Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/583

 Festivals of the Hill Tribes South of Assam. 273

the Mikir tales ; ^ from a note to the Mikir version, by the late Sir Charles Lyall, it appears that the hero is known on the Kumaon-Tibet border. The names of this hero are various, but he remains practically the same. A person of great strength, as Chhura in Lushai legends, he smooths the earth with mighty blows of his gigantic stone mallet, the head of which I, who speak to you, have seen. Somewhat stupid, having forgotten the name of a high-smelling dish of which he had just partaken, he hunts in the mud for it, and when asked what he has lost, says, " If I knew would I be looking .^ " " How you do stink of crab stew," says the enquirer. " Ah ! that was it," says Chhura. As the Simpleton in a Kachari tale, having acquired the art of snapping his fingers at great cost, and then forgotten it, he also hunts for it in the mud and replies to a chance passer-by in the same way, who snaps his fingers at him to show his contempt, thus giving the simpleton the cue he wanted. Our hero fools the tiger in more than one version of the tale. He also fools his fellow-villagers and the people of other villages, for he is a great traveller ; in revenge he is hung in a basket over a deep pool, from which he escapes by enticing some one else to take his place by expatiating on the delights of swinging there. Then, taking the property of his victims, he persuades the people who put him in the basket that he has obtained this wealth from the bottom of the pool ; and so rids himself of them, for they rush oft" and are drowned in their search for riches. This episode is found in Lushai, Sema and Mikir folktales. So far I have not found an equivalent to this delightful character in the Tangkhul tales, but I am sure he is there — he is too delightful a personage to be missing.

I now come to the second part of my subject for to-night, namely, the consideration of certain festivals. Among the

1 The Lushei-Kuki Clans, pp. 92, 99, 188, 207 ; The Lhota Xagas, pp. 176-180 ; The Kacharis, pp. 106, 107 ; The Sema Xagas, pp. 319-322, 252 ; The Auganii Nagas, pp. 273-277 ; The Mikirs, pp. 48-55.