Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/711

 Folk Tales fj'OJu the Naga Hills of Assam. 401

You take and eat this flesh." Thus speaking he cut up the deer and gave a leg to the old woman, and while he was doing this he tied the old woman's hair to her basket. Then he said to the old woman, " Don't touch your basket, but carry it your- self, and when you have reached your house throw it off in your outer room." Thus he spoke. And so the old woman departed carrying the load and threw it off in her house.

Then because her hair was tied to her basket, when she threw off her basket she broke her neck.

And Matsi, a man full of guile, is said to have acted thus in days of old.

No. 4. The Shiihiio Sept.

Formerly a woman got a sweet orange, and brought and kept it hidden in her basket. And so she was very pleased and daily kept on opening the basket and looking at it. Then she saw that the orange was daily growing like a man. Then she again shut it up and many days afterwards again looked at it. Then she saw that the orange had become a child. And so she loved this small child and tended him. And because the child had come out of an orange he was very good to look upon. For this reason even to-day it is said that his kinsmen are very handsome. And they are called the " Shuhuo " sept.^

No. 5. The Vuprunama Sept.

Once a Khonoma man went into the jungle to cut planks, and having cut planks when returning saw a bird's egg in a rotten tree. He said to this bird's egg, " Why is there only one egg } " And so he thought, " I won't take it now, but will leave it and return later and look at it again. Then he saw that the bird's

1 The theme of a girl who comes out of an orange is a favourite one in the folk-lore of the Assam hill-tribes. Cf. The Angami Ndgas, p. 281 ; The Setna Ndgas, p. 357. In the Assamese story of " Tejimola," and again in that of the 0-Knanri the same idea appears (J. Borooah, Folk- Tales of Assam), and the Thado Kukis have a version of the Naga story in which a mango takes the place of the orange. — J. H. H.