Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province.
In Tales of the Punjab (Mrs. F. A. Steel), p. 284, a poverty-stricken girl who was driven from home by her mother, married a Prince. When the mother came to her to claim a share of her good fortune, the girl prayed to the Sun for help; and on her husband’s entering the room her mother had become a golden stool, which the girl declared had come from her home. The Prince determined to visit it, and again the girl appealed to the Sun for assistance. When they reached the hut they found it transformed into a golden palace, full of golden articles. When the Prince looked back after a three days’ visit and saw only the hut, he charged his wife with being a witch, so she told him the whole story, and he became a Sun worshipper.
In Old Deccan Days (M. Frere), p. 18, a Raja’s wife bore two puppies, and their pet dog bore two girls which she deposited in a cave. A Raja and his brother while hunting discovered the girls, whom they carried away and married. When the bitch went in search of them, the elder one treated it kindly, but the other ordered her servants to throw stones at it and drive it away. One stone wounded it on the head, and it died at the elder daughter’s house. The Raja tripped over the basket under which the body was placed, and found under it the life-size figure of a dog made of precious stones set in gold, which his wife said was a present from her parents. As her husband determined to visit them she decided to commit suicide, and put her finger in the open mouth of a cobra that was on an ant-hill; by doing so she relieved it of a thorn which had stuck in the snake’s mouth. The grateful cobra agreed to assist her, and when she returned with her husband they found a great palace built of precious stones and gold, with a Raja and his wife inside to represent her parents. After a visit of six months, when they looked back on their way home they saw the whole place in flames which totally destroyed it. On seeing the valuable presents they took back, and hearing her sister’s story, the younger sister went in the same manner, put her finger in the cobra’s mouth, was bitten by it, and died.
In Sagas from the Far East, p. 125, in a Kalmuk tale, after the girl who had been taken out of a box found on the steppe[3] had three children, the people began to complain of her want of respectable relatives, and she went home with her sons. Instead of her former poor dwelling she found there palaces, many labourers at work, and a youth who claimed to be her brother. Her parents entertained her well, and the Khan and Ministers came, and returned quite satisfied. On the following morning the palaces and all had vanished, and she returned to the Khan’s palace, perceiving that the Dēvas had created the illusion on her behalf. (As she had claimed to be the daughter of the Serpent God, it would appear to have been the Nāgas who had exerted their powers and done this for her. In the story numbered 252 in this volume, Māra, the god of death, assisted the son of a woman who had stated that he was her husband.)
[1] Apē ewundaeṭa, a pl. hon. form. Husbands and wives do not usually mention each other’s names; the wife is commonly termed apē gedara ēkī, “she of our house” (as in No. 125), or the mother of the youngest child if there be one, or “she of ours,” or merely “she.” [↑]
[2] C is pronounced as ch in English. [↑]