[4] Great Mother: The title of a mother’s elder sister; her younger sister is called Puñci-Ammā, Little Mother. The letter c is pronounced as ch in transliterations. I follow the village writers in not marking the various forms of n; they write punci or pun̥ci. [↑]
No. 12
The Black Storks’ Girl
In a certain country there are a woman and a man, it is said. The man cuts jungle at a chena clearing; the woman is weaving a bag. After the man comes home, the woman asks, “Is the jungle cut yet?” The man says, “A couple of bushes are cut; is the bag woven?” The woman says, “A couple of rows are woven.”
Continuing in that way, after the end of two or three days the man, while returning from cutting jungle, saw a Kaekiri creeper at a threshing-floor, and having come near, and seen that there was a fruit on it, plucked and ate it. A Kaekiri seed remained fixed in his beard.
After he came home, the woman, seeing it, asked, “Where did you eat Kaekiri?”
The man said, “When I was coming home there was a Kaekiri creeper at a threshing-floor on the way; on it there was a fruit. I ate it.”
Then the woman said, “There will be more on that creeper. After I have woven the bag let us go there.”
Afterwards, having gone with him to the threshing-floor, she saw that the Kaekiri creeper had spread completely over the floor, and that there were as many fruits as leaves. While plucking them, she bore a girl there.