Part 8

Then, as they went on still further, a wild boar, so big as you never saw or imagined, with his tusks overlapping his mouth, was straddling across the road, and rooting up the earth there on the mountain side in an extraordinary way. And Harata Kunwar said, "Oh, wild boar, what are you doing there? leave me the road open, I want to get home quickly." The wild boar answered, "I will by no means leave you the road; saying to myself, 'To-day Harata Kunwar will bring along his wife and child,' I am watching the road he is coming." Harata Kunwar said, "Oh, don't joke! is it true or not?" The wild boar answered, "It is true." Harata Kunwar said, "Be careful, lest in a little while you have to say, 'when Harata Kunwar brought along his wife and child, my life was lost.'" The wild boar said, "I don't say so." "Are you in earnest?" "Yes." "Do you swear it?" "I swear it." "Oh, then----" So saying, Harata Kunwar set his bow and shot him.

Then, when he had nearly arrived at his house, he collected six clods from the worm-casts, and threw them on the roof. Then his sister-in-law said, "Harata Kunwar has come home! Wash the stools and the benches!" Then they washed all the stools and seats and planks and benches. And Harata Kunwar, bringing along with him that wild boar, put it down beside the hedge, and entered the house. And as soon as he arrived, his sister-in-law gave him there beer, bread, and parched rice. His wife was so very beautiful that no one could look her in the face, as one cannot look straight at the brightness of the sun. Then his brothers were perplexed, saying, "What in the world has happened to us this night?" And Harata Kunwar said, "A short time ago I shot a little pig on the road. I just put it down there beside the hedge. Go and get it and scorch it (for cooking)." So his five brothers went, but the boar was so very big that they could not even move it; they could do nothing with it at all. So Harata Kunwar went with them. With one hand he easily lifted it and brought it away; and they scorched it and cut it up. So home they brought it and cooked it and served it up, and joyful, noisy, laughing and jesting, they ate and drank.

Then next morning dawned. Hearing that Harata Kunwar had brought his wife home, all the people of the whole country-side kept coming and going to gaze upon her, in such crowds as you never saw. And Harata Kunwar put away carefully in a bamboo chunga his wife's own petticoat and striped cloth, with her gold ornaments, her necklace, and her gold drum (Ass. madoli) worn on the breast, and tied them up in the pitch of the roof. So Harata Kunwar went to pay visits to the people of the village, and the ryots of the country-side came to visit him; and then they went on to gaze upon his wife. And all the women--aunts on mother's and father's side, sisters-in-law, elder brothers' wives--each one said, "Oh! is she not lovely, sister!" Thus they wondered at her. Then Harata Kunwar's wife answered, "Not so lovely yet as I might be. If I were to put on again my own petticoat, my striped cloth, my necklace and my bracelets, then, indeed, there would be something to see!" Then some old woman said, "Oh, then, give them to her." And Harata Kunwar's old father said, "Where in the world did that idiot of a boy put them away? Why did he not give her her own petticoat and striped cloth?" Then Harata Kunwar's wife explained: "They are there in the roof-pitch where he has tied them up." So his father untied the bundle and gave it to her. Then she put the things on and arrayed herself. Thereupon she became inconceivably beautiful. "Oh!" they cried, "lovely! beautiful indeed! It is not for nothing that she is called child of the Sun-god!" Thereupon Harata Kunwar's wife rose up to her full height, and flapped her clothes, and gracefully flew away back to her own place. Then Harata Kunwar, happening to see her from where he was on a distant road, kept continually bending his bow. And his wife said, as she left him: "Wait, wait! hereafter we shall meet again." So Harata Kunwar, weeping bitterly, sick and sorry at heart, came to his house. Immediately he got there, without eating or drinking, he took his child on his back, and straightway set out for the house of his grandmother the widow woman. Thus he went on till he arrived, and at once on arrival began to weep and wail as you could not imagine. Then his grandmother said: "I told you from the first that your wife was not yet reconciled to her lot with you. How will you get to see her now? How will you be able to reach her in heaven?" This only aggravated his weeping; refusing meat and drink, he followed his grandmother wherever she went, continually dogging her steps, and was like to die of grief. At last his grandmother said, "Harata Kunwar, take a little food, and then I will tell you of a plan." So he took something to eat, bread and parched rice, and then his grandmother told him her scheme. "To-morrow," she said, "the son of the King of the Winds will come there to marry your wife. Before that, your father-in-law's elephant will come here to bathe. Do you go and hide yourself there under the sand. When the elephant (after its bath) is just about to go, hold on tight to its tail, and bind your child firmly to your waist with your turban. If the elephant asks you anything, say that you also are going to the place where your wife is. Then to-morrow, in the evening, you will arrive there. Remain concealed on the river bank. Then male and female slaves will come to draw water there in order to bathe your wife. Call out to them, 'Give me one draught of water for the child.' Then, if they give you the water, drop into the water-pot a gold ring. Then she (i.e. your wife) will call for you. Go to her, and when you arrive, put down your child on the ground; then the child will go of itself towards its mother."

