Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/522

 488 Collectanea.

man, "try with a basket of rice." So the tiger put out a basket of rice, and then the man came and blackened his body and face, all but his eyes, with charcoal, and just before daybreak stood at the place hanging on to the basket. When the tiger came he called ■out : " I have the game at last ! " So he called the cat and said to her : "Just watch this game while I go and ask the man what I am to do." As soon as the tiger went off the man ran home and washed himself clean. When the tiger came they went together to the place, but the game had disappeared. The tiger said to the cat: "Why did you let it go?" She replied: " How could I stop it ? " Then the man took the tiger to his house and began to plait a cane mat. He asked the tiger : " What was the game like?" "It was very like you, only different in colour." By this time the tiger began to have liis suspicions, butthe man had already plaited his tail into the mat, so that the tiger was helpless. The Semas tell a tale how another day the tiger and the man met on the road. As they were chatting a horn-bill flew over head, and the tiger looking up said : " I wonder how that is done. I wish I could fly." " I know all about it, and I can teach you," said the man. "I made that horn-bill." "Could you make wings for me?" asked the tiger. "All right," said the man. So he made the tiger lie down and stretch out his four legs on a wooden frame. "This is for the wings," he said, as he tied the beast's legs to the frame with cane lashings. " You must stay like that all day, and to-morrow I will fetch you." Next day when the man ■came the tiger said : " I am very stiff and it hurts." But the man only tied him the tighter. Then he got some sharp spikes and drove them into the tiger's armpits. "This is how we make the wing-bones," he said. The tiger moaned, but the man said : ^' Don't cry or the charm will not work." Tlien he drove a stake into his body to make a tail, and went off, saying : " I will come back in tliree days and finish the job." But while he was away the flies and maggots devoured the tiger, and .that was the end •of him.

IX. Hoiv Man domesticated the Dog.

The dog had no hole to live in, so he went to stay with the tiger But when they went hunting the dog used to bark and