Some features of Thadou folktales
- Part 2 -

By:- M S Thirumalai *

7. History of the pre-literate (tribal) communities

In preliterate societies, like the ones we find among the members of the Tibeto-Burman sub-family in our Himalayan regions, we have to depend almost entirely on the folklore materials for an understanding of the history of these communities.

Many of the incidents or episodes narrated in the folk tales that purport to give the history of the tribes concerned, may be at least partially fictitious or imaginary. However, some "facts", structural or otherwise, can be sifted and compared profitably with "facts" from the folk tales of other neighboring and related communities.

In Thadou Kuki, there are two tales that describe the origin and the spread of Thadous. The first tale involves partially fictitious or imaginary events, whereas the second one gives the genealogical tree of the Thadou tribes.

Thus, the first tale describes the life of a community under the earth /xúl/ from where a group of persons emigrated to the surface of the earth after a quarrel with their relatives under the ground over some ritual matters. The persons who emigrated to the surface of the earth are listed and today there are separate tribes or clans after their names.

The second folktale is about the origin, multiplication and establishment of a tribe named after Milun (=Mr.) Thadou. Milun Thadou was not one among the persons who emigrated to the surface of the earth. In fact, he was not at all born at this time. He is a descendant of one of the persons who emerged on the surface of the earth. Because of his valor and heroic deeds, the tribe adopted his name for itself and a genealogical tree is drawn with Milun Thadou as the progenitor.

However, most of the relationship between the progeny of Mr. Thadou and the descendants of the persons who emigrated to the surface of the earth are still preserved and maintained in the customs and manners such as the distribution of the meat of the hunted animals. Thus a collection of folktales like these will help us to identify the closely related tribes and chalk out the linguistic classification of the tribes involved.

8. Folktales in aid of explaining the situation: Psychology or reasoning

Another interesting aspect, which the folklore materials can help us to understand, is about the psychology or reasoning of the community concerned. For example, the Thadous had contacts with various communities, especially the Meitheis in the plains, who possessed an ancient script of their own. This might have induced the Thadous to explain away the absence of a script of their own. Thus, a folktale says that God once gave scripts to the Thadous, Nagas, and the Meitheis on leather scrolls.

Being careless or carefree by nature, the Thadous slept on the ground with the leather scrolls on their backs. While they were sleeping, the enterprising white ants (termites) ate the scrolls completely. The Nagas, being always hungry, ate the scrolls completely.

But the Meitheis, being frugal and miserly, according to this Thadou folktale, removed the scrolls from their sacks and preserved them very carefully. That is why the Thadous and Nagas do not have the scripts of their own whereas Meitheis do! (Christian missionaries helped develop a script system for Thadou using the Roman script, in the beginning of the twentieth century.)

Apart from explaining away the absence of a native script for the Thadou language, this folktale reveals the subjective observation or attitude of Thadous towards the adjoining communities that are distinct or different from their own in many aspects.

9. Attitude toward neighboring communities

The attitudes of Thadous towards neighboring and related language communities are also revealed through folktales and proverbs. These stories offer a taste of the pre-literate community's cynicism or rivalry. For example, a folktale, again from the Thadou Kuki, may be mentioned here.

The folk etymological genius of Thadous has resulted in a folktale which purports to explain why a well-developed large pre-literate (tribal) community among the Kuki-Chin preliterate communities is given the name they have now.

The Thadou folk etymologist plays with the syllables of the name of this community to poke fun at it, in a disparaging manner. This may be considered tribal cynicism or tribal rivalry or something of that sort! Like this tale there are quite a few proverbs in Thadou that would ridicule or praise the related and neighboring tribes for their alleged behavior.

Though much of these may not be of use for bringing communities together on a friendly footing, there are several others that can be profitably used for a better understanding of these communities either from the linguistic or from the non-linguistic point of view!

(Concluded).....