasted a lot of time each urging the other to begin, at last the wife of the headman plucked up courage and started an invocation like this: “We sacrifice this bullock to you; grant that our husbands may return; let not the Raja sacrifice them but grant them a speedy return.” Having got as far as this she wanted the other women to take a turn, but they said that her invocation was capital and quite sufficient; and they had better get on to the sacrifice at once. Easier said than done; they none of them knew how to do it; as they all hung back the headman’s wife scolded them roundly and bade them take the axe and kill the beast; then they all asked where they were to strike the animal: “Where its life resides,” said the headman’s wife. “Where is that,” asked the women. “Watch and see what part of it moves,” answered she, “and strike there.” So they looked and presently the bullock moved its tail: “That’s where its life is,” shouted they; so three or four of them caught hold of the rope round the animal’s neck and one woman seized the axe and struck two blows at the root of the animal’s tail. She did it no harm but the pain of the blow made the bullock pass water. “See the blood flowing,” cried the women, and eagerly caught the stream in a vessel; then the sacrificer dealt another blow which made the bullock jump and struggle until it broke loose and galloped off. The women followed in pursuit and chased it through a field of cotton; the bullock knocked off many of the ripe cotton pods and these the women thought were lumps of fat fallen from the wounded bullock, so they took them home and ate them; such fools were the women in those days.