Story 195 - The Gamarala’s Son-in-law

AT a city there is a Gamarala. There are two daughters of the Gamarala’s; one is given in diga [marriage] two gawwas (eight miles) distant, the other is not given. He said he would give her to him who comes to ask for her. From [the time] when he said it he did not give her.

Having brought [a man] he caused him to stay. On the following day morning the father-in-law says,

“Child, there is a rice field of mine of sixty yalas twelve amunas.^[1] Having ploughed the rice field in just one day, and sown paddy there, and chopped the earthen ridges in it, and on that very day blocked up the gaps [in the fence], and come back, and given to the twelve dogs twelve haunches of Sambhar deer, and given leaves to the twelve calves, and poured water on the twelve betel creepers, and come back [after] cutting the Milla stump, and warmed water, can you bathe me ?”

he asks.

Then the son-in-law says,

“Aniccam dukkham ! Who can do these things ?”

he says.

Then saying,

“I shall cut off [your] nose,”

he cuts off his nose. In that country they cannot say,

“Aniccam dukkham”;

should they say it he cuts off the nose.

Well then, giving [his daughter] in this fraudulent way, in the aforesaid manner having told two or three persons [these works], in the same way he cut off [their] noses, too.

During the time which is going by in that way, there are an elder brother and a younger brother, two persons. The elder brother’s wife having died, he came in the said manner. When he asked for [the girl], the Gamarala said he will give her. Then in the aforesaid manner he cut off his nose.

Having gone away, through shame at going home he remained hidden near the well. The above-mentioned?’ younger brother’s wife having gone [there], when she looked saw that he was hidden, and having come running back, on seeing her husband told him. He went, and when he looked saw that his brother is there.

Having seen him, when he asked,

“What is it ?”

he says,

“He cut off my nose.”

When he asked,

“Why so ?”

he told him in the aforesaid manner. After that, that man says,

“Elder brother, you stay [here]; I will go.”

Having said [this], and given charge of his wife to the elder brother, he went.

Having gone, he asked for the above-mentioned marriage. When he asked, [the Gamarala] said he will give her. Then he asked if he can work^[2] in the above-mentioned manner.

He said, “I can.”

“If so, go to the rice field,”

he said. Having said this, and loaded the paddy [to be sown], he gave it.

The man, taking a plough, a yoke pole, a digging hoe, a water gourd, the articles for eating betel, and driving the cattle, went to the rice field.

Having gone [there], and tied the yoke on the unoccupied pair of bulls, and tied them exactly in the middle [of the field], and tied at both sides [of the field] the bulls which draw the load, he tore open the comers of the sacks.

Having tom [them open] and allowed the paddy to fall, he began to plough. While he was turning two or three times there and here along the rice field, all the paddy fell down.

After it fell he unfastened the bulls, and taking the digging hoe, put two or three sods on the earthen ridges (niyara); and having come, and brought away the plough and the yoke pole, and set the yoke pole as a stake in the gap [in the fence], and fixed the plough across it and tied it, and gone away to the house driving the above-mentioned bulls, and cut up the six bulls, and given [their] twelve haunches to the twelve dogs, and drawn out two or three betel-creeper plants, and given them to the twelve calves, and come after cutting the Milla stump, he began to warm the water.

When it was becoming hot, he took water and poured it on the betel creepers. Having left the remaining water to thoroughly boil, he called to his father-in-law,

“[Be pleased] to bathe with the water,”

and having cooled a little water, he poured it first on his body.

Secondly, taking [some] of that boiling water he sprinkled it on his body. Thereupon his body was burnt. The Gamarala, crying out, began to run about; having checked and checked him he began to sprinkle [him again]. Thereafter, both of them came home and stayed there.

While they are there the Gamarala, talking to liis wife, says,

“This son-in-law is not a good sort of son-in-law. I must kill this one.”

Having sought [in vain] for a contrivance to kill him, he says,

“We cannot kill this one. Let us send him near our elder daughter.”

Having cooked a kuruniya (one-fortieth of an amuna) of cakes, and written a letter, and put it in the middle of the cakes, and given it into the hand of his boy (son), he says to the son-in-law,

“Child, go near my elder (lit., big) daughter [and give her this box of cakes], and come back.”

Having said [this] he sent him near the above-mentioned elder daughter.

These two persons (the little son and the son-in-law) having set off, while they were going away, when the boy went into the jungle the son-in-law went [with the box of cakes] to the travellers’ shed that was there; and having unfastened the cake box he began to eat.

While he was going on eating he met with the abovementioned letter. Taking it, and when he looked in it having seen that there was said in it that [the daughter] is to kill him, he tore it up. Then having thought of the name of the hoy who goes with him and written that she is to kill the boy, he put it in the box, and as soon as he put it in tied -up [the box] and placed [it aside].

The boy having come and taken the box, and said, “Let us go,” they set off.

Having gone to the house, while he is [there] the abovementioned elder daughter having cooked and given him to eat, and unfastened the box, while going on eating the cakes met with this letter. Taking it, and when she looked having seen that there was said [that she was] to kill her brother, quite without inquiry she quickly killed him outright.

There was a Bali (evil planetary influence) sending away^[3] at the house in which she was. When the woman was wishing and wishing long life (that is, responding loudly, Ayibo ! Ayibo !) the boy (her son) said that he wanted to go out.

Thereupon, speaking to her sister’s husband, she says,

“Conduct this boy to the door.”

When she said it, the man, calling the boy, went to the door. There the man with his knife pricks him. Thereupon the boy in fear comes running near his mother. Aftef a little time, when he again said he wanted to go out, his mother says,

“Ane ! Bolan, split this one’s belly.”^[4]

When she said it, having gone taking the boy he split hish belly. Having come back he asked for a little water to wash the knife. The boy’s mother having come crying, when she looked the boy was killed.

