Then the tiger set out to search for his wife and asked everyone he met whether they had seen her pass. All replied that they had not seen her, till at last he came to the sangalia creeper, who said she had just gone by that way. Then he chased and chased her till he came up with her at dusk at the door of her parents’ house. The woman cried out, “Mother, come out of the inner room and open the door for me.” But her mother replied, “Who is that? I have no daughter. My daughter disappeared long ago,” and would not come out and open the door. Then the woman said again, “I am your own daughter, mother, whom years ago, when I was little, you hit on the head with the pigs’ food ladle. Do you not know me now?” With these words she began to squeeze through the little opening by the door left for the dogs, but the tiger seized her legs while her mother seized her head and shoulders. And they pulled and pulled till she was torn in two and the tiger was left with her lower half and her mother with the upper half. Then the tiger took his half to his house and kept watch over it with a whisk so that not a single fly should settle on it, and buried it. And he wept, saying, “O my wife, when you were alive I loved you so much that I was careful always to give you good meat to eat as relish with your rice. You never had to eat leaves and such-like poor fare.” But her mother said, “Why do you weep so? We have torn her in half. Now we will cook and eat her.” And she cooked a little of the flesh from the upper half of the girl and offered it to the tiger, who refused it, saying, “How can I eat the flesh of the mother of my daughter?” But at last he ate it. Then he said, “Human flesh is good,” and went and dug up the portion he had buried and ate that too. That is how the tiger came to eat human flesh, and [[193]]that is why to this day tigers sometimes kill and devour men.
The ordinary Lhota believes the founders of the tribe came out of the earth, and does not worry his head as to how they originated in the world below. The following story, however, is an example of the widely spread myth that the world was populated by the offspring of a brother and sister.[27]
Lankongrhoni and the Villagers.
In the days of our ancestors there lived a woman called Lankongrhoni. She had a son who was very handsome. His name was Arilao. All the girls admired him only and wished to marry him. They cared nothing for the other men. So all the men of the village planned to kill him treacherously. They agreed that on any day when they should all go down to the river to poison fish, whoever failed to come was to be fined a big pig. Two or three days later they went down. Then Arilao’s mother said to him, “Son, do not go.” But he said, “Do you want us to lose our big pig, mother?” and went. And the men felled a tree on the river bank and hewed a trough out of it and said, “Let every man lie in the trough in turn and see if he looks a fine man.” So they each lay down in turn, but as each man lay in the trough the others kept repeating, “You don’t look nice, you don’t look nice.” At last they said, “Let Arilao lie down,” and made him get into the trough, and calling out, “Arilao looks nice; we are pounding up Arilao, we are pounding up Arilao,” they pounded him up with the fish poison. Now Arilao had a friend, and he was very sad because Arilao had been killed that day, and waited weeping further down stream. Soon the finger-nail of his friend Arilao came floating down and lodged against him. Then he said, “Is this all there is left of my friend?” and with [[194]]these words lifted the nail off the water, and wrapping it in a leaf slipped it into his belt. The villagers made a fine haul of fish, but Arilao’s friend was so sad that he did not trouble to catch a single one. When the villagers trooped off up towards the village he hung back to the last.
Now Lankongrhoni came to meet her son on the way and asked each of her fellow-villagers, “Where is your companion?” or “Where is your friend?” or “Where is your younger brother?” or “Where is your elder brother?” And each man replied, “He is coming behind, laughing and talking with the girls. He is just coming.” At last came Arilao’s friend, weeping and very sad. When Lankongrhoni asked him where his friend was he said, “The news would make you sad, mother. I will not tell you.” But she replied, “Do not give way to grief, my son. Tell me.” Then he said, “Mother, this is all that is left of my friend,” and gave her his friend’s nail which he had carried up in his belt. Then Lankongrhoni was very sad, but she hid her grief, and a few days later gave notice to the village saying, “To-morrow bring all the children to my house. I am going to kill my big pig and give them a feast there.” So the next day the villagers brought all their children to Lankongrhoni’s house and left them there and went down to their fields. Then Lankongrhoni killed her big pig and feasted the village children on it. Afterwards she made the children remain shut up in her house while she went outside and said, “Children, tell me where there are holes in my house,” and they replied, “There is a hole here, granny,” or “There is a hole there, granny,” and she stopped up the holes as the children told her of them. At last she called from outside and said, “Are there any more holes, children?” And they replied, “There are no more holes, granny.” Then she said, “I want to light my pipe now. Give me a brand.” So they gave her a brand and she set fire to the house and burnt all the children to ashes. But she herself climbed away up a thread thrown down from the sky and disappeared.[28] [[195]]
Now the villagers knew nothing of what had happened. But a crow went from field to field and hopped about in front of the workers dressed in a skirt like a little girl, and said, “Arilao’s mother has utterly destroyed the children of the village.” Then the villagers said, “What does it mean to-day, a crow behaving like that? Surely something has happened,” and so saying they all went off home. And when they saw that all their children had been burnt up, each said to his neighbour, “This is your fault, this is your fault,” and they fell upon each other and killed each other so that they all died. But two orphans, a brother and sister, were frightened when they saw this and climbed up into a fowl-house and hid. Afterwards, all the villagers being dead, there were none for them to marry, so they became husband and wife, and from these two, even from their fingers and toes, were born all the men there are in the world. This is one of the stories which men tell.
A few stories like the following are found which purport to give the origin of some common saying.