Legends of Pensam

by Mamang Dai

  Surrender is a kind of peace. The men of the village closed their eyes and recalled the symbols of peace: a broken arrow, a bent sword; the penitence of men who cut their bowstrings and threw down their spears to the ground.

  When daylight disappeared the headman of the village called his people and they stood in a group before him. It was a sad instruction he had to tell them. Every day, from today, they would stand in line and pass stones forward, from one hand to another, until they had raised a tall cairn to the memory of the white sahib who had been killed. Soldiers pointed with guns and the villagers assembled every day to mark the exact spot where the incident had taken place on the slope above the longhouse. A stone tablet with letters was placed on the stones, and for the first time the villagers heard the cry of bugles as the strangers presented arms and honoured the dead.

  The killing happened here, but the killers were from another village. But they were of our tribe. Yes, perhaps the white man was a good man; perhaps he would have been welcome in the village. But destiny was written long before he came to these hills, just as destiny was written for the man who struck the first blow. He was captured and taken away in chains to the island prison across the black waters.

  Two men. Like an exchange of souls, one was surrounded by the brooding mountains, and the other by the restless sea.

  It is almost dawn. And the dancers are still swaying to the words of the last invocation that claims all their attention:

  In a house by the river a man and a woman awoke with the dawn breeze. Every day they had lain together and lived within old walls, shielded by the movement of big events that nurtured their strange love. Now time was running out, slipping away through their locked hands, escaping with the breath from their pressed lips and the light from their eyes.

  The man had come to map the wilderness and trace the source of a river. He was a political agent on a survey mission, and all he had discovered was that the river was a woman and that his soul was now forever drowned in the jade heart of water.

  What would come of this meeting? What exchange could be made? Lines would be traced on paper. A new picture would appear. Words would be written. A story would come to life in song and shining ink. But no one would ever know the other words, the secret whispers, tender, intense, spoken at first light.

  The price of adultery was a bamboo stake through the heart. But the lovers had tasted everything already; the thrill of union, the pain of separation, and the unforgettable entanglement of the senses that was like a memory of dying.

  The dancers sigh and wipe their eyes. The fire burns brightly and the shaman is a shadow man leaping up larger than life. He has sung of the beginning of the world; of the sword of five metals that ignited the bonfire of the villages. He has sung the story of his brother, the one who killed a man and became a martyr; the story of the hawk woman who defied a community to live in a house by the river. These are the stories, rhapsodies of time and destiny, that he must guard.

  In the end, all we have is remembrance. The sword rattles and the dancers sing in chorus. They have travelled so far, like a line of devotees following the path of a sacred song across the ancient valley. It is a language that never ceases, and they sing because the hills are old, older than all sin and desolation and man’s fascination with blood. The journey is almost over now. They are returning like a silent flight of birds. The shaman cries out. The beads in his hair glisten: the beads of the snakes; the beads of the woodpecker; the beads of the first man and woman. From the beginning of time, one by one the beads were crafted!

  Later, the old headman said to us, ‘They think we are a village of horror, but it is not true! The leaves of the orange trees glisten. The hills are radiant with the light of the sun. The laughing children tramp to school down the same steps of stony earth that the soldiers marched up. These days many visitors are finding their way here and you can hear their voices asking the way, the curious migluns shielding their eyes and asking for help to enter the maze of stories that the miri remembers and restores to life…We are not a village of shame.’

  When it was time for the miri, the great shaman, to depart, the dancers put aside everything that they were doing and gathered to see him off. They had been together for so many days and nights, travelling the road, guarding memory, and some of the younger dancers wept to see him go. Before he left, the shaman showed Jules and Mona the beads in his hair and explained that these would be removed by his wife when he reached home. It is believed the beads of the dumling accompany every shaman in his travels during the long dance and protect him from a misstep and from faltering in the narration.

  Before he left, the shaman chanted a last spiritual verse in honour of the visitors. ‘So that they will understand our dance and why it is important to remember,’ he said to me. We sat before him to listen.

  In the beginning, there was only Keyum. Nothingness. It was neither darkness nor light, nor had it any colour, shape or movement. Keyum is the remote past, way beyond the reach of our senses. It is the place of ancient things from where no answer is received. Out of this place of great stillness, the first flicker of thought began to shine like a light in the soul of man. It became a shimmering trail, took shape and expanded and became the Pathway. Out of this nebulous zone, a spark was born that was the light of imagination. The spark grew into a shining stream that was the consciousness of man, and from this all the stories of the world and all its creatures came into being.

  ‘We are not here without a purpose,’ the shaman explained. ‘Our purpose is to fulfil our destiny. The life of a man is measured by his actions and his actions are good if their origin is pure. From nothingness we have come to be born under the stars, and almighty Donyi-polo, the sun and the moon, whose light shines on all equally, is the invisible force that guides each one of us. All life is light and shadow; we live and we die, and the path of destiny is the quest for faith.’

