Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/708

 39^ Folk Talcs fro7n the Naga Hills of Assam.

cliildren was travelling at the same time. And so they met together at the rest house. Thus they slept together for a night at the rest house, and because it was very cold, the children cried the whole night.

In the morning the man with the goat said to the other, " As it is very cold your children will die. It will be well for you to buy my goat. For my goat eats the cold, and if you buy him and keep him fastened near your children, then if your children have not one cloth, they will not be cold." Speaking in this way he deceived the other and he bought the goat for a hundred rupees.

And on the next night he did not cover his children with a single cloth, and let them sleep anywhere on the ground, keeping the goat close to the children. And he went to sleep.

Arising the next morning he looked at his children. Then he saw that they were all dead.

Then being very angry he searched for the other, but knew not the direction in which he had fled. And because all his children were dead he could do nothing at all.

And he thought in this wise in his mind, " From now on, my kinsmen, trust not the words of a clever man, whoever he may be. For a clever man never speaks the truth."

Gakripu corresponds to Matsi,^ but Stories I and 2 are said to be the only ones in existence about Gakripu, although those about Matsi are innumerable.

No. 2. Gakripu' s Cleverness.

Once Gakripu was going along a country road carrying a hundred rupees to trade with. Then a bear came along and the two met and the bear tried to grasp him round his waist. And so while the two were fighting in the road, the bear seized his money so that the rupees were scattered here and there along the road. And another man catme along on his horse and saw

^ Matsi (or Matsuo) is the cheat who appears in the folk-lore of all Naga tribes, under different names. Thus the Semas call him Iki. Cf. The Angami Ndgas, pp. 273-6 ; The Sema Ndgas, p. 319. — J. H. H.