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AUGUST, 1921)
FOLK-TALES OF THE CAR NICOBARESE
237
So that island-it is called the "Little One"-remains there, and serves as a guide-post to us when we go in our canoes to Chowra.
VI.-ON THE ORIGIN OF BATS. Long long ago, when there were still no bats in this land, a ship came here from some foreign country or other. It sailed straight for Arong 14 and there it was wrecked, on account of the stormy seas and high winds. The ship was cast up on the sands, and broken in pieces by the waves.
All the poor foreigners suffered greatly, and only a few of them were able to swim to the shore of our land. These went inland and struck the "forbidden" land16 in their search for food.
They were Coringhees, 16 and their clothing was all tattered and torn. They were amusing themselves by gwinging on the boughs of trees and hanging down from the branches by their arms, when they were all turned into bats. Big people were turned into the big variety of bat (the flying-fox); people not so big as they into the medium sized bat; and small children into the small variety of bat; and they still hang down by their arms from the branches of the trees. There were no bats here before that.
VII.-ON THE ORIGIN OF SHARKS. Once upon a time, in the olden days, there were some very wicked people who used to live between Tamalu and Pöökö, 17 at a place which does not exist now, but was then called Tardlö. Those people were barbarous savages and used to bewitch folk.
So the other people rose up against them, and slew a number of them; and the remnant fled to our side of the island to a place then named Chačkvök, which is not far from Tittop:18 and there they built houses for themselves. These savages thought nothing of killing a person ; they would often kill a stranger on sight.
Now it happened that two children were going to el-pannam, 19 and the elder was carrying his young brother on his shoulders. They did not notice that there was a man coming up behind them with a sharp spear in his hand:
That man hurried up stealthily and stabbed the little fellow in the rump; whereupon he cried out, “Oh! I am hurt."
So the elder brother said to the stranger," Please do not tease the little man and make him wriggle about, for he will be falling down." He did not know that his brother had been stabbed behind. He thought the man was merely tickling the child ; but he had stabbed him.
Again the man stabbed the child, this time under the armpit ; and the blood gushed out, and the child fell down dead.
Then, at last, the elder brother realised that the child had been stabbed; and he ran off as fast as he could, leaving the dead child, for he was afraid of those people, and he told his parents what had happened.
14 A village on the west coast of Car Nicobar. 15 The land of spirits and devils.
16 [Karingas, i.o., Kalingas, Klings, from the northern part of the Madras coast. See ante, vol. XXX, p. 350.-R.C.T.].
17 Two small villages on the east coast of Car Nicobar. 18 A hamlet on the north coast of the island. 10 The annexe to the villago where the public kuildings and cemetery are.
