How Sabai Grass Grew

: Part I.
: Folklore Of The Santal Parganas

Once upon a time there were seven brothers who had an only

sister. These brothers undertook the excavation of a large tank;

but although they spent large sums and dug very deep they could not

reach water and the tank remained dry.



One day as they were consulting what to do to get the tank to fill,

they saw a Jogi corning towards them with a lota in his hand; they at

once called to him to come and advise t
em, for they thought that,

as he spent his time wandering from country to country, he might

somewhere have learned some thing which would be of use to them. All

the Jogi said to them was "You have a sister: if you sacrifice her,

the tank will fill with water." The brothers were fond of the girl,

but in their despair at seeing their labour wasted they agreed to give

the advice of the Jogi a trial. So they told their mother the next day

that, when their sister brought them out their midday meal, she was

to be dressed in her best and carry the rice in a new basket and must

bring a new water pot to draw their water in. At midday the girl went

down to her brothers with her best cloth and all her jewellry on; and

when they saw their victim coming they could not keep from tears. She

asked them what they were grieving for; they told her that nothing was

the matter and sent her to draw water in her new water-pot from the

dry tank. Directly the girl drew near to the bank the water began to

bubble up from the bottom; and when she went down to the water's edge

it rose to her instep. She bent down to fill her pot but the pot would

not fill though the water rose higher and higher; then she sang:--





"The water has risen, brother,

And wetted my ankle, brother,

But still the lota in my hand

Will not sink below the surface."





But the water rose to her knees and the pot would not fill, and

she sang:--





"The water has risen, brother,

And wetted my knees, brother,

But still the lota in my hand

Will not sink below the surface."





Then the water rose to her waist and the pot would not fill, and

she sang:--





"The water has risen, brother,

And wetted my waist, brother,

But still the lota in my hand

Will not sink below the surface."





Then the water reached her neck and the pot would not fill; and

she sang:--





The water has risen, brother,

And wetted my neck, brother,

But still the lota in my hand

Will not sink below the surface."





At last it flowed over her head and the water-pot was filled, but the

girl was drowned. The tank however remained brimful of sparkling water.



Now the unhappy girl had been betrothed and her wedding day was just

at hand. On the day fixed the marriage broker came to announce the

approach of the bridegroom; who shortly afterwards arrived at the

outskirts of the village in his palki. The seven brothers met him,

and the usual dancing began.



The bridegroom's party however wished to know why the bride did not

appear. The brothers put them off with various excuses, saying that

the girl had gone with her friends to gather firewood or to the river

to draw water. At last the bridegroom's party got tired of waiting

and turned to go home in great wrath at the way in which they had

been treated. On their way they passed by the tank in which the girl

had been sacrificed and, growing in the middle of it, they saw a most

beautiful flower. The bridegroom at once determined to possess this,

and he told his drummers to pick it for him; but whenever one of them

tried to pick it, the flower moved out of his reach and a voice came

from the flower saying:--





"Take the flower, drummer,

But the branch you must not break."





and when they told him what the flower sang the bridegroom said that

he would try and pick it himself; no sooner had he reached the bank

than the flower of its own accord floated towards him and he pulled it

up by the roots and took it with him into the palki. After they had

gone a little way the palki bearers felt the palki strangely heavy:

and when they looked in they found the bride also sitting in it,

dressed in yellow garments; for the flower was really the girl who

had been drowned.



So they joyfully took the happy couple with drumming and music to

the bridegroom's house.



In a short time misfortune befel the seven brothers; they fell into

the deepest poverty and were forced to earn what they could by selling

leaves and sticks which they gathered in the jungle. As they went about

selling these, they one day came to the village where their sister

was living and as they cried their wares through the streets they were

told to go to the house where the marriage had taken place. They went

there, and as they were selling their leaf plates their sister saw

and recognised them; they had only ragged loincloths on, and their

skins were black and cracked like a crocodile's.



At the sight their sister began to cry. Her friends asked what was

the matter and she said a straw from the thatch had run into her eye,

so they pulled down some of the thatch; she still went on crying and

they again asked what was wrong; she said that she had knocked her

foot against a stone in the ground; so they dug up the stone and threw

it away. But she still went on weeping and at last confessed that the

miserable-looking leaf-sellers were her brothers. Then her husband's

parents told her to be comforted, and they gave the brothers oil and

bade them go and bathe and oil their bodies: but the brothers were

so hungry that when they got to the bathing place they drank the oil

and ate the oil cake that had been given to them; and came back with

their skins as rough as when they went. So then they were given more

oil and some of the household went with them and made them bathe and

oil themselves properly and then brought them to the house and gave

them new clothes and made them a feast of meat and rice. According to

the custom of the country they were made to sit down in order of age

and were helped in that order; when they had all been helped and had

eaten, their sister said to them "Now brothers you come running to

me for food, and yet you sacrificed me in the tank." Then they were

overwhelmed with shame: they looked up at the sky but there was no

escape there; they looked down at the earth; and the earth split open

and they all ran into the chasm. The sister tried to catch the youngest

brother by the hair and pull him out, calling "Come back, brother,

come back brother, you shall carry my baby about for me!" but his

hair came off in her hand and the earth swallowed them all up. Their

sister planted the hair in a corner of the garden and it is said that

from that human hair, sabai grass originated.



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