This one bounded off, and came running to the very house of the above-mentioned Gamarala.

The Gamarala having sent a letter to the elder daughter and told her to come, after she came says,

“Daughter, when you have gone off to sleep we will put a rope into the house. Put that rope on that one’s neck and fasten it tightly,”

he said.

Having put the Gamarala’s younger son-in-law, and younger daughter and elder daughter, these very three persons, in one house, and shut the door, and left them to sleep, he extended a rope from the cat-window (the space between the top of the outer wall and the roof).

The elder daughter who had been taught the abovementioned method [of killing the son-in-law], went to sleep, and stayed so. While this man was looking about, he saw that the rope is coming [over the wall into the room].

Taking the rope, he put it on the elder daughter’s neck and made it tight. The Gamarala, who stayed outside, having tied the [other end of the] rope to the necks of a yoke of buffalo bulls, made them agitated.

When the yoke of cattle had drawn the rope [tight], the Gamarala, springing and springing upward while clapping his hands, says,

“On other days, indeed, he escaped. To-day, indeed, he is caught,”

he said.

Thereupon the son-in-law, having stayed in the house, came outside and said,

“It is not [done] to me; it is your elder daughter herself,”

he said.

Thereupon the Gamarala in a perplexity says,

“Aniccam dukkham ! It is the thing which this one has done !”

Just as he was saying it the son-in-law cut off his nose. Having cut it off he went to his own country.

Because the word which cannot be said was said [by the Gamarala] he cut off his nose.

Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province.

 

Note:

In The Orientalist, vol. i, p. 131, Mr. W. Goonetilleke gave a story about a Gamarala who cut ofi the nose of any servant who used the words Aniccam dukkham. A young man took service under him in order to avenge his brother who had been thus mutilated; but the incidents differ from those related in the story given by me. The Gamarala was surprised into saying the forbidden words when the man poured scalding water over him. The servant immediately cut on his nose, ran home with it, and kicked his brother, who was squatting at the hearth, so that he fell with his face against the hearth stone. This reopened the wound; and when the Gamarala’s nose was fitted on and bandaged there after application of the juice of a plant which heals cuts, it became firmly attached, and as serviceable as the original nose.

In Indian Nights’ Entertainment (Swynnerton), p. 106, there is a story of a Moghul who engaged servants on the condition that if he or the servant became angry the other should pull out his eye. A man who had accepted these terms was ordered to plough six acres daily, fence it, bring game for the table, grass for the mare, and firewood, and cook the master’s food. He lost his temper when scolded, and his eye was plucked out. His clever brother determined to avenge him, was engaged by the Moghul, and given the same tasks. He ploughed once round the six acres and twelve furrows across the middle, set up a bundle of brushwood at each comer, tied the bullocks to a tree, and went to sleep. He played various other tricks on his master, including the cooking of his favourite dog for his food. When the master was going for a new wife, the servant, who was sent to notify his coming, said his master was ill and by his doctor’s orders took only common soap made into a porridge with asafcetida and spices. He was sick in the night after taking it, and next morning the man refused to remove the vessel he had used. As the Moghul was carrying it out covered up with a sheet, the friends being told by the man that he was leaving through anger at the food they gave him, ran out and seized his arms to draw him back, and caused him to drop and break the vessel. On their way home they had a quarrel and a scuffle, the Moghul admitted he was angry at last, and the man got him down and plucked out his eye. Some of the incidents are found in the stories numbered 241 and 242 in this volume.

In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., p. 98, there is an account of a merchant who cut off the nose of any servant who was angry or abusive. In order to be revenged on him, the brother of a man who had been thus mutilated took service under the merchant, irritated him in various ways, was struck in the face, and thereupon cut off his master’s nose.

In Folktales of the Santal Parganas (collected by Rev. Dr. Bodding), p. 124, a Prince and a merchant’s son ran away, and were engaged as labourers on the condition that if they threw up their work they should lose one hand and one ear, the master to be similarly mutilated if he dismissed them while they were willing to work. When the Prince was ordered to hoe sugar-cane he dug it up, when told to scrape and spin hemp he cut it into pieces, when sent to wash his master’s child he beat it on a stone as a washerman beats cloths until it was dead. To get rid of him the master sent him to his father-in-law with a letter in which it was requested that he should be killed. The Prince read it, wrote a fresh one requesting that he should be married to the father-in-law’s daughter, and was married accordingly.-' He killed his master when about to be killed by him. Some of the incidents are given in the story numbered 242 in this volume.

In the same work, p. 258, a Prince who had wasted his money, took service with a fanner on the terms that if he gave it up his little finger was to be cut off, and if dismissed while working well the master was to suffer the same penalty. His friend took his place and over-reached the farmer, who ran away to save himself.

In the Kolhan tales (Bompas) appended to the same volume, p. 497, there is also a story of a Prince who was accompanied by a barber when he was exiled. To get a living the Prince took service on the mutilation terms, the penalty being the loss of a piece of skin a span long. He worked badly and was mutilated. The barber to avenge him took his place, and irritated his master until he got an opportunity of mutilating him in the same way.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

The yala being twenty amunas, the total area was the extent that would be sown with 1,212 amunas, each being six bushels (or 5'7 bushels in the district where the story was related). At two and a half bushels per acre this would be about 2,900 acres.

[2]:

Lit., Can he work. The same form of expression is used by the Irish.

[3]:

Bali aerumak, conducted by a person termed Bali-tiyanna. The patient and a friend sitting on each side of him or her, respond in a loud voice, “Ayibo, Ayibo!” (Long life !) at each pause in the invocations. The wish of long life is addressed to the deity of the planet.

[4]:

See vol. ii, p. 187.