Thado Folk Tales.
Benglama is the equivalent of the Lushai Chhura, and there are many tales about him which are common to both clans and in fact seem to be known to almost all representatives of the Kuki-Lushai race. The following is a translation of a portion of a tale written down in Lushai for me, but told by a Thado. Benglama had visited a village and got himself much disliked, and everyone was trying to catch him:—“Once they made a ladder and cut the lower side partly through and made a great quagmire underneath. Benglama climbed up it, it broke, and he fell down into the mud. Then a tiger came up. ‘My friend, if you help me out you may eat me,’ said Benglama. Then the tiger pulled him out. Then the tiger—‘I will eat you up,’ he said. Benglama—‘I will just go and wash myself clean,’ he said. ‘Presently I will eat you up,’ he said again. Benglama—‘I will go and ease myself,’ he said, ‘otherwise you will dislike my dung,’ he said. Where he went to ease himself he cut a cane. The tiger—‘Why do you do that?’ he asked. Then Benglama—‘It is going to blow and rain like anything, therefore I am going to tie myself to the stump of a tree,’ he said. Then the tiger—‘If that is so, tie me up first,’ he said. He tied him up. Then he (Benglama) also put a mallet, that all who passed by might beat the tiger. Benglama went away. Then the wild-cat came along. The tiger—‘My friend, you and I are just alike; we two are friends, we are brothers—undo me,’ he said. He undid him. Then the wild-cat left him, going into a pangolin’s hole. Then just as he was going in, the tiger caught him by the foot. ‘What you have got hold of, that is not me, it is a tree root,’ he said. The tiger let him go, but remained watching for him, but the wild-cat always slipped out at the other side, and was always eating fowls by Benglama’s house. The tiger—‘My friend, what is it you are eating?’ he said. Then the wild-cat—‘Oh, I am only just eating the bones of my hand,’ he said. The tiger was always eating his paw, and it hurt very, very much indeed. Presently the wild-cat went to the tiger and said to him, ‘If you were to take a torch and go near to Benglama’s house you would be able to catch some fowls,’ he said. So the tiger went up, but Benglama saw him, and heated some water. When it was very hot indeed, he poured it into a tui-um (bamboo tube for holding water) and threw it over the tiger. The tiger said, ‘My friend! My friend! I am dying, I am all burnt up,’ he said. The wild-cat—‘There is a waterfall some way down stream; if you roll down that you will be well,’ he said. He rolled down and so he died.”
How Benglama Tried to Climb to the Top of the Big “Bung” Tree.
“This Benglama—his wife was going to start for the jhum, and she spoke thus to him. To her husband his wife said, ‘Benglam, when the sun shines through our doorway, cook the rice, do,’ she said. ‘When the sun shines on the top of the bung tree in front of our house, then clean the rice and tie up the goat,’ she said, and she also left her child with him. His wife then left him to go to the jhum. Then he, according to his wife’s orders, when the sun shone in the doorway prepared to cook the rice. As often as he put the pot on the fire it fell off again. Presently the sun shone on the top of the bung tree. ‘Did my wife say cook the food on the top of the bung tree?’ he said. Then saying, ‘I will clean the rice,’ he prepared to climb to the top of the bung tree with the rice, mortar, and pounder, with the goat and the basket of fowls; but he could not climb up, he kept on falling down again. Just then his child, being hungry, began to cry and cry. Then Benglama, saying, ‘Is his fontanel hurting?’ pricked it with his hairpin. Then the child died. Benglama, saying, ‘Has it gone to sleep?’ laid it down on the sleeping machan; he did not know that it was dead. Then his wife came back from the jhum, and Benglama just before had fallen from the bung tree and was nearly dead, and lay on the sleeping platform groaning terribly. His wife said, ‘Are you ill?’ and he—‘Speak! Why, I can hardly speak, I have fallen from the top of the bung tree and am nearly dead, don’t you know?’ he said to her. Then she looked at her child; and his wife—‘Our child here is dead; how has it happened?’ she said. Then Benglama—‘Go on! it’s not dead, its head was hurting and I pricked it; it is just asleep,’ he said to her. Then his wife—‘It is dead indeed; go and bury it,’ she said. Then Benglama wrapped it up in a mat and carried it over his shoulder, and the body dropped out behind him, and he placed the mat only in a cave, and on his way back he saw his child’s body. ‘Whose child is this?’ he said, and kicked it about with his feet.”