  Then the miri took the road out of Komsing under a sky bristling with stars.

  the heart of the insect

  Every winter, men from the surrounding villages perched on the highest ridges set out on a journey to the snow-mountains to harvest a precious root. This is the deadly aconitum that is collected for the preparation of poison arrows. No one remembers for how long this annual trek has been a ritual. But there are many stories associated with the excursion, most of them narrated with disbelief by the travellers themselves who say they were lucky to return alive, back from the realm of silent waste and hallucinations.

  An old traveller, a rhapsodist himself, told us of one strange and difficult trek that he was part of. He would remember it, he said, for the rest of his life, but it was up to us to believe, or not, what he was about to recount.

  The men departed in a ceremony of silence, stern-faced and swift, disappearing from territory that was fenced and consecrated, out through the protective arched village-gates covered with sacred leaves and arrows tipped with ginger. No one spoke as the chosen men travelled with all their senses alert, through the jungle of tall trees that shone ghostly white in the light of the bamboo flares. There were rivers hungry for lives, they knew, and mountains waiting to tear the breath out of their lungs. The piercing wind whistled and jeered around them, trying to steal their senses. The cooked rice that they carried turned to hard grain.

  It was a terrifying journey, and finally they stood together on frozen ground and looked at the clumps of aconite that dotted the bleak landscape. They were in the territory of Dimi-tayang, the lonely spirit who stirs up the lake waters and clutches trespassing men in an embrace of ice.

  Survival, as always, was a matter of courage and quick action. Blind and senseless with the cold they accomplished their task and faced the most dangerous part of their journey. Addressing the mountains and the air they turned in every direction and bid farewell with promises to visit again. They had to convince the jealous spirits circling them to permit them safe return.

  ‘We will travel again to your beautiful land.
Let us leave in peace now. Do not pine for us. Do not call us back. We will travel this way again bearing more gifts next time.’

  Observing all the rules the men packed up and departed. The last man in line faced backwards and swept away their footprints to thwart any attempt of the spirits to follow them and come to dwell in the land of men.

  How swiftly they travelled, never looking back. If the gods were kind, no harm would befall them. But danger awaited them this time. Like a bad dream a soft ball of dust spun gently after them, skimming the earth. Constantly changing shape the cloud gathered in speed and size and became a monstrous vision approaching fast to devour them. A strange light shadowed the land. The wind screamed. Dust stung their bodies and an unspeakable terror crossed their minds. Who could outrun the wind? Who would fight the air and battle with the mountains that circled them on every side?

  With pounding hearts they broke into a run looking up towards the village gate. They scrambled wildly over boulders and leapt across the gaps shouting at the top of their voices. One of the men turned around. Greater than his fear was the anger boiling in his heart, and aiming his bow, calling on his ancestors, he shot into the spinning darkness. They ran, fell, tore off their packs and reached the gate. An eerie silence descended. Gasping, choking, they looked at one another and breathed deeply. Below them a soft cloud of dust-like smoke curled upwards and drifted slowly away. This time, this time the gods had saved them! Calling loudly and throwing rocks before them the people of the village descended to look for the single arrow.

  It was a strange sight that no one understood. The shaft was unbroken and upright. Among the leaves and trampled fern a preying mantis was dead, pinned to the ground. The arrow had pierced the heart of the insect.

  What did it mean? What spirit was this? For days, the men who had gone on the trek were like pale ghosts wandering about in a daze. Then the villagers called a shaman and performed the prescribed rituals to ward off the danger that had followed the men to their homes.

  ‘It is better to call the spirits,’ the old man told us to conclude his story. ‘It is necessary to let the miri speak to them so that the territory of men is safe from their jealous rage.’

  the case of the travelling vessel

  In this circle of hills, as in every corner of the world, all history is a history of connections. Suddenly, a day comes when a man will claim kinship with a distant clan, like Rakut, who had brought us to this village. He was not born here, and no one from his immediate family had ever lived here, yet he knew that he had an ancient bond with the village. He did not himself remember how it had been formed, or in which generation, through which group of his ancestors. ‘This is how it has always been,’ he said, and looked a little sad at not being able to satisfy Jules’ curiosity. ‘You understand how it is,’ he muttered to me.

  At this point, the headman of Komsing came to his rescue. ‘It happens like this,’ he said. ‘There are many stories that link clans. Sometimes we forget how these connections were made, but everything is interconnected. Sometimes a connection is born in the middle of war. Sometimes it is through a woman, sometimes land, and sometimes it is through an object out of the past.’

  Then he told us a story about a travelling vessel.

  It happened long ago. The Lotang family of the Migu clan owned a fabulous vessel called a danki. It was made of the strongest metal alloy and it was an object of pride and admiration. Its wide, shallow surface was criss-crossed with fine intricate markings, like sword strokes, and a man could see his face reflected clearly on its polished surface. Where had it come from? No one knew for certain. It had been passed down from father to son for generations in the family. One day, the eldest son of the family noticed that the vessel was lying overturned in its usual place. He turned it over and was surprised to see it damp with moisture and with patches of moss on its surface. How could this have happened overnight when the danki had been kept under lock and key in its usual corner in the granary?

