The Mikirs are fond of telling stories, but the historical material which they contain does not appear to be of very ancient date. Reference has already been made to the deliverance of the Arlengs from slavery to the Khasis, and their contests with the Kacharis under the leadership of Thòng-Nòkbē; also to their early relations with the Ahoms. They have also myths dealing with the creation of the earth and man, one of which has been related by Mr. Allen, of the American Presbyterian Mission, and will be found in the Appendix to this Section; it seems doubtful, however, whether it is a genuine legend, or due to imagination stimulated by questions: the concluding episode strongly resembles the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel. These legends have not been handled by Mr. Stack, and are therefore not reproduced here. The Rev. Mr. Moore notes that “Mikir stories in general do not agree very minutely,” and this appears to be particularly the case in respect of tales of the intervention of the gods in human affairs.
Mr. Stack wrote down, chiefly from the dictation of a Mikir named Sārdokā, who had become a Christian, a number of excellent stories, which well deserve separate publication. Three specimens of these are given here. They correspond in every respect, as will be seen, with the general characteristics of folk-literature all over the world. Folk-tales containing the same incidents, as is well known, are found from Iceland to Japan, from Alaska to Patagonia. The original source of such a tale is now incapable of identification. The same sequence of events and general form recur everywhere; what is distinctive and characteristic is not the progress of incident, but the local dressing, the narrator’s point of view, the colour of his daily life which he lends to the details of the story.
The first of the three specimens is the favourite Indian form of a sequence, well known in Sanskrit literature, but quite as popular in Europe and in general folk-lore. It is given here, because another version of the same narrative has been included by Dr. Grierson in his Linguistic Survey, vol. iii. Part III. p. 223, as found among the Aimol Kukis, a race of Tibeto-Burmans dwelling, far away from the Mikir country, in the hills bordering the valley of Manipur on the east.
The second specimen tells of the adventures of an orphan, the son of a widow, a stock figure in Mikir folk-tales, and abounds in local colour. Here too the incidents in part coincide with those of a folk-tale belonging to a very distant country, the part of Kumaon bordering on Tibet, which will be found in vol. iii, Part I. of the Linguistic Survey, pp. 483, 495, 510, 522.
The third is a remarkably complete and interesting version of the wide-spread folk-tale of the Swan-maidens. It was most probably derived from some Indian source, though, so far as known, no version of the tale in its entirety, as told by Hindus, has yet been published. The name of the hero, Hārātā-Kuṅwar, may be the Indian Sarat-Kumār, and is evidently not Mikir. But all the setting—the colloquies of the six brothers and their father, the attempt on Harata-Kuṅwar’s life, his methods in defeating his treacherous kinsmen, his device for winning his fairy wife, and many other features of the story—seems genuinely local. The narrative is an excellent specimen of Mikir diction, and shows no little skill in composition. In vol. iii. Part II. of the Linguistic Survey, there will be found, at pp. 218–220, a short story, entitled, “How Jesu got a goddess for his wife,” which is identical in motive with this tale of Harata-Kuṅwar. It is current among the Angāmī Nagas, a race much less influenced by Hindu culture than the Mikirs.
The original Mikir text of these tales will be found in the [next Section]; the English translation here given is as literal as it was possible to make it. In the Linguistic Survey, vol. iii. Part II. pp. 395–403, two other short stories of the same character, both text and translation, have been printed. The second of these, the story of the clever swindler Tèntòn, evidently belongs to the cycle of tales called Tenton-Charit, mentioned, in its Assamese version, as existing in manuscript by Mr. E. A. Gait, at page 68 of his Report on the Progress of Historical Research in Assam, 1897.
1. Story of a Frog.
One day a big black ant went to carry a meal of rice to his uncle. A frog sat down in the road and blocked it. The ant said, “Please make way for me, frog; I want to carry this rice to my uncle.” The frog answered, “You can get by if you creep under me. Every one has to pass under me who goes this way.” The ant said, “My uncle’s rice is tied up in a bundle of leaves; how can I possibly creep under you?” But the frog would not give way, so the ant would not go. In this manner things went on till noon. Then the ant said, “Oh, my uncle will be hungry for his rice and angry with me because he does not get it!” And he crept under the frog. Then the frog sat down flat on the top of the ant. Thereupon the ant gave the frog a sharp bite in the loins. Then the frog, becoming angry, jumped on the ladder of a big old squirrel, and broke it. The old squirrel, becoming angry, cut in two the stem of a gourd.[1] The gourd, becoming angry, fell plump on the back of a wild boar. The wild boar, becoming angry, rooted up a plantain-tree. The plantain-tree, becoming angry, fell upon a sparrow’s[2] nest and broke it. The sparrow, becoming angry, flew into the ear of a deaf elephant. The deaf elephant, becoming angry, rooted up a rock. The rock, becoming angry, rolled down and killed the Raja’s son.
Then the Raja held a court to try the case. “Who is it that killed my son?” “Oh, the rock rolled down and killed him,” they said. So they summoned the rock. “O rock, rock! why did you roll down and slay my son?” The rock answered, “Oh, Lord God King! how was I to help rolling down and killing him? The deaf elephant uprooted me on a sudden from my place, and then gave me a push. As for me, I have no hands or legs; how then could I withstand him? Your son being in the way where I was rolling down, I rolled upon him and killed him.”