There lived in the village of Cherra in those days a wealthy woman called Ka Bthuh, who had suffered much and often at the hands of U Ramhah, and whose anger against him burnt red-hot. She had pleaded urgently with the men of her village to rise in a body to avenge her wrongs, but they always said that it was useless. Whenever she met U Ramhah she insulted him by pointing and shaking her finger at him, saying, “You may conquer the strength of a man, but beware of the cunning of a woman.” For this saying U Ramhah hated her, for it showed that he had not been able to overawe her as everybody else had been overawed by him, and he raided her godowns more frequently than ever, not dreaming that she was scheming to defeat him.
One day Ka Bthuh made a great feast; she sent invitations to many villages far and near, for she wanted it to be as publicly known as possible in order to lure U Ramhah to attend. It was one of his rude habits to go uninvited to feasts and to gobble up all the eatables before the invited guests had been helped.
The day of Ka Bthuh’s feast came and many guests arrived, but before the rice had been distributed there was a loud cry that U Ramhah was marching towards the village. Everybody considered this very annoying, but Ka Bthuh, the hostess, pretended not to be disturbed, and told the people to let the giant eat as much as he liked first, and she would see that they were all helped later on. At this U Ramhah laughed, thinking that she was beginning to be afraid of him, and he helped himself freely to the cooked rice and curry that was at hand. He always ate large mouthfuls, but at feast times he used to put an even greater quantity of rice into his mouth, just to make an impression and a show. Ka Bthuh had anticipated all this, and she stealthily put into the rice some sharp steel blades which the giant swallowed unsuspectingly.
When he had eaten to his full content U Ramhah took his departure, and when he had gone out of earshot Ka Bthuh told the people what she had done. They marvelled much at her cunning, and they all said it was a just deed to punish one whose crimes were so numerous and so flagrant, but who escaped penalty by reason of his great strength. From that time Ka Bthuh won great praise and became famous.
U Ramhah never reached his home from that feast. The sharp blades he had swallowed cut his intestines and he died on the hill-side alone and unattended, as the wild animals die, and there was no one to regret his death.
When the members of his clan heard of his death they came in a great company to perform rites and to cremate his body, but the body was so big that it could not be cremated, and so they decided to leave it till the flesh rotted, and to come again to gather together his bones. After a long time they came to gather the bones, but it was found that there was no urn large enough to contain them, so they piled them together on the hill-side until a large urn could be made.
While the making of the large urn was in progress there arose a great storm, and a wild hurricane blew from the north, which carried away the bleached bones of U Ramhah, and scattered them all over the south borders of the Khasi Hills, where they remain to this day in the form of lime-rocks, the many winding caves and crevices of which are said to be the cavities in the marrowless bones of the giant. Thus U Ramhah, who injured and plundered the Khasis in his life-time, became the source of inestimable wealth to them after his death.
His name is heard on every hearth, used as a proverb to describe objects of abnormal size or people of abnormal strength.