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238
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
(AUGUST, 1921
So the people held a council, and decided to slaughter all those savages. They attacked them, and most of them were killed ; but some swam out into the deep sea and were turned into a very voracious kind of shark. So these sharks will always eat human beings, if they can get at them, in the sea.
VIII.-THE CRUEL MOTHER. Once upon a time there was a man and his wife who had three children. One day the man wanted to go to spear fish; and he spoke to his wife and said, "Tell the children to be on the lookout for my coming back and to gather cocoanut shells for firing to roast the fish that I hope to catch."
So she bade the children do what her husband had said ; and they collected the cocoanut shells, carrying them in their arms.
The woman then took a razor and rubbed it and made it sharp. After that she told the children to make a fire ; and when they had made the fire, she called her eldest son to come to her, saying, "Come, and I will shave your head."
He did not know that his mother wanted to cut off his head; so he came and she began to shave his head, when, gash ! and she had out his head off.
She next called the second son and did the same to him : and then she threw their heads into the fire and burnt them.
After that, she called her youngest child, but he answered, "No ! No! I am not coming, for you will do to me as you have done to my two brothers." 20
Then said the mother, "No, I would not like you to fare like them, for you are the one that bites up and partially chews the betel-nut for me. You are my favourite child." But she was only enticing the child to come to her, and then she cut off his head too.
When the father came back, he said to his wife, "Where are the children?" "I don't know," she said, "Perhaps they are playing among the ta-choi bushes." The father called the children, but there was no answer.
Again he said to his wife, “Where are the children ?" She replied, "Perhaps they have gone to fetch water; I do not know. Perhaps they are hiding behind the boxes." The man did not find his children.
Now her husband was hungry; so the woman told him to get his food out of the basket that was hung up (as usual) near the fireplace. So he had his breakfast.
When he had finished eating, his wife said to him, "Well! it is the palms of your children's hands that you have been eating ;" and she uttered the cry of the sea-eagle,, "Auk! Auk ! Auk!” and flew away as an eagle. The man leaned back against the walls of his house and wept, and beat his head against the wall. He was turned into an owl, and never veases to bewail his sorrows. His wife was turned into a sea-eagle, and she never ceases catching fish.
IX.-WHEN THE WORLD WAS YOUNG.
THE STORY OF TÖT-TA-BONG. Long ago, in the days of yore, there was a man, Tot-ta-rong by name, who was violently in love with a beautiful damsel, and anxious by all means to get her for his wife. Time after time he would come to her to speak with her and to urge his request; but the girl simply did not care in the least for Tot-ta-rong.
20 Literally, "companions."
