Then those persons also said, crying and crying, “Who is dead we don’t know.”
Afterwards the man having stopped the crying of both parties, when he had asked them about it, there was nothing dreadful. So the man went away, and these men and women and boys, they also went to their houses.
In Indian Nights’ Entertainment (Swynnerton), p. 348, a weaver girl said to herself that it would be a good thing if she married in her own village, but if she had a son and he were to die, how her relatives and friends would lament! The thought of it made her cry. When her aunts and friends observed it they all cried too, and her father and uncles and brothers coming up and seeing all these people crying, also cried. When a neighbour asked the men what it was about, who was dead? they could not tell him, but referred him to the women. He then learnt that these also did not know, but cried because they saw the girl crying.
No. 46
The Four Tom-tom Beaters
This story is told in the Southern Province to illustrate the foolishness of this caste.
Four Tom-tom Beaters when proceeding along a road together, met a man of lower caste than themselves. Before passing them he made an obeisance, and (as usual in such cases) said, “Awasara,” “Permission”—that is, “Have I permission (to pass)?”—and then walked away.
While the Tom-tom Beaters were going along afterwards a dispute arose over it, each person claiming that he was the one who had been addressed, and to whom the obeisance had been made, as being the superior man of the party. Each maintaining his own view, and being unable to settle it in any other way, the four persons decided to refer the matter to the man himself. They therefore turned back and ran after him, and on overtaking him requested him to state from which of them he had asked the permission. As the question plainly indicated the sort of persons they were, he replied, “From the biggest fool among you.”