The morning dawned, and Harata Kunwar, after eating and drinking, went to the river bank and hid himself quietly under the sand. Then the elephant came down to bathe in the river, and having bathed, was just about to go away, when Harata Kunwar grasped firmly hold of its tail, and with his turban tied his child securely to his waist. Then the elephant flew up with him to heaven, and put him down on the river bank there. And all the people of the King of the Winds had come to the house of the King of the Great Palace in order to celebrate the marriage of the son of the King of the Winds with Harata Kunwar's wife. And the King's slaves, male and female, came to draw water in order to bathe Harata Kunwar's wife. And Harata Kunwar called out to them for water for his child: "Give me just one draught of water for my son, good mothers!" One after another paid no attention to his request, till at last an old woman came up. So Harata Kunwar called out again: "Give me water, one draught only, good madam, for my child." So the old woman gave him some water. Making as though he would take hold of the water-jar, Harata Kunwar dropped into it a gold ring. Then they brought the water for Harata Kunwar's wife's bath. After washing delicately her arms and her legs, they poured the old woman's water-jar over her head, and the gold ring fell out. Then Harata Kunwar's wife asked, "Oh! who is the person whose water-jar has just reached me?" Then one after another they said, "It's not my water-jar." Then all called out together, "It is the old woman's jar." Then she said to the old woman: "Where did you get hold of this ring? Seize that man and bring him here at once. If you cannot bring him, it will be a matter of your life." So the old woman, weeping and lamenting, came to Harata Kunwar and called out to him, "Be pleased to come with me! What was the reason why your Honour, under pretence of asking me to give you water, had it in your mind to make me lose my life?" So Harata Kunwar, taking the child on his back, went with her. Immediately on arriving he put the boy down on the ground, and the child ran straight into its mother's lap and began to suck her breast. Then the King of the Great Palace said: "Why! such a thing as this was never seen! They have got a child big between them already!" So the King of the Winds' folk were ashamed and disgusted, and returned home sad and sorry. So they celebrated the wedding of Harata Kunwar and the daughter of the King of the Great Palace.

So Harata Kunwar remained there one year, two years, and laboured at tilling the fields, so that he got twelve barns, twelve granaries full of grain. Then said Harata Kunwar to his wife: "My dear! we two, like the sparrow or the dove, should have a nest at least, a roosting-place of our own. Therefore let us go away together. Do you ask father-in-law and mother-in-law." So at night Harata Kunwar's wife asked her parents: "O father and mother, your son-in-law says, 'we two, like a sparrow or a dove, should at least have a nest, a roosting-place of our own. Let us go away together,' and he bade me ask you about it. What are your commands in the matter?" So the King of the Great Palace said: "My daughter! I have once for all given you away to this man like a bundle of greens, and have nothing more to do with you. Go away together, to-morrow if you like, or to-day if you prefer it." Then he went on to say, "What do you two desire of me? slaves, male or female? ryots, husbandmen? gold? silver?" So she went and told Harata Kunwar: "My dear! my mother and father say, 'You may go away together to-day or to-morrow as you please: moreover, slaves, male and female, ryots, husbandmen, gold, silver,--mention whatever you desire'--so they say." And Harata Kunwar said, "I want nothing at all." And morning dawned. Then Harata Kunwar went and did obeisance to his father and mother-in-law. And his father-in-law said to him, "What do you desire? slaves--handmaids--ryots--husbandmen--gold--silver?" Harata Kunwar said, "I need nothing." Then Harata Kunwar and his wife, the wedded pair, and their son started for home, and in due course arrived there. A king he became, a great man, and night and day he lived in happiness and greatness, and his kingdom was great and stable.