  From this time he began to inspect the granary every morning and found the vessel always overturned and filled, now, with moist leaves and twigs. What surprised him most was that the leaves found in the danki were of a bamboo that did not grow in the vicinity at all, but came from the small, knotted, slow-growing variety of the hills far to the north of the village.

  Being a superstitious man he began to leave the vessel outdoors. Every evening he wiped it clean and left it overturned with its face down. Every morning he found it face up, its shallow surface full of twigs, ferns and leaves. Word about the strange behaviour of the vessel began to spread. Many people came to visit the family and enquired about the strange phenomenon. But every time they went to the place where the danki was kept, it was found missing. It seemed that the vessel was teasing them, playing hide-and-seek. Till the son realized that the danki showed itself only to members of his clan.

  At this time the Migu clan became prosperous and had many sons and daughters who married well, made a name for themselves and settled in far away places. And so the danki came to be cherished as an auspicious gift from the gods. When the owners held it up and tapped it, the vessel vibrated and tinkled like a bell and they came to associate this sound with their good fortune.

  It was shortly after the earthquake some hundred-two hundred years ago that the Lotang family woke one morning to find that the famous vessel had split in two. The two broken halves of the danki had lost all their shine and turned a dull, iron grey, and each half was heavier than what the intact vessel had ever weighed.

  The family soaked the two halves in the cleanest spring water, scrubbed and washed them with ash and the froth of the soap nut but nothing could bring back the old lustre. Immediately afterwards, people say, the two halves of the danki disappeared and the fortunes of the Migu clan began to decline. They became poor in sons. The last son bearing the Lotang title lived to the ripe age of ninety-eight. He had six daughters but no male heir.

  So it was that after the disappearance of the danki the Migu clan decided to perform an elaborate family ritual that they claimed was long overdue. They felled the tallest tree and brought a hive of wild ants from the forest. The tree was a symbol of strength and the ants symbolized fertility and the birth of many sons. A famous miri was called from the mountains in the north but word reached them that he was away in a village close to the high passes. Since the rituals could not wait, the family called another shaman from a village twodays’ journey to the east. He was a small, youngish man who did not impress anyone at first, but when he began to intone the prayers the women said his voice was delicate and sweet like honey. He stayed in the village for three days and during this time he was lodged in the Lotang house and accorded every attention and honour. As this miri communicated with the world of spirits, he must have succumbed to some misinterpretation or wayward instruction because when the time came to leave, he left the village with a bag full of stolen coins and a number of heavy necklaces of precious stone.

  A maternal uncle of the Migu clan gave chase but the young shaman was fleet footed and there was not a trace of him on any of the routes that the vengeful uncle followed.

  One day, on his long trek back, the uncle came upon two women quarrelling fiercely by a wide, gushing stream. He stopped, without wondering why he should have done that, for he knew neither of the women. But having failed in his quest, he was in no hurry to return to his village, and he hid behind a tree to listen.

  ‘He said to share the beads!’ the younger of the two women was shouting.

  ‘Yes, so I have given you two!’

  ‘But there were five necklaces!’

  ‘I am keeping three.’

  ‘How dare you! We should share the extra necklace!’

  ‘Don’t be so greedy. Two is enough for you. You’re even lucky to get one.’

  ‘But the miri said to divide it!’

  ‘Hush! Don’t make such a noise about it. Someone may find out!’

  Now there was no doubt in the eavesdr
opper’s mind that the women were discussing the stone beads. He drew his sword and rushing out of his hiding place killed them both without a moment’s hesitation. Then he saw an old man perched on a rock staring at him. ‘He has seen everything, I might as well finish him off too,’ thought the uncle, and leapt on the old man and cut him down.

  In the clear sunlight the uncle stood with his sword dripping blood into the stream. Three bodies lay among the boulders. The old man had swung backwards and fallen into the water and the women lay twisted and still a little distance away, as though they had slipped and gashed their heads on the hard stones.

  ‘I came to catch a thief and now I am a murderer,’ the uncle thought, but he felt no regret. He was an elderly man but still strong, and as he fled from the place, he felt like a forest creature that had done what had to be done out of sheer instinct. He disappeared from his ancestral village. It was many years later that the Migu clan discovered that he had reached the village of Sirum in the Duyang group, the home of Rakut’s forefathers. He had married a woman there and had a son.

  Emissaries were sent to call the uncle back to the village of his birth, and he returned, fourteen years after his disappearance from the place by the stream. Because the people of Sirum had taken him in, given him one of their daughters and revered him as a son-in-law, the Migu clan and all the clans of Sirum were now united for posterity in a bond of kinship.

  ‘Such are the histories recorded by our shamans and rhapsodists,’ the old headman of Komsing said. ‘And in time of need, when a person falls ill or a fire starts suddenly, or when there is a murder or a fatal accident, all the remembered links of kinship are called up and word is sent to clan members to come to the aid of their brethren.’

  farewell to jules and mona

  All through the night the villagers sang songs and told us stories, and as more and more people crowded in to look at the visitors, sleep fled for ever. Jules was in good form and enjoying the endless stream of rice beer.