The Leap Of Ka Likai

: Folk-tales Of The Khasis

"The Leap of Ka Likai" is the name given to a beautiful waterfall on

the Khasi Hills, a few miles to the west of Cherrapoonjee, which, at

certain points, is visible from great distances, while the roar and

the echoes of its waters are to be heard for miles. The view is one

of exceptional beauty, and many visitors are attracted to see it. The

clear chattering stream is seen emerging from its wild mountain home,

dashing ver the high precipice into the shadows of a deep gorge,

flinging upwards, as it falls, clouds of tremulous spray, which wreathe

and coil around majestic rocks, creating countless small rainbows which

dance and quiver in a maze of palms and ferns and blossoming shrubs.



The place is so remote and so still, as if every sound had been

awed into a hush, except the thunderous boom of the torrent with its

distant echoes moaning and shrieking like a spirit in anguish, that

the whole locality seems weird and uncanny, suggestive of terrible

possibilities. This, probably, accounts for the gruesome tradition

amongst the Khasis which has been associated with this waterfall from

time immemorial. It runs as follows:



Once upon a time there lived a young married woman called Ka Likai,

in the village of Rangjirteh, on the hill above the Falls. She and her

husband lived very happily together and rejoiced in the possession of

a baby girl of great beauty. The young husband died when the child

was still a babe, and from that time Ka Likai's whole heart became

wrapped up in the child.



She found it very hard to earn enough money to maintain them both,

so she was persuaded to marry again, thinking to have her own burden

lightened, and to obtain more comforts for her child.



The new husband was a selfish and a somewhat brutal man; he was

exceedingly jealous of his little step-daughter, because his wife paid

her so much attention, and when he found that he had been accepted

as a husband by Ka Likai merely for the benefit of the child, he

was so mortified that he grew to hate her and determined to do her

some mischief.



He became sulky in the home and refused to go out to work, but he

forced his wife to go every day, and during her absence he bullied and

ill-treated the child. One day Ka Likai had to go on a long journey

to carry iron ore, and this gave the cruel stepfather the opportunity

he sought to carry out his evil purpose, and he killed the child. So

depraved had he become and so demoniacal was his hatred, that he

determined to inflict even a worse horror upon his wife; he took

portions of the body and cooked them against the mother's return,

and waited in silence for her coming.



When Ka Likai reached her home in the evening, she was surprised

to find her husband in a seemingly kinder mood than he had shown

for a long time, having cooked her supper and set it ready for her,

with unusual consideration. She noticed the absence of the child,

and immediately asked where she was, but the man's plausible answer

that she had just gone out to play dispelled every misgiving, and

she sat down to eat without a suspicion of evil.



After finishing her supper, she drew forward the betel-nut basket to

prepare betel and pan to chew, according to custom after a meal. It

happened that one of the hands of the murdered girl had been left

by the stepfather in this basket, and the mother at once saw and

recognised it. She wildly demanded the meaning of the awful discovery,

whereupon the man confessed his crime, and also told her how she

herself had eaten of the flesh of her own child.



The terrible and overwhelming revelation took away the mother's

reason. She rose distractedly, and, running to the edge of the

precipice, threw herself into the abyss. Ever since then the Falls

have been called "The Leap of Ka Likai," and the doleful moans of

their echoes are said to be the echoes of Ka Likai's anguished cries.



To this day, when widows with children are contemplating second

marriages, they are cautioned to be careful and to use judgement,

with the warning, "Remember Ka Likai."