APPENDIX.

THE LEGEND OF CREATION.

Condensed from Mr. Allen's (of the American Presbyterian Mission) replies to ethnographical questions, dated October, 1900.

Long ago the gods Hèmphu and Mukràng took counsel together for the creation of the world. They marked the limits of their work, setting up four great posts to fix the boundaries of things, and fastened them immovably with six of their mother's hairs. Then they looked for seed to produce the earth, but found none. Then they consulted a hundred other gods, with their wives, making, with themselves and their wives, two hundred and four in all. It was decided to send one of the wives to beg for some earth from the god Hajòng, and Bamon's wife was sent on this errand. But Hajòng refused to give any earth from his world from which a rival world might be fashioned, and sent the goddess Bamonpi away empty-handed. But as she returned she noticed the worm-casts on the road, and carried off one and hid it in her bosom. But even with this piece of warm earth nothing could be done, until the gods sent for Helòng Recho, the king of the earth-worms, who came and worked up the piece of earth, till in one day it became a heap many feet in diameter; so he continued, till eventually it became this earth of ours. But it was still soft moist earth, on which no one could travel. So they called Kapràng the blacksmith, who with his bellows produced a wind which dried the mud to solid earth. Then the gods said, "We must cause plants to grow on it." They searched everywhere for seed, and at last sent to Rèkbepi in the west, by the great post that marked the place of the setting sun, to ask her for seed. Rèkbepi came, and herself brought seed and sowed it. (Another version states that Rèkbepi and Rèk-kropi, wives of two gods, went to Kana, beyond the boundaries of this world, and obtained from him the various seeds of trees and plants. As they were returning, the sinàm, or head-strap, which held the baskets on their heads broke, and the winds scattered the seeds on the surface of the earth. This occurred on the bank of the river Kallang, in the south-eastern part of Nowgong. But all the bamboos that grew from these seeds were jointless, and therefore weak: strong winds would break down the entire crop in a single storm. So the goddesses who brought the seed tied round the stems pieces of thread to strengthen them; the threads made scars, until at last all the bamboos we have now are marked with scars at the joints.)

Next came the creation of animals. Hèmphu and Mukràng were the leaders, but they were helped by Pithe and Pothe ("great mother" and "great father"). The elephant was first created to be a servant to man. Then the tiger was made, and bidden to eat the wicked; any one killed by a tiger is still thought to have committed some great crime.

Then a great council was held, and it was decided to create a being called arlèng (man). The first man's name was Bamon-po, and he had created for him two wives, one a Mikir and the other an Assamese. But no offspring was born to the man for a long time. At last the Assamese wife sent her husband to her elder brother, who understood the secrets of nature. He sent Bamonpo into his garden, and bade him pick an orange for each of his wives, and give it to her to eat, when all would be well. Bamonpo did so, and went homewards with his two oranges. On the way, becoming hot, he stopped at a river to bathe. While he was in the water, a crow came and carried away one of the oranges. Bamonpo sadly returned to his home, and gave the one orange left to his Assamese wife, who ate it. But the Mikir wife picked up a piece of the peel and ate it, and in process of time she had a son, whom she named Ram. The Assamese wife also had a son, whom she called Chaputi. He, however, was weak and puny, while Ram was strong and valiant. Ram could pull up trees by the roots, and break them down as he pleased. He could fight and conquer any demon who attacked him, and any man whom he met. But he had no wife. One day while out hunting he became thirsty, and climbed a tree to look for water. He saw a pool, at which he quenched his thirst. As he did so, he noticed in the grass a white thing, which he put in his basket and carried home. It was a large egg. For some days he forgot to look at it, and later on, when he went to see it, he found that the egg was broken, and a beautiful woman had come forth from it. The demons tried to seize her and carry her off, but Ram vanquished them all, and made her his wife. She was very fruitful, and her children multiplied until they were numbered by thousands. Ram's fame spread throughout the world, till at last he disappeared, and was deified by a race of his descendants, called Hindus. They were a mighty race of men, and in the course of time, becoming dissatisfied with the mastery of the earth, they determined to conquer heaven, and began to build a tower to reach up to the skies. Higher and higher rose the building, till at last the gods and demons feared lest these giants should become the masters of heaven, as they already were of earth. So they confounded their speech, and scattered them to the four corners of the earth. Hence arose all the various tongues of men.

