Origins Stories and Relationships in “The Khasi Folktales”
The primary common thread that I saw in the second half of stories in the
Khasi folktales was the emphasis on origin stories. These origin stories range
from tales about why the universe is a certain way to why certain animals have
come to be domesticated creatures of man. As with many other folktales, these
stories have a lot of talking animals in the stories. The relationships between
men, the gods, and the animals are very well-developed and dynamic, and often
serve as the driving force behind many of the tales’ origin stories.
“What Makes the Lightning” is a good example of a cosmological origin
story. This tale ultimately serves to explain how lightning and thunder came
into existence. As the narrative goes, a thunder giant named U Pyrthat summons
together the animals to a big festival of music and dancing. The prideful lynx
U Kui shows up with a beautiful sword and dazzles people with is dance, and
then the giant asks the cat to borrow the sword for a bit. After being shamed
for initially refusing, U Kui hands over his weapon and U Pyrthat proceeds to
dance as he drums and flashes the sword around. He eventually jumps into the sky,
and the flashes of the sword and beat of the drums become what we know as
lightning and thunder. This tale is interesting in how it portrays the society of
animals as very honor-based, as seen in how the animals consider U Kui’s
reluctance to give the party’s host his sword as a shameful act. It seems to me
that part of the author’s intention with this story was to portray proper behavior
for an individual in a society. Although it’s possible that the giant aimed to
steal U Kui’s sword the entire time, we can possibly lay part of the blame of
the lynx’s being cheated on his own shoulders, for U Kui proved himself to be
very prideful and selfish in the story. Thus the creation of thunder and
lightning can be seen as a partial result of the lynx’s acting improperly
within society.
This same idea of how acting indecently can lead to drastic changes in
the universe is shared in “What Caused Shadows on the Moon.” This story
concerns itself primarily with the deity U Bnai, who happens to be the moon
itself. After spending some time cavorting in the nether regions with all
manner of lower creatures, U Bnai returns to his fellow gods and goddesses and
decides that the only woman in the universe worthy of being his bride is his
own sister Ka Sngi, the sun. He asks for her hand, and when Ka Sngi hears of U
Bnai’s proposal, she grows so angry that she throws hot ashes in his face. The
scars left behind on U Bnai’s once beautiful face are the dark shadows we see
on the moon. As with the lightning origin story, this narrative focuses on
relationships and how unwise actions in a relationship can lead to extremely
drastic cosmological changes.
Not all the stories focus just on how the universe came to look and
operate the way it does now. Many of the Khasi folktales also explain how
certain animals came to live alongside humans. It almost all the stories that
concern themselves with this topic, the animals that end up living with man are
driven there by desperation as a result of having made some mistake in a
relationship they had with the other animals. In “How the Cat Came to Live withMan,” the cat Ka Miaw runs away to the realm of man after having offended his
brother and king the tiger. The goat goes to man because he is in danger of
being hunted to extinction by the tiger. The ox’s story differs a little in
that he was forced to become the servant of man because of a fall out he had
with the Khasi god.
The world portrayed in the Khasi folktales is a relationship-based world.
Although differing slightly in scale, the animal stories and the cosmological
origin stories both show how dynamic shifts in the world occur when an
individual fails to fully honor his or her relationship duties. Erratic actions
that defy societal expectations result in far-reaching consequences. Looked at
in this way, the stories can be seen as cautionary tales showing the importance
of relationships and how one should never underestimate the possible impact of
failing to properly live in a harmonious way with others.
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| Khasi man in traditional dress (Wikipedia Commons) Author: rajkumar1220 (2009) |
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