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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[ OCTOBER, 1921
Another time there was a wild-pig hunt, and many were following the baying of their hounds. Now Ot-nya-bum-ku happened to be the only man who had a dah with him (the others having taken spears or bows and arrows). So it fell to him to clear the way where the jungle was dense and difficult. But no sooner had he chopped through a bough and passed on, than the lopped-off bough joined itself on again to the tree. So the others could not get along; there was no way for them to go; whilst he got on a long way ahead. After a bit, the others gave it up and went home; and he was left alone to get all the profits of their chase.
After a while, he got ill and died; and his body was hung up in a tree ; but after some days he came to life again.32
Again, in his old age, he died; but before his death he said to those around him, "When I am dead this time, bury me; but I shall only remain dead three days. So look out for the hole down through the ground to where I lie, and dig me up. If you do so, I shall live on ; but if you do not hearken to what I say, I shall die outright and return no more."
But the people were unwilling to dig him up, for they were overpowered by the stench; 80 the magician at last died outright.
XV THE WICKED SABBATH-BREAKER.
(Literally, "The man who was disobedient on the day of rest".) There was once a man who paid no attention to the restrictions of the "rest-days ;" but went into the jungle on "a rest-day."
The whole night long people had been making "devil-scarers." 33 They had also been singing the ma-a-fai songs and dancing the ma-a-fai dances, and spearing "devila." Then, in the morning of the following day, the evil spirits which had been caught by the witob-doctors (tö-mi-lūö-nö) were sent away over the waters on a raft; and the people "rested" the whole day.
Now this man had some plantains in his garden in the jungle. and one bunch was getting ripe, and he was anxious to see how it was going on. So he stole pff privately to look at them; for he wished to cut them down. When he reached the place, he got over the fence into the garden, and chopped down the plantains; but no sooner had he done this, than he was metamorphosed into a road, at the very place where he had out down the plantains.
Now he was one of those who had been putting up the "de vil-scarers" and dancing the ma-a-far4 dances during the night; so his face had been daubed (as usual with such worshippers) with red paint; and in consequence of his face having daubs of red paint on it, the road into which he was turned had also streaks or patches of red in it.
His comrades sought for him for many a day, but could not find him, for he was now no longer a man but a road, because he could not resist the temptation to eat plantains whenever he found any red and ripe ones. And that road too is red, because when he was still a man, he had had his face daubed with red paint.
32 Tree burial is no longer practised in Car Nicobar, though the customs of the inhabitants of the islands of Chowra and Teressa are much the same as tree-burials, the bodies being loft in the jungle in the half of a canoo which has been sewn in two.
* These in Car Nicobar are merely bamboos decked with bunches of leaves, and then erected, though in Nankauri carved figures of crocodiles, etc., are made for this purpose.
* The ma-a-fai are the novices for the witch doctorate, and the songs and dances, in which they must partake every night for the year of their novitiate, do not differ widely from the secular songs and dances.