Additional note to p. 45.--A very exact parallel to the story of Harata Kunwar will be found in Mr. S. J. Hickson's book entitled A Naturalist in North Celebes (London, 1889), pp. 264-6. It is a story current among the Minahassa people of that region, of heavenly nymphs in whose clothes resided their power to fly, and one of whom was captured by a man who made her his wife; other details agree closely with those of the Mikir story.

VI.

LANGUAGE.

Outline of Mikir grammar--The original text of the three stories translated in Section V., analysed and elucidated.

The language spoken by the Mikirs belongs to the great family of Indo-Chinese speech called Tibeto-Burman, the general characteristics of which have been fully set forth in The Linguistic Survey of India, vol. iii. Mikir itself is treated on pp. 380 ff. of Part II. of that volume, and is described by Dr. Grierson as a member of the Naga-Bodo sub-group, in which it is classed together with Empeo or Kachcha Naga, Kabui, and Khoirao. It is unnecessary here to occupy space with any demonstration of the fact that Mikir is a Tibeto-Burman language, or to cite lists of words in it agreeing with those of other languages of the same great class. In the next section an attempt will be made to examine its affinities with other varieties of Tibeto-Burman speech, and to define more clearly its place in the family; in this the language will be dealt with in its internal structure only, and, as specimens, the original text of the three stories translated in Section V. will be given, with an interlinear rendering and a running commentary.

A grammatical sketch of Mikir was printed at pp. 381-391 of Part II. vol. iii. of the Linguistic Survey. What follows is mainly borrowed from that source, which was the first published attempt to explain systematically the facts and mechanism of the language.

SOUNDS.

Mikir has no written character of its own. The first publication printed in it, a short catechism issued by a missionary press at Sibsagar in 1875, used the Assamese character; since then, so far as is known, the Roman alphabet has always been employed to express the sounds of the language. Mr. Stack, from whose materials this monograph has been compiled, distinguished the following vowel sounds:--

a, long a as in father (chiefly in open syllables); à, the same shortened and pronounced abruptly, as in the German Mann, always in closed syllables; (N.B. The language does not possess the short Hindi a, representing the u in but.) e, the long e in the French scène; e, the same sound shortened, as in belief; è, the sharp e in the English men (always in closed syllables); i, the long i in machine; i, the short i in it; o, the long o in bone; o, the same shortened, as in obey; ò, the sharp abrupt sound in pot (always in closed syllables); u, the long u in June; u, the short u in full.

The diphthongs are--

ai, as in aisle; ei, almost as in feign, with the i audible; oi, as in boil; ui, long u with i added: no English equivalent.

The consonants used in Mikir are b, ch, d, h, j, k, l, m, n, ng, p, r, s, t, v (all with their value as in English), and the aspirates kh, ph, th (pronounced as in cookhouse, haphazard, anthill). Bh, dh, and g occur only in a few borrowed words, and bh and dh are commonly resolved, as bahar (for Hindi bhar), "a load," and dohòn (for Ass. dhon), "money." F, sh, w, y, and z are not used. Ng is never initial, and the g is not separately heard (always as in singer, never as in younger).

