The Stingy Daughter
: Part I.: Folklore Of The Santal Parganas
Once a man went to visit his married daughter: he intended to arrive
in time for dinner; so though he passed some edible herbs on the way
he did not stop to eat them.
When he arrived he was duly welcomed and after some conversation he
told his daughter that he must return the same day; she said "All
right, but wait till it gets hot." (The father understood this to be
a metaphorical way of saying "Wait til
the daughter was determined not to cook the rice while her father was
there: so they sat talking and when the sun was high the daughter
went into the yard and felt the ground with her foot and finding
it scorching she said "Now father, it is time for you to be going:
it has got hot" Then the old man understood that she was not going
to give him his dinner. So he took his stick and got up to go.
Now the son-in-law was a great hunter and that day he had killed
and brought home a peacock; as he was leaving, the father said "My
daughter, if your husband ever brings home a peacock I advise you
to cook it with mowah oil cake; that makes it taste very nice." So
directly her father had gone, the woman set to work and cooked
the peacock with mowah oil cake; but when her husband and children
began to eat it they found it horribly bitter and she herself tasted
it and found it uneatable; then she told them that her father had
made fun of her and made her spoil all the meat. Her husband asked
whether she had cooked rice for her father; and when she said "No"
he said that this was the way in which he had punished her; he had
had nothing to eat and so he had prevented their having any either;
she should entertain all visitors and especially her father. So they
threw away the meat and had no dinner.
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