The Beginning Of Things

: Part V.
: Folklore Of The Santal Parganas

In the days of old, Thakur Baba had made everything very convenient for

mankind and it was by our own fault that we made Thakur Baba angry so

that he swore that we must spend labour in making things ready for use.



This is the story that I have heard.



When the Santals lived in Champa and the Kiskus were their kings, the

Santals were very simple and religious and only worshipped Thakur. In

tho e days the rice grew ready husked, and the cotton bushes bore

cloth all ready woven and men did not have to pick the lice out of

each others' hair; men's skulls grew loose and each man could lift

off his own skull and clean it and then replace it. But all this was

spoilt by the misdeeds of a serving girl of one of the Rajas. When

she went into the field for purposes of nature she would at the same

time pick and eat the rice that grew by her; and when she had made

her hands dirty cleaning out a cow house she would wipe them on the

cloth which she was wearing. Angered by these dirty habits Thakur Baba

deprived men of the benefits which he had conferred upon them and the

rice began to grow in a husk and the cotton plants only produced raw

cotton and men's skulls became fixed so that they could not be removed.



In those old days too the sky was quite close to the earth and Thakur

Baba used to come and visit men in their houses. So it was a saying

among our forefathers "Do, not throw your dirty leaf plates near the

front or back door and do not let your brass plates and dishes remain

unwashed at night; for if Thakur Baba come along and see them so, he

will not come into the house but will be angry and curse us." But one

day a woman after finishing her meal threw the used leaf plate out of

the door, and a gust of wind carried it up to the sky; this displeased

Thakur Baba and he resolved no longer to dwell in the neighbourhood of

men as they were so ill-mannered as to throw their dirty leaf plates

at him and so he lifted the sky to its present height above the earth.



To this day men who have heard of this scold those who throw their

refuse into the street and bid them heap it up in some out-of-the-way

place.



The misdeeds of men at length made Thakur Baba so angry that he

resolved to destroy them all. Now Thakur Baba is Sing Chando or

the Sun, and the Moon is his wife: and at first there were as many

stars by day as there are by night and they were all the children of

the Sun and Moon who had divided them between them. So Sing Chando

having resolved to destroy mankind blazed with a fierce heat till man

and beast writhed under the torture of it. But when the Moon looked

down and saw their sufferings she was filled with pity and thought

how desolate the earth would be without a living being on it. So she

hastened to Sing Chando and prayed him not to desolate the earth; but

for all her beseeching the utmost that she could obtain was a promise

from her Lord that he would spare one or two human beings to be the

seed of a future race. So Sing Chando chose out a young man and a young

woman and bade them go into a cave in a hill side and close the mouth

of the cave with a raw hide and when they were safely inside he rained

fire from heaven and killed every other living being on the earth.



Five days and five nights it rained fire and the man and woman in

the cave sang--(to the Baha tune)





"Five days and five nights the fire will rain, ho!

Five days and five nights, all night long, ho!

Where will you two human beings stay?

Where will you two take shelter?

There is a hide, a hide:

There is also a hill:

There is also a cave in the rock!

There will we two stay:

There will we two take shelter."





When they came out of the cave the first thing they saw was a cow lying

burnt to death with a karke tree fallen on the top of it and near

it was lying a buffalo cow burnt to death; at the sight they sang:--





"The cow is glowing cinders, glowing cinders:

The karke tree is burnt:

The buffalo cow has fallen and has been burnt

to ashes, to ashes."





And as they went on, they sang a similar lament over the remains of

each living being as they saw it.



Although these two had been spared to raise up a new race, Ninda

Chando, the Moon, feared that the Sun would again get angry with the

new race and destroy it; and so she made a plan to trick him. She

covered up all her children with a large basket and smeared her mouth

and lips with red and going to Sing Chando told him that she had eaten

up every one of her children and proposed that he should now eat up

his. At first Sing Chando declined to believe her but she pointed to

her lips and said that they were red with the blood of the children;

so Sing Chando was convinced and agreed to eat up his children except

two whom he would keep to play with. So they devoured all but two

and the two that were saved are the morning and evening stars.



Thus Sing Chando was deprived of the power to again burn up the earth;

but when that night Ninda Chando let out her own children from under

the basket she warned them to beware of the wrath of their father when

he found out the trick that had been played him. When Sing Chando

saw Ninda Chando's children still alive he flew to her in a passion

and the children at the sight of him scattered in all directions and

that is why the stars are now spread all over the sky; at first they

were all in one place. Although the stars escaped, Sing Chando could

not restrain his wrath and cut Ninda Chando in two and that is why

the Moon waxes and wanes; at first she was always full like the sun.



Some men say that the man and woman whom Thakur hid in the cave were

Pilchu Haram and Pilchu Budhi and they had twelve sons and twelve

daughters and mankind is descended from them and has increased

and filled the earth; and that it was in that country that we were

divided into twelve different races according to the food which our

progenitors chose at a feast.