Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/88

 76 Collectanea.

bears it for a few days, but at last, longing to have his wife home again, makes up his mind to give up the house. This, however, is not enough now ; he must take a present as well. So he trudges off with some baked pigs. When he arrives at his nephew's, Bullamacow says to him, " Why did you take the trouble to come all this way? I was just going to take your wife down to you to-morrow, but, however, as you have come, you will be able to stay here and take her back then yourself." Then when he sees the pigs he says, " How very unnecessary it was for you to bring these things."

However, he allows himself to be persuaded, and accepts the present. Now the uncle has to do the rest of the business, and it has to be done with delicacy. So he says, " Now, how do you think the bread-fruit house would look in that place ? I think it would suit well ; " and so the matter is settled. Next day the uncle takes his wife home, and a few days later Bullamacow comes down and carries off the bread-fruit house. So the poor uncle is ruined.

In the same way, if a nephew takes a fancy to a gun of his uncle's, he comes and takes it. Should the uncle naturally object to part with it, the nephew goes home and tells his mother, who says it will be all right : she will arrange matters. So she pro- nounces a curse upon the other family, saying the children shall die of elephantiasis. This so works upon their fears that they are ready to give anything up. It is to be noted that only the children of the eldest sister have the privilege of Vasu.

The Consul said that during the fighting, men used often to bring guns to his house to hide them from their nephews ; and sometimes they have slept with guns lashed to their legs ; but the nephews have come and taken them away even then.

I give this account from a journal kept at at the time.

A. C. Stanley. Rome, 4/// December, 1901.