The Story of Ngamboma and Khuptingi.
“Formerly Ngamboma and Khuptingi, before they were born, while in their mothers’ wombs, they loved each other. When the time for them to be born came near their mothers’ bellies pained them. Then if their mothers put their bellies near to each other they got well. Then the children were born. In the jhums when they were placed apart in the jhum house while their mothers were at work they always got together. When they grew bigger they loved each other, and Ngamboma wanted to marry Khuptingi, but their fathers and mothers did not think it wise. Then Ngamboma made an image of Khuptingi in beeswax and tied it to a stump of a tree on the bank of the stream, and whenever the water rose Khuptingi got ill and when it went down she got better. Thus it went on for one year. One day the stream rose and carried away Khuptingi’s image, then Khuptingi died. They placed her body in a dead-house. From the decaying matter which fell from her body flowers sprang up, and Ngamboma watched them always. One day a wild cat was going to take away those flowers, but Ngamboma caught it and said, ‘Why did you think to steal my flowers—I’ll just kill you?’ he said. Then the wild cat—‘Protector! Do not kill me; I am sent by Khuptingi,’ he said. Then Ngamboma—‘Where is Khuptingi, then?’ he said. Then the wild cat—‘If you catch hold of my tail we will both go (to her),’ he said. Then the wild cat towed him to the village in which Khuptingi was in the sky, in Mi-thi-khua (the dead-people’s-village), and they arrived at Khuptingi’s house and they slept there, and they ate rice also together. When they slept together Khuptingi was only bare bones, and Ngamboma said, ‘What bones are these?’ and he threw them to the top of the wall and to the bottom of the wall (i.e., all about the room). Then the next day Khuptingi—‘I am not well,’ she said. Ngamboma—‘What is the reason?’ he said. The Khuptingi—‘Last night when I was sleeping near you you threw me to the top of the wall and to the bottom of the wall; for that reason I am in pain,’ she said. Then their villagers said, ‘Let us go and fish,’ they said. They went. The place where they caught fish—indeed it was not a stream, it was a patch of bamboo. The dead called the bamboo leaves fish, and they filled their baskets cram-full, but Ngamboma said to himself, ‘They will stop the holes in the baskets with the leaves when they come to the stream so that the fish may not fall out by accident,’ he said, and he stopped the holes (in his basket) with leaves. Then they all returned to the village. Ngamboma, by diverting a stream, caught a few fish and returned. When they reached their houses the dead roasted the leaves which they called fish, but when Ngamboma tried to roast them the leaves all burnt up. Then Khuptingi said to Ngamboma, ‘The others have caught so many fish; why have you caught so few?’ Ngamboma roasted the real fish which he had caught, but they burnt up just like the bamboo leaves. Then one day the people again went out to hunt. In the place where they went hunting they saw a huge black caterpillar; the dead called it a bear. Ngamboma did not see it, and by accident trod on it and killed it. Then the dead said to Ngamboma, ‘That bear which ran towards you, have you seen it?’ they said. Ngamboma—‘I have not seen it,’ he said. Presently they saw the caterpillar which he had trodden on, ‘Hei-le! Why, you have shot it!’ they said. They carried it up to the village and all the dead ate up its flesh entirely. Ngamboma, however, did not care to eat any of it. Then Khuptingi said to Ngamboma, ‘Living people and dead people, we shall not be able to live together comfortably; therefore, if you now build yourself a house here and then return to your home, when you die you will be able to live in it?’—thus Khuptingi said. So he set to work to build a house. The dead called the arum trees, and they split them with axes and built (with them), but Ngamboma just split those arums with his nail very quickly. ‘Can one build houses with such stuff?’ he said. Then, splitting real trees into planks, he built his house. Then Khuptingi said to Ngamboma, ‘If you go to your house and call all the villagers together and sacrifice a mithan, and when you have finished eating its flesh you put on very good cloths and wear round your neck the sacrificial rope (the rope the mithan was bound with), and call on my name, then you will die and will be able to come to our village,’ she said. Just as Khuptingi said it came to pass; he died as he was lying on his bed, then they were able to live together with comfort. When he saw the house that he had built in Mi-thi-khua, he said, ‘Who built that house?’ The dead said to him, ‘You built it while you were alive.’ Then they married in Mi-thi-khua, it is said.
“It is because of this story of Ngamboma and Khuptingi that we say nowadays people are in Mi-thi-khua.”