Story 58 - The Stupid Boy

IN a certain city there are a Gamarala, a Gama-gaeni (his wife), and a son of theirs. The Gamarala went to the chena. The Gama-gaeni lay down, and told the Gama-puta (the son) to examine her head [for insects].

While he was looking through the hair she fell asleep, and a fly settled on her head.

“Ade ! Fly, do not bite our mother’s head,”

he said,

“mother will scold me.”

The fly having gone flying away, settled again on her head. Saying,

“Now then, this fly is biting mother’s head again,”

he placed his mother’s head gently on the ground. Then having gone and taken a rice pestle, and come back with it, he said,

“Is the fly still biting the head ?”

and struck at the fly with the rice pestle, killing his mother with the blow.

The boy’s father having come, tried to arouse her.

“How is it that mother is dead ?”

he asked. The boy said,

“A fly was biting our mother’s head. I struck it with the rice pestle. Because of it she died.”

So the Gamarala took the woman away and buried her.

Then he came home with the boy. Having arrived, the Gamarala told the boy to make a pot of gruel. Having made the pot of gruel he told the boy to take, it, and they went to the jungle to cut fence sticks. The man, cutting and cutting the fence sticks, told the boy to draw them out, and throw them down. Then the boy, taking the fence sticks, threw them into the river.

Taking the pot of gruel, and making a raised platform of sticks, he placed it on it. The Gamarala said to the boy,

“Now then, as you have come here, go and drink greul.”

Then the boy having gone under the stick frame, and pierced the bottom of the pot, and made a hole through it, placed his mouth under it, and drank a sufficient quantity.

Still the gruel comes from the pot, so the boy said to the pot of gruel,

“Father is there. Don’t come out, gruel.”

Having cut the fence sticks, the Gamarala came to drink gruel. There was nothing in the gruel pot. He asked at the hand of the boy,

“Where, Ada 1 is the gruel ?”

“The gruel went Out while I was saying don’t go,”

he said.

Then the Gamarala thought,

“There is no need to keep this boy,”

and having beaten him he drove him away.

As the boy was going, Weeping and weeping, he met with a Buddhist monk.^[1] There were two bundles in the Lord’s hand. He told the boy to take the couple of bundles.

As the boy was carrying them he asked at the hand of the Lord,

“What is there in the bundles ?”

“Palm-sugar packets,^[2] and plantains,” he said.

The Lord asked at the hand of the boy,

“What is thy name ?”

The boy said,

“My name is Aewariyakka Mulakka.”

As he was coming along from there the boy lagged behind. So the monk spoke to the boy,

“Aewariyakka Mulakka, Ada ! Come on quickly,”

he said. Then the boy ate some packets of sugar,^[3] and rows of plantains.^[4]

The monk having gone to the pansala (monk’s residence), when he looked [found that] packets of sugar and rows of plantains were missing.

“Ada ! where are the other plantains and palm-sugar that were in these?”

he asked.

“Lord, I am a packet eater (Mulakka), and a first-row-of-plantains eater (Aewariyakka),”

he said.

“I ate them.”

There and then, having beaten the boy, he chased him away.

Then, as a washerwoman-aunt was washing clothes, she saw the boy going along, and asked him,

“Can you live at our house ?”

“I can,” he said. She asked his name; Giya (“He went”) he said was his name.

Having taken the washed clothes, and placed them in the house, he asked at the hand of the mother for the [unwashed] clothes that were in the house. She told him to come [and take them]. After the boy had come in, the mother asked at the hand of the boy,

“What is your name ?”

The boy said, Awo (“He came”), and took the clothes away.    .

Afterwards, because both the clothes and the boy were missing, [the washer-woman] having searched and looked for him, went home. On account of her going late the washerman called her [and asked the reason]. She said,

“It is because of Giya” (the words might also mean, “It is because he went”).

A man who was in the house having heard it, said, " Ada ! He said Awo.”

While both were saying, “Giya,” “Awo,” (“He went, he came”), the boy took the clothes, and went to his village.

Duraya. North-western Province.

 

Note:

The fly-killing incident occurs in Indian Nights’ Entertainment (Swynnerton), p. 306, in which a Buneyr man killed an old woman by throwing a stone at a fly that was on her face.

In the Jataka story No. 44 (vol. i, p. 116),'a boy killed his father by striking with an axe at a mosquito that had settled on his pate, splitting his head at the blow. In the next Jataka tale, a girl killed her mother by aiming a blow with a pestle at the flies that had settled on her head when she was lying down.

In The Orientalist, vol. i, p. 284, there is a Kashmir story by the Rev. J. H. Knowles, in which a bear who had become friendly with a man, killed him by throwing a piece of rock at a bee which had settled on his mouth. Reference is also made to a similar story in the Journal A.S.B., vol. lii, part i, 1883.

A considerable part of the story now given is a variant of No. ro above. I have inserted it on account of the low caste of the narrator.

When the monk repeated the boy’s name on ordering him not to lag behind, he was in reality telling him to eat the plantains a:hd sugar, the meaning of Aewanyak ka Mulak ka being, "Eat thou a first row of plantains ; eat thou a packet (of the sugar).”

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Unnamse narnak. In the villages, namah, “a name,” takes the place of kenek, “person”, in speaking of monks.

[2]:

Hakurun.

[3]:

Mulakun.

[4]:

Aewariyakun.