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TALES
OF THE PUNJAB
TOLD BY THE PEOPLE
BY
FLORA ANNIE STEEL
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
BY J. LOCKWOOD KIPLING, C. I. E.
AND
NOTES BY R. C. TEMPLE
London
MACMILLAN AND CO.
AND NEW YORK
1894
MANY
of the tales in this collection appeared either in the Indian Antiquary,
the Calcutta Review, or the Legends of the Punjab. They were then
in the form of literal translations, in many cases uncouth or even
unpresentable to ears polite, in all scarcely intelligible to the untravelled
English reader; for it must be remembered that, with the exception of the
Adventures of Raja Rasâlu, all these stories are strictly folk-tales
passing current among a people who can neither read nor write, and whose
diction is full of colloquialisms, and, if we choose to call them so,
vulgarisms. It would be manifestly unfair, for instance, to compare the
literary standard of such tales with that of the Arabian Nights, the Tales
of a Parrot, or similar works. The manner in which these stories were
collected is in itself sufficient to show how misleading it would be, if, with
the intention of giving the conventional Eastern flavour to the text, it were
to be manipulated into a flowery dignity; and as a description of the procedure
will serve the double purpose of credential and excuse, the authors give
it,–premising that all the stories but three have been collected by Mrs. F. A.
Steel during winter tours through the various districts of which her husband
has been Chief Magistrate.
A
carpet is spread under a tree in the vicinity of the spot which the Magistrate
has chosen for his darbâr, but far enough away from bureaucracy to
let the village idlers approach it should they feel so inclined. In a very few
minutes, as a rule, some of them begin to edge up to it, and as they are
generally small boys, they commence nudging each other, whispering, and
sniggering. The fancied approach of a chuprâsî, the 'corrupt
lictor' of India, who attends at every darbâr, will however cause
a sudden stampede; but after a time these become less and less frequent, the
wild beasts, as it were, becoming tamer. By and by a group of women stop to
gaze, and then the question 'What do you want?' invariably brings the answer
'To see your honour' (âp ke darshanâe). Once the ice is broken,
the only difficulties are, first, to understand your visitors, and secondly, to
get them to go away. When the general conversation is fairly started, inquiries
are made by degrees as to how many witches there are in the village, or what
cures they know for fever and the evil eye, etc. At first these are met by
denials expressed in set terms, but a little patient talk will generally lead
to some remarks which point the villagers' minds in the direction required,
till at last, after many persuasions, some child begins a story, others correct
the details, emulation conquers shyness, and finally the story-teller is
brought to the front with acclamations: for there is always a story-teller par
excellence in every village–generally a boy.
Then
comes the need for patience, since in all probability the first story is one
you have heard a hundred times, or else some pointless and disconnected jumble.
At the conclusion of either, however, the teller must be profusely
complimented, in the hopes of eliciting something more valuable. But it is
possible to waste many hours, and in the end find yourself possessed of nothing
save some feeble variant of a well-known legend, or, what is worse, a
compilation of oddments which have lingered in a faulty memory from half a
dozen distinct stories. After a time, however, the attentive collector is
rewarded by finding that a coherent whole is growing up in his or her mind out
of the shreds and patches heard here and there, and it is delight indeed when
your own dim suspicion that this part of the puzzle fits into that is confirmed
by finding the two incidents preserved side by side in the mouth of some
perfectly unconscious witness. Some of the tales in this volume have thus been
a year or more on the stocks before they had been heard sufficiently often to
make their form conclusive.
And
this accounts for what may be called the greater literary sequence of these
tales over those to be found in many similar collections. They have been
selected carefully with the object of securing a good story in what appears to
be its best form; but they have not been doctored in any way, not even in the
language. That is neither a transliteration–which would have needed a whole
dictionary to be intelligible–nor a version orientalised to suit English
tastes. It is an attempt to translate one colloquialism by another, and thus to
preserve the aroma of rough ready wit existing side by side with that perfume
of pure poesy which every now and again contrasts so strangely with the other.
Nothing would have been easier than to alter the style; but to do so would, in
the collector's opinion, have robbed the stories of all human value.
