Story 228 - The Gamarala who ate Black Fowls’ Flesh and Hin-aeti Rice

IN a certain country there were a Gamarala and a Gama-Mahage, it is said. There was a paramour for this Gama-Mahage, it is said. Because the Gamarala was at home the paramour was unable for many days to come to look at the Gama-Mahage.

Because of it, the Gama-Mahage having thought she must make her husband’s eyes blind, went on the whole of the days to the bottom of a spacious tree in which it was believed that there is a Devatawa, and cried,

“O Deity, make my man’s eyes blind.”

Having seen that in this way incessantly (nokadawama) the Gama-Mahage in the evening having abandoned all house work goes into the jungle, the Gamarala wanted to ascertain what she goes here for. The Gamarala also in order to stop t his going of the Gama-Mahage settled in the afternoon that there will be a great quantity of work [for her] to do. The Gamarala, who saw that nevertheless, whatever extent of work there should be, having quickly finished all the possible extent she goes into the jungle, on the following day in the evening having been reminded of the preceding reflections, remained hidden in a hollow in the tree there.

And the Gama-Mahage, just as on other days, in the evening having finished the work and having come, cried,

“O Devatawa who is in this tree, make my man’s eyes blind.”

Having cleared the root of the tree and offered flowers, she also lighted a lamp.

The Gamarala who was looking at all these, having been struck with astonishment, after the Gama-Mahage went away descended from the tree and went home.

On the following day, also, in the evening the Gamarala, catching a pigeon and having gone [with it], remained hidden in the hollow of the very same tree. At the time when he is staying in this way, the Gama-Mahage having come, and having offered oil, flowers, etc., just as before, when she cried out [to the deity] to blind her man’s eyes, the Gamarala from the hollow of the tree, having changed his voice, spoke,

“Bola!”

Thereupon the Gama-Mahage, having thought,

“It is this Deity spoke,”

said,

“O Lord.”

At that time the Gamarala said thus,

“If [I am] to make thy man’s eyes blind, give [him] black fowls’ flesh^[1] and cooked rice of Hin-aeti rice.”

Having said [this], he allowed the pigeon which he had caught to fly away.

Thereupon the Gama-Mahage having thought,

“This Deity is going in the appearance of a pigeon,”

having turned and turned to the direction in which the pigeon is going and going, began to worship it. And the Gamarala after that having slowly descended from the tree, went away.

Beginning from that day, the Gama-Mahage, walking everywhere, having sought for black fowls’ flesh and Hin-aeti rice, began to give the Gamarala amply to eat.

While the Gamarala, too, is eating this tasty food, after a little time he says to the Gama-Mahage,

“Ane ! Ban,^[2] my eyesight is now less.”

When he said thus, the Gama-Mahage more and more gave him black fowls’ flesh and cooked Hin-aeti rice.

After a little time more went by, he informed her that by degrees the Gamarala’s eyesight is becoming less. At this time the Gama-Mahage’s paramour began to come without any fear. The Gamarala, groping and groping like a blind man, when he is walking in the house saw well that the paramour has come.

Having said,

“Ban, at the time when you are not [here], dogs having come into the house overturn the pots,”

the Gamarala asked for a large cudgel. Keeping the cudgel in this manner while he was lying down, when the paramour came having seized his two hands and beaten him with the cudgel, he killed him outright.

While he was thus, when the Gama-Mahage came he said,

“Look there, Ban. Some dogs having come from somewhere or other, came running and jumping into this. Having thrown them down with the cudgel, I beat them. What became of them I don’t know.”

Having heard this matter, at the time when the -Gama-Mahage looked she saw that the paramour was killed, and having become much troubled about it because there was also fear that blame would come to her from the Government, lifting up the corpse and having gone and caused it to lean against a plantain-tree in her father’s garden, she get it there.

Her father having gone during the night - time to safeguard the plantain enclosure, and having seen that a man is [there], beat him with his cudgel. Although the blows he struck were not too hard, having seen that the man fell and was killed, the plantain enclosure person, having become afraid, lifting up the corpse and having gone [with it], pressed the head part in the angle of the shop of a trader in salt, and went away.

