At a city there is a Gamarala. There are two daughters of the
Gamarala's; one is given in diga [marriage] two gawwas (eight miles)
distant, the other is not given. He said he would give her to him
who comes to ask for her. From [the time] when he said it he did not
give her.
Having brought [a man] he caused him to stay. On the following day
morning the father-in-law says, "Child, there is a rice field of mine
of sixty yalas twelve amunas. [61] Having ploughed the rice field in
just one day, and sown paddy there, and chopped the earthen ridges
in it, and on that very day blocked up the gaps [in the fence], and
come back, and given to the twelve dogs twelve haunches of Sambhar
deer, and given leaves to the twelve calves, and poured water on the
twelve betel creepers, and come back [after] cutting the Milla stump,
and warmed water, can you bathe me?" he asks.
Then the son-in-law says, "Aniccan dukkhan! Who can do these
things?" he says.
Then saying, "I shall cut off [your] nose," he cuts off his nose. In
that country they cannot say, "Aniccan dukkhan"; should they say it
he cuts off the nose.
Well then, giving [his daughter] in this fraudulent way, in the
aforesaid manner having told two or three persons [these works],
in the same way he cut off [their] noses, too.
During the time which is going by in that way, there are an elder
brother and a younger brother, two persons. The elder brother's wife
having died, he came in the said manner. When he asked for [the girl],
the Gamarala said he will give her. Then in the aforesaid manner he
cut off his nose.
Having gone away, through shame at going home he remained hidden near
the well. The above-mentioned younger brother's wife having gone
[there], when she looked saw that he was hidden, and having come
running back, on seeing her husband told him. He went, and when he
looked saw that his brother is there.
Having seen him, when he asked, "What is it?" he says, "He cut off
my nose."
When he asked, "Why so?" he told him in the aforesaid manner. After
that, that man says, "Elder brother, you stay [here]; I will
go." Having said [this], and given charge of his wife to the elder
brother, he went.
Having gone, he asked for the above-mentioned marriage. When he asked,
[the Gamarala] said he will give her. Then he asked if he can work
[62] in the above-mentioned manner. He said, "I can."
"If so, go to the rice field," he said. Having said this, and loaded
the paddy [to be sown], he gave it.
The man, taking a plough, a yoke pole, a digging hoe, a water gourd,
the articles for eating betel, and driving the cattle, went to the
rice field.
Having gone [there], and tied the yoke on the unoccupied pair of bulls,
and tied them exactly in the middle [of the field], and tied at both
sides [of the field] the bulls which draw the load, he tore open the
corners of the sacks.
Having torn [them open] and allowed the paddy to fall, he began to
plough. While he was turning two or three times there and here along
the rice field, all the paddy fell down.
After it fell he unfastened the bulls, and taking the digging hoe,
put two or three sods on the earthen ridges (niyara); and having come,
and brought away the plough and the yoke pole, and set the yoke pole
as a stake in the gap [in the fence], and fixed the plough across it
and tied it, and gone away to the house driving the above-mentioned
bulls, and cut up the six bulls, and given [their] twelve haunches
to the twelve dogs, and drawn out two or three betel-creeper plants,
and given them to the twelve calves, and come after cutting the Milla
stump, he began to warm the water.
When it was becoming hot, he took water and poured it on the betel
creepers. Having left the remaining water to thoroughly boil, he
called to his father-in-law, "[Be pleased] to bathe with the water,"
and having cooled a little water, he poured it first on his body.
Secondly, taking [some] of that boiling water he sprinkled it on his
body. Thereupon his body was burnt. The Gamarala, crying out, began
to run about; having checked and checked him he began to sprinkle
[him again]. Thereafter, both of them came home and stayed there.
While they are there the Gamarala, talking to his wife, says,
"This son-in-law is not a good sort of son-in-law. I must kill this
one." Having sought [in vain] for a contrivance to kill him, he says,
"We cannot kill this one. Let us send him near our elder daughter."
Having cooked a kuruniya (one-fortieth of an amuna) of cakes,
and written a letter, and put it in the middle of the cakes, and
given it into the hand of his boy (son), he says to the son-in-law,
"Child, go near my elder (lit., big) daughter [and give her this box
of cakes], and come back." Having said [this] he sent him near the
above-mentioned elder daughter.
These two persons (the little son and the son-in-law) having set off,
while they were going away, when the boy went into the jungle the
son-in-law went [with the box of cakes] to the travellers' shed that
was there; and having unfastened the cake box he began to eat.
While he was going on eating he met with the above-mentioned
letter. Taking it, and when he looked in it having seen that there was
said in it that [the daughter] is to kill him, he tore it up. Then
having thought of the name of the boy who goes with him and written
that she is to kill the boy, he put it in the box, and as soon as he
put it in tied up [the box] and placed [it aside].
The boy having come and taken the box, and said, "Let us go," they
set off.
Having gone to the house, while he is [there] the above-mentioned elder
daughter having cooked and given him to eat, and unfastened the box,
while going on eating the cakes met with this letter. Taking it, and
when she looked having seen that there was said [that she was] to kill
her brother, quite without inquiry she quickly killed him outright.
There was a Bali (evil planetary influence) sending away [63] at the
house in which she was. When the woman was wishing and wishing long
life (that is, responding loudly, Ayibo! Ayibo!) the boy (her son)
said that he wanted to go out. Thereupon, speaking to her sister's
husband, she says, "Conduct this boy to the door."
