Folklore of the Santal Parganas

by Cecil Henry Bompas

And then he saw a fawn stuck fast in the mud at the edge of the pool, so he fixed an arrow to his bow and crept towards it, resolved to catch it alive if he could, but if it ran away, to shoot it. The fawn did not move and he managed to seize it and pulling it out of the mud, he rubbed it clean and put his bow string round its neck and took it home. The fawn grew up into a stag and he trained it to fight and one day he matched it to fight with a goat. The agreement was that the owner of the winner should take both the animals; in the fight the stag was victorious, so the boy won the goat. Then he matched his stag with a ram and a bullock and even with a buffalo, and the stag was always victorious and in this way he soon grew rich. Seeing him so rich one of the villagers gave him his daughter in marriage and took him to live in his house, and so he lived happily ever afterwards.

LXXIII. The Seven Brothers and the Bonga Girl.

Once upon a time there were seven brothers who lived all alone in the jungle, far from human habitations. None of them was married and they lived on the game they killed. It chanced that a bonga maiden saw the youngest brother and fell deeply in love with him. So one day when all the brothers were away hunting, she placed in their house seven nicely cooked plates of rice.

When the brothers returned in the evening from the chase, they were astonished to find the rice waiting for them; all but the youngest said that it must be some plot to kill them and refused to touch the food, but the youngest wished to eat it. His brothers would not let him and told him to throw the rice away; so he took it outside the house, but instead of throwing it away, he ate up the whole seven plates full, without letting his brothers know. But when they went to bed that night, the youngest brother snored loudly, because he had eaten so much, and thereby his brothers guessed that he had eaten the rice, and they were very unhappy for they were sure that he was about to die. However in the morning he was none the worse; so they went out hunting as usual but the youngest brother suffered continually from thirst, the result of overeating, and this convinced his brothers that he had eaten the rice, though he denied it.

When they reached home that evening, they again found seven dishes of rice placed ready for them. And that day the youngest brother and the youngest but one ate; and the day after there was the rice again, and the three youngest ate it. Then the eldest brother said: “To-morrow I will stay behind and watch, and see who it is who brings the rice; we have no servant, if I can catch the person who is so kind to us, I will engage him as a cook for us, and we need have no more of this mystery. Do you bring back my share of the game you shoot.”

So the next morning the eldest brother stayed behind and hid himself and watched. But he could not see the bonga, though she brought the rice as usual; and when he told his brothers this, it was decided that the second brother should stay behind the next day, and see if he had better luck; and that day they all ate the rice, except the eldest brother, who said that he would never eat it, until he knew who brought it; so the next day the second brother watched but he also could not see the bonga.

One by one all the brothers watched in vain, until only the youngest one was left. Then they said to the youngest brother: “Now it is your turn and if our friend does not show himself to you, we will eat no more of his rice.” So the next day the other brothers went off to hunt and the youngest stayed at home; he did not trouble to hide himself, but sat in the house making a bow. At noon he saw the bonga girl coming with the rice on her head, but he took no notice and pretended to be looking down at something. Then the bonga came into the courtyard and put down the rice and looked about and said: “I saw something like a man here, where has he got to?” and she looked into the house and still the youngest brother kept silent; then she spoke to him and asked whether he was ill, that he had not gone hunting. He answered her that he was not ill, but had been left to watch for the person who brought them rice every day. Thereupon the bonga went outside and brought in the rice and putting it down, said: “It is I who do it. Come, wash your hands and I will give you your dinner,” but he said: “First tell me what all this means,” and she said: “It means that I want to live with you.” He objected. “How can I marry you when my brothers are not married?” She answered that if he married her, they would soon find wives for his brothers. Then she urged him to eat, but he said that if he ate one plateful, his brothers would question him, so the bonga girl went and brought an extra dish and he ate that. And as they talked together, he soon fell deeply in love with her, and promised to consult his brothers about her living with them; but he saw a difficulty which would arise if she married him, for his elder brothers would not care even to ask her for water, and thus she would be really of very little use in the house; so with some hesitation he proposed that she should marry the eldest brother and then they could all talk freely to her; but the girl would not agree to this and said that there would be no harm at all in their talking to her, provided that they did not touch her, and she would not mind giving his elder brothers water.

So they plighted their troth to each other, subject to the consent of the brothers, and towards evening the bonga girl left, promising to return on the morrow. When the brothers returned they discussed the matter and agreed that the youngest should marry the girl, provided that she promised to keep house for them. So the next day the girl came back and stayed with them; and they found wives for the other brothers, and got cattle and buffaloes and broke up land for cultivation and though the brothers did not altogether give up hunting, they became rich.

A certain jogi found out where they lived and once every year he came to ask for alms; one year he came just after the bonga girl had borne a child, so as she was doing no work, it was her sisters-in-law who brought out food for the jogi. But at this he was displeased, and said that he would only eat at the hands of the girl, who had given him food the year before. They told him that she was in child-bed and could not come out. Then he said: “Go and tell her that the Jhades Jogi has come and wants her arm tassel.” So she sent out her arm tassel to him and he put it in his bag and got up and went away. Thereupon the bonga girl arose and left her baby, and followed him, and never came back. At evening the brothers returned from hunting, and heard what had happened. They were very distressed and told their wives to look after the baby while they went in pursuit. They followed as hard as they could and caught up the Jogi on the banks of a river; then they tried to shoot him, but their arrows were powerless against him, and he by magic turned the seven brothers into stones.