MONOSYLLABIC ROOTS.

The root words of the language, whether nouns, adjectives, pronouns, verbs, or adverbs, are generally monosyllabic; where simple roots have more than one syllable, the additions are formative prefixes, once probably separate words, which have become incorporated. Such are the prefix ke-, ki-, ka-, used to form adjectives, present participles, and verbal nouns; and the prefixes ar- (in arni, "sun," arlòng, "stone," arlèng, "man," etc.), ing- (in inglòng, "mountain"; inghòn, "pity," etc.), and te-, ti-, to- (in teràm, "call," tekàng, "abandon," tikup, "house-yard," tovar, "road," etc.), of which the precise significance is not now traceable. In compound roots, formed by combining monosyllabic elements, the force of each individual syllable is still fully felt; such compounds are exceedingly common.

Words are not inflected, but are located in sense by their position in the sentence or by the addition of particles. These particles may often be omitted where ambiguity is not likely to occur; such omission is particularly frequent as regards the postpositions indicating case, and the tense-affixes of the verb.

GENDER.

Gender is not distinguished except for animated beings, and in them either (1) by added words indicating sex (as so-po, "boy," so-pi, "girl"; aso-pinso, "male child"; aso-pi, "daughter"; chainòng-alo, "bull"; chainòng-api, "cow"), or (2) by the use of different terms (po, "father," pe or pei, "mother," phu, "grandfather," phi, "grandmother," etc.).

NUMBER.

The ordinary suffix for the plural is -tum (which is originally a separate word meaning "company," "followers"); but other words are occasionally employed, as mar, a "mass, quantity, or company"; òng, "many"; and li, a respectful form used in addressing a number of persons. When -tum is suffixed to a noun, it takes the prefixed a- of relation, as arlèng-atum, "men"; when added to a personal pronoun it does not require this adjunct, as will be explained below (ne, "I," ne-tum, "we"; nàng, "thou," nàng-tum, "ye"; la, "he, she, it," la-tum, "they").

CASE.

Case is indicated by position, or by postpositions. The nominative, and, generally speaking, the accusative, have no postpositions, but are ascertained by their position in the sentence, the nominative at the beginning, the accusative following it before the verb. Both, when necessary, can be emphasised by the addition of the particles -ke and -si, which in some sort play the part of the definite article; but these are not case-postpositions. There is no device (as in Tibetan) for distinguishing the case of the agent with transitive verbs.

The genitive always precedes the noun on which it is dependent. When the word in the genitive is a pronoun of the first or second person, nothing intervenes between them: ne-mèn, "my name"; nàng-pe, "thy clothes." But when, the pronoun is in the third person, or a noun is in the genitive case, the following noun has a- prefixed: e.g. la a-po, "his father"; Arnàm a-hèm, "God's house"; hijai-atum a-kàm, "the jackals' work"; arni-kàngsàm a-pòr, "day-becoming-cool time." This prefixed a- is really the pronoun of the third person, and means his, her, its, their; the full meaning of the combinations given above is therefore "he, his father": "God, his house": "the jackals, their work": "day becoming cool, its time." As in many other languages of the Tibeto-Burman family, nouns (especially those denoting personal relations, parts of the body, etc.) are seldom conceived as abstract and self-contained; they most often occur in relation to some other noun, and thus the syllable a- is more often prefixed to them than not. Especially is this the case with adjectives; these ordinarily follow the noun which they qualify, and almost always have a- prefixed; e.g. Arnàm a-kethe, "God Almighty": la a-kibi a-bàng, "that younger one." Sometimes this prefixed a- is thinned down to e-, as in hèm-e-pi, hèm-e-po, "widow, widower," literally "female or male owner of the house": hijai e-hur, "a pack of jackals." Most postpositions (originally nouns joined to the genitive of the qualified word) similarly require a- before them; and the suffix -tum of the plural, since it means "a company," also in this manner assumes the form a-tum. Before ing- the prefix a- is absorbed, and the result is àng.