That
such has been the deliberate choice may be seen at a glance through the only
story which has a different origin. The Adventures of Raja Rasâlu was
translated from the rough manuscript of a village accountant; and, being
current in a more or less classical form, it approaches more nearly to the
conventional standards of an Indian tale.
The
work has been apportioned between the authors in this way. Mrs. F. A. Steel is
responsible for the text, and Major R. C. Temple for the annotations and the
appendices on Analysis and Survey of Incidents. The latter conforms strictly to
the method adopted by the Folklore Society and is intended to form part of
their scheme of investigations into the general machinery of folk-tales.
It
is therefore hoped that the form of the book may fulfil the double intention
with which it was written; namely, that the text should interest children, and
at the same time the notes should render it valuable to those who study
Folklore on its scientific side.
F.
A. STEEL.
R
C. TEMPLE.
WOULD
you like to know how these stories are told? Come with me, and you shall see.
There! take my hand and do not be afraid, for Prince Hassan's carpet is beneath
your feet. So now!–'Hey presto! Abracadabra!' Here we are in a Punjabi village.
* * * * *
It
is sunset. Over the limitless plain, vast and unbroken as the heaven above, the
hot cloudless sky cools slowly into shadow. The men leave their labour amid the
fields, which, like an oasis in the desert, surround the mud-built village,
and, plough on shoulder, drive their bullocks homewards. The women set aside
their spinning-wheels, and prepare the simple evening meal. The little girls
troop, basket on head, from the outskirts of the village, where all day long
they have been at work, kneading, drying, and stacking the fuel-cakes so
necessary in that woodless country. The boys, half hidden in clouds of dust,
drive the herds of gaunt cattle and ponderous buffaloes to the thorn-hedged
yards. The day is over,–the day which has been so hard and toilful even for the
children,–and with the night comes rest and play. The village, so deserted before,
is alive with voices; the elders cluster round the courtyard doors, the little
ones whoop through the narrow alleys. But as the short-lived Indian twilight
dies into darkness, the voices one by one are hushed, and as the stars come out
the children disappear. But not to sleep: it is too hot, for the sun which has
beaten so fiercely all day on the mud walls, and floors, and roofs, has left a
legacy of warmth behind it, and not till midnight will the cool breeze spring
up, bringing with it refreshment and repose. How then are the long dark hours
to be passed? In all the village not a lamp or candle is to be found; the only
light–and that too used but sparingly and of necessity–being the dim smoky
flame of an oil-fed wick. Yet, in spite of this, the hours, though dark, are
not dreary, for this, in an Indian village, is story-telling time; not
only from choice, but from obedience to the well-known precept which forbids
such idle amusement between sunrise and sunset. Ask little Kaniyâ,
yonder, why it is that he, the best story-teller in the village, never opens
his lips till after sunset, and he will grin from ear to ear, and with a flash
of dark eyes and white teeth, answer that travellers lose their way when idle
boys and girls tell tales by daylight. . And Narainî, the herd-girl, will
hang her head and cover her dusky face with her rag of a veil, if you put the
question to her; or little Râm Jas shake his bald shaven poll in denial;
but not one of the dark-skinned, bare-limbed village children will yield to
your request for a story.
No,
no!–from sunrise to sunset, when even the little ones must labour, not a word;
but from sunset to sunrise, when no man can work, the tongues chatter glibly
enough, for that is story-telling time. Then, after the scanty meal is over,
the bairns drag their wooden-legged, string-woven bedsteads into the open, and
settle themselves down like young birds in a nest, three or four to a bed,
while others coil up on mats upon the ground, and some, stealing in for an hour
from distant alleys, beg a place here or there.
The
stars twinkle overhead, the mosquito sings through the hot air, the village
dogs bark at imaginary foes, and from one crowded nest after another rises a
childish voice telling some tale, old yet ever new,–tales that were told in the
sunrise of the world, and will be told in its sunset. The little audience
listens, dozes, dreams, and still the wily Jackal meets his match, or
Bopolûchî brave and bold returns rich and victorious from the
robber's den. Hark!–that is Kaniyâ's voice, and there is an expectant
stir amongst the drowsy listeners as he begins the old old formula–'Once upon a
time–'