Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/531

 Collectanea. 497

married. So he said to the Chief: "How dark your house is!" The Chief asked : " What is your house like ? " " Mine," he said, When the Chief was eating his dinner the boy asked : " Is that the only dish you have?" "Yes," said the Chief, "but what about yours?" "When I have done eating," said the boy, "I throw away the old dish and get a new one every time." Then he asked the Chief: "Are these the only cows you have?" "Yes," he replied, "and how many have you ?" " My house is so full of cattle that some of them have to stay outside." Then the boy saw the Chief's grandmother riding a horse. " Why do you let your grandmother get so cold ? " " What do you do with your grand- mother?" asked the Chief. "Oh ! she always sits warming herself at the fire." Tiie Chief was convinced that he was a great man, so he gave him his daughter, and she went home with her husband. But when she saw his house she laughed, and said : " Why, this house is not transparent. We can't see the sky from inside!" "Oh, yes, we can," and he pointed to the holes in the roof. "And what about your plates?" "I have none, but I make a new leaf platter every time I dine." " And what about your cattle ? " "I have only one cow, and she lies half inside the house and half outside ! " " And your grandmother ! " " My grandmother is my fire-place," he answered."
 * 'is transparent, and I can see the sky from anywhere inside."

Then his wife was so ashamed at the way she had been taken in, that she wrote to her father not to come to visit her for seven years. She sent her husband to her father to borrow some money. When he got the money he purchased a lot of rubbish and stored it in his house. "What is the use of that ? " asked his wife. " You will see by and by," he replied, and went and borrowed more money, which he spent in the same way. The third time he brought gold, made a number of sling-pellets of clay and gilded them all over. These he sold to the people from whom he had bought the rubbish. After a time they found they had been cheated, and complained to the Chief. He sent for his son-in- law and asked him what he meant. "Yes, O Chief, I did what

^ This alludes to the Angami saying : " The sky is my father and the earth my mother." The Angami fire-place is only three rough stones which support the cooking-pot.