Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/477

Rh bones. "Whose bones will sound, whether my Grand Dad the Tiger's or Granddaddy the Bear's?", he said, and so, taking the bones which would sound, he made a Rot-chhem out of them, and he sat in the fork of a tree and played on it. The Quail, hearing the sound, came up. "Hallo! Monkey, let me play for a bit," he said. "Oh ho," said the Monkey, " you will fly off with the Rot-chhem." "If you fear that," said the Quail, "hold me by the tail." So the Monkey held him tight by the tail, and off he flew, but the Monkey pulled his tail clean out. Then the Quail came and begged for his tail, saying,—"Do give me back my tail." But the Monkey replied,—"You can ransom it by paying 8 mithans (gyals)." "Oh," said the Quail, "if I have to pay 8 mithans for it, I'll just remain tailless," and flew away."

Time will not admit of my giving you any more specimens of these tales. There is a very large number to choose from,— tales of the man who could be a tiger whenever he wanted, tales of the origin of witchcraft of Khaw-hring, that dangerous power possessed by some women of entering into the bodies of other women, or "eating" them as it is called, and tales to account for the names of rivers and hills and for peculiarities of animals, such as the one last read, which explains the shortness of the quail's tail.

Plates XXI.-XXVI. are reproductions from some of the lantern slides exhibited at the meeting, and were commented upon by Mrs. Shakespear as follows:—

Plate XXI. (p. 388) shows a typical Lushai village (Nichama's), perched on the apex of a hill and straggling down the sides a little way. The village had been fired by a punitive expedition when the photograph was taken, and clouds of smoke are drifting from the more distant houses. The villages are always built on the hill tops,