[198] This incident in a slightly different setting is found in the
Assamese story of the Monkey and the Jackal, the Kachari story of the
Monkey and the Hare, in an Angami story and also in an Ao story. In the
latter version it is the bear who is thus victimized. For the Kachari
story see J. D. Anderson, Kachari Folk-tales and Rhymes, p. 27
(Shillong, 1895); for the Assamese story see J. Borooah, Folk-tales of
Assam, p. 8 [shial = “jackal” not “fox”] (Howrah, 1915), and for the
Angami story, The Angami Nagas, Part IV.—J. H. H.
The Shans, too, relate a similar story in which the Hare induces the
Tiger to believe that a swarm of bees is a gong. Milne and Cochrane,
The Shans at Home, p. 244. An almost verbally identical episode occurs
in the Sea Dyak story of the Mouse-deer and the Deer. Gomes, Seventeen
Years among the Sea Dyaks of Borneo, p. 260.
[199] Cf. the old fairy tale of Big and Little Klaus.—J. H. H.
[200] In the Angami version the man sends a messenger to the wild dog
who had run away. The messenger, instead of asking for a leg of every
head of game the dog ran down, asked for the whole body. At this the
wild dog, quite prepared to give a leg, lost his temper and said, “Bah!
I’ll give him the hair and leave it on the path for him to find.” Hence
the dung of wild dogs containing large quantities of hair is found
everywhere on paths.—J. H. H.
[201] A very old village, once big, but now shrunk to eight houses.
[202] Such is said to be the meaning of the obsolete Lhota word
tiloran.
[203] Rhizomys prunosus, the flesh of which Nagas regard as a great
delicacy.
[204] Stones are ordinarily put up by Lhotas to commemorate a
sacrifice, but forked wooden posts are occasionally substituted if a
suitable stone is not available. One kindred in Yekhum always puts up
posts instead of stones.
[205] I.e. “Man, man!”
[206] One version of this story states definitely that Kimongthang was
of the Othui clan, and formerly men of that clan were forbidden to eat
gibbon. The Changs tell the same story to account for the origin of the
Kudā́mji clan, which is regarded as a gibbon clan.
The Semas have a story of men of the Wotsami clan having been turned
into gibbons, and despise that clan as the Changs do the Kudā́mji, which
suggests that it is the Othui clan of Lhotas which ought really to be
associated with the Semi Wotsami instead of the Shetri (or, according
to Mr. Mills, the Nguli) as is the case.—J. H. H.
[207] “Tale of the Tiger and the Crab” in Folk-tales of Assam, by J.
Borooah (Howrah, 1915), pp. 54, 55.—J. H. H.
[208] The incident of the long hair of a girl that caused a king to
send men to find her occurs in an ancient Egyptian tale “written down
in the reign of Rameses II, about 1300 B.C.” Vide Sir J. G. Frazer, The
Golden Bough, vol. xi. pp. 135, 136.—J. H. H.