When she said it, the man, calling the boy, went to the door. There the
man with his knife pricks him. Thereupon the boy in fear comes running
near his mother. After a little time, when he again said he wanted
to go out, his mother says, "Ane! Bolan, split this one's belly." [64]
When she said it, having gone taking the boy he split his belly. Having
come back he asked for a little water to wash the knife. The boy's
mother having come crying, when she looked the boy was killed.
This one bounded off, and came running to the very house of the
above-mentioned Gamarala.
The Gamarala having sent a letter to the elder daughter and told her
to come, after she came says, "Daughter, when you have gone off to
sleep we will put a rope into the house. Put that rope on that one's
neck and fasten it tightly," he said.
Having put the Gamarala's younger son-in-law, and younger daughter and
elder daughter, these very three persons, in one house, and shut the
door, and left them to sleep, he extended a rope from the cat-window
(the space between the top of the outer wall and the roof).
The elder daughter who had been taught the above-mentioned method
[of killing the son-in-law], went to sleep, and stayed so. While this
man was looking about, he saw that the rope is coming [over the wall
into the room].
Taking the rope, he put it on the elder daughter's neck and made it
tight. The Gamarala, who stayed outside, having tied the [other end of
the] rope to the necks of a yoke of buffalo bulls, made them agitated.
When the yoke of cattle had drawn the rope [tight], the Gamarala,
springing and springing upward while clapping his hands, says, "On
other days, indeed, he escaped. To-day, indeed, he is caught," he said.
Thereupon the son-in-law, having stayed in the house, came outside
and said, "It is not [done] to me; it is your elder daughter herself,"
he said.
Thereupon the Gamarala in a perplexity says, "Aniccan dukkhan! It
is the thing which this one has done!" Just as he was saying it
the son-in-law cut off his nose. Having cut it off he went to his
own country.
Because the word which cannot be said was said [by the Gamarala]
he cut off his nose.
Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province.
In The Orientalist, vol. i, p. 131, Mr. W. Goonetilleke gave a story
about a Gamarala who cut off the nose of any servant who used the
words Aniccan dukkhan. A young man took service under him in order
to avenge his brother who had been thus mutilated; but the incidents
differ from those related in the story given by me. The Gamarala was
surprised into saying the forbidden words when the man poured scalding
water over him. The servant immediately cut off his nose, ran home
with it, and kicked his brother, who was squatting at the hearth, so
that he fell with his face against the hearth stone. This reopened
the wound; and when the Gamarala's nose was fitted on and bandaged
there after application of the juice of a plant which heals cuts,
it became firmly attached, and as serviceable as the original nose.
In Indian Nights' Entertainment (Swynnerton), p. 106, there is a story
of a Moghul who engaged servants on the condition that if he or the
servant became angry the other should pull out his eye. A man who had
accepted these terms was ordered to plough six acres daily, fence it,
bring game for the table, grass for the mare, and firewood, and cook
the master's food. He lost his temper when scolded, and his eye was
plucked out. His clever brother determined to avenge him, was engaged
by the Moghul, and given the same tasks. He ploughed once round the
six acres and twelve furrows across the middle, set up a bundle of
brushwood at each corner, tied the bullocks to a tree, and went to
sleep. He played various other tricks on his master, including the
cooking of his favourite dog for his food. When the master was going
for a new wife, the servant, who was sent to notify his coming, said
his master was ill and by his doctor's orders took only common soap
made into a porridge with asafoetida and spices. He was sick in the
night after taking it, and next morning the man refused to remove the
vessel he had used. As the Moghul was carrying it out covered up with
a sheet, the friends being told by the man that he was leaving through
anger at the food they gave him, ran out and seized his arms to draw
him back, and caused him to drop and break the vessel. On their way
home they had a quarrel and a scuffle, the Moghul admitted he was angry
at last, and the man got him down and plucked out his eye. Some of the
incidents are found in the stories numbered 241 and 242 in this volume.
In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., p. 98, there is an
account of a merchant who cut off the nose of any servant who was
angry or abusive. In order to be revenged on him, the brother of
a man who had been thus mutilated took service under the merchant,
irritated him in various ways, was struck in the face, and thereupon
cut off his master's nose.
In Folktales of the Santal Parganas (collected by Rev. Dr. Bodding),
p. 124, a Prince and a merchant's son ran away, and were engaged as
labourers on the condition that if they threw up their work they should
lose one hand and one ear, the master to be similarly mutilated if he
dismissed them while they were willing to work. When the Prince was
ordered to hoe sugar-cane he dug it up, when told to scrape and spin
hemp he cut it into pieces, when sent to wash his master's child he
beat it on a stone as a washerman beats cloths until it was dead. To
get rid of him the master sent him to his father-in-law with a letter
in which it was requested that he should be killed. The Prince read
it, wrote a fresh one requesting that he should be married to the
father-in-law's daughter, and was married accordingly. He killed
his master when about to be killed by him. Some of the incidents are
given in the story numbered 242 in this volume.
In the same work, p. 258, a Prince who had wasted his money, took
service with a farmer on the terms that if he gave it up his little
finger was to be cut off, and if dismissed while working well the
master was to suffer the same penalty. His friend took his place and
over-reached the farmer, who ran away to save himself.
In the Kolhan tales (Bompas) appended to the same volume, p. 497,
there is also a story of a Prince who was accompanied by a barber
when he was exiled. To get a living the Prince took service on the
mutilation terms, the penalty being the loss of a piece of skin a
span long. He worked badly and was mutilated. The barber to avenge him
took his place, and irritated his master until he got an opportunity
of mutilating him in the same way.