The salt dealer having thought,

“A thief is entering the house,”

struck a blow with a cudgel. But having come near and looked, and seen that the man is dead, at the time when it became light he informed the Government. He said that the man could not die at his blow, and that some person or other had put him there.^[3]

Because on account of the dead man there was not any person to lament, having employed women for hire he caused them to lament. At this time one woman lamented:

“First, it is my misfortune; next to that, father’s misfortune; and after that the salt dealer’s misfortune.”^[4]

At the time when they asked,

“What is that ?”

when she related the whole account for her punishment they ordered her to be killed.

Western Province.

 

Notes:

In The Jataka, No. 98 (vol. i, p. 239), a man in order to cheat his partner got his father to enter a hollow tree, and personate a Tree-Sprite who was supposed to occupy it. When the matter in dispute was referred to this deity, the father gave a decision in favour of his son.

In The Adventures of Raja Rasalu (Swynnerton), p. 138, a man whose wife absented herself every night, followed her. and discovered that she prayed at the grave of a fakir that her hushand might become blind. He hid himself in the shrine, and on the next night told her that if she fed her husband with sweet pudding and roast fowl he would be blind in a week; he then hurried home before her. Next morning she remarked that he was very thin and that she must feed him well; he acquiesced and was duly fed on the two dishes. He first stated that his eyes were getting dim, and after the seventh day that he was quite blind. Her paramour now began to visit the house openly. One day the man saw his wife hide him in a roll of matting; he tied it up, and saying he would go to Mecca, shouldered it and left. He met another man similarly cheated, and they agreed to let the lovers go.

In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 40, after two brothers buried at the foot of a tree two thousand gold dinars, one of them secretly carried them off,^[5] and afterwards charged the other with stealing them. As the King could not decide the case, the thief claimed that the tree at which the money was buried would give evidence for him. The question was put to it next day and a voice replied that the innocent brother took the money; but when the officers applied smoke to the hollow the father who was hidden there fell out and died, so the thief was punished by mutilation.

In Folk-Tales of the Telugus (G. R. Subramiah Pantulu), p. 28, there is a similar story in which the thief was sentenced to pay the whole amount to the other man.

In the Kolhan folk-tales (Bompas) appended to Folklore of the Santal Parganas, p. 482, a Potter’s wife whom a Raja advised to kill her husband, set up a figure of a deity in her house, and prayed daily to it that the man might become blind and die. On overhearing her, the Potter hid behind the figure, said her prayer was granted, and predicted that he would be blind in two days. When he feigned blindness she sent for the Raja, who together with the woman was killed at night by him, and his corpse placed in a neighbour’s vegetable garden. Towards morning the neighbour saw an apparent thief, struck him on the head, and discovered he had killed the Raja. He consulted the Potter and by his advice placed the body among some buffaloes, where their owner knocked it over as a milk thief, and after consulting the Potter threw it into a well. It was discovered there and cremated.

In Folklore of the Santal Parganas (collected by Rev. Dr. Bodding), p. 247, a smith was the hero in place of the Potter. The body of a Prince was left at three houses in turn, the last householder being imprisoned.

In Santal Folk Tales (Campbell), p. too, a man whose wife died left her corpse in a wheat field, tied in a bag loaded on a bullock, and got hid. When the field owner thrashed the bullock the man came forward, charged him with killing his sick wife, and received six maunds of rupees as hush money. The standard maund being one of 40 sers, each of 80 tolas or rupee-weights (Hobson-Jobson), this would be 19,200 rupees.

Regarding the black fowls, Bernier stated that in India there was “a small hen, delicate and tender, which I call Ethiopian, the skin being quite black” (Travels, Constable’s translation, p. 251). In a note, the translator added the remarks of Linschoten (1583-1589) on Mozambique fowls:—“There are certain hennes that are so blacke both of feathers, flesh, and bones, that being sodden they seeme as black as ink; yet of very sweet taste, and are accounted better than the other; whereof some are likewise found in India, but not so many as in Mossambique” (Voyage, i, 25, 26. Hakluyt Soc.).

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

A breed of black fowls is considered to have the tenderest flesh of all; the flesh is very white, but the bones are black on the surface.

[2]:

Contraction of Bolan, apparently; a Low-country expression.

[3]:

These adventures of the corpse remind one of the Hunchback of the Arabian Nights, but they are Indian episodes.

[4]:

Issarawela magane ; i gawata appane ; itat passe liunu huppane. magane = mage + anaya or ane.

[5]:

When money stolen from me was buried, the leader of the thieves removed it during the same night, and buried it at a fresh place in the jungle.