Note 31 — FOLK-TALES AND SONGS

When the Lhotas were living at Longcham a tiger caused them grievous loss. One day it killed all of a party of nine women. Among them was Ramphan’s wife, who was about to become a mother. At this disaster all clamoured to abandon the village, but Ramphan said he would go and face the tiger. First he put on each of his fingers a section of thin bamboo. Then he took his long dao and lay down among the corpses of the nine women and waited for the tiger. Soon the tiger came and went to each corpse and ate a little of the flesh and laid it on one side, saying as he did so, “This one I killed on her way to the fields,” or “This one I killed when she went to cut wood,” or “This one I killed on her way to fetch water,” or “This one I killed when she went to pick jungle leaves,” or “This one I killed when she went to get vegetables,” or “This one I killed when she was going down to fish.” At last he came to Ramphan and said, “This one I do not remember,” and picked him up and laid him aside, and then settled himself down to sleep. Then one by one Ramphan began to snap the pieces of bamboo on his fingers to see if the tiger was asleep or not. But at each snap the tiger pricked up his ears. At last when he had snapped nine of the pieces of bamboo and there was only one left, Ramphan thought to himself, “If the tiger is not asleep when I snap this I am done for.” But when he snapped the last remaining piece of bamboo the tiger did not prick up its ears, for it was fast asleep. Then Ramphan rose up and cut off the tiger’s head with his long dao, and climbed with it up to the top of a high spur and shouted the shout of a warrior who has taken a head. But he was sad when he thought of his wife lying dead in the valley below. And he called to his village men and said, “I have slain our enemy. Do not desert your village. Wait for me.” But when he reached home he found that the villagers had already abandoned the place. From far away they shouted back to him, “We have sprinkled the back of one of our sows with rice husks, which fall as she walks. Follow the track of that and come.” Now as Ramphan followed the trail of rice husks he caught up on the path a woman who was a leper. And the woman, whose name was Mangtsilo, said to Ramphan, “What does this mean, father? A poisonous snake here said, ‘Snake-plant, snake-plant, Mangtsilo,’ and glided over my leg. What does it mean?” Then Ramphan told her to crush up some leaves of the snake-plant and lay them on her leg. And she did as he told her and her leprosy was cured.31 Then Ramphan took her as his wife.