THE TWO GRIEFS

PHILIP WOODRUFF

Sundari was supposed to be husking rice. She put a handful of grain into a depression in a big stone in the paved terrace before the house and pounded it with a thick heavy stick. The stick was more than 5 feet long and several inches thick, almost deserving the name of a beam, of the kind we are enjoined to observe in our own eye. There was a thin hold cut in the middle where two hands could hold it comfortably. Sundari stood up, holding the beam in the middle, and with one end pounded the grain in the egg-shaped hole, which had been cut deep with chisel and mallet. It was hard work, and after a little she put down the beam and sat on the rock, gazing out over the valley.

It was the middle of the morning, but the sun had only just reached the long slopes which ran down below her to the north. The pines threw up their arms to heaven, sparkling in 'the brightness, throwing back the sun from a million dancing needles; the firs and cedars stood like dark pointed pyramids, soaking in the light, giving none back. The open patches of cultivation in the breaks of the forest were beginning to turn to pale gold; it would soon be the time of harvest and rejoicing.

But Sundari had eyes for none of this. She was thinking of her two griefs. She did not formulate these very clearly to herself. She could neither read nor write, nor even understand Hindustani. She could speak only the patois of her little section of the hills, a broad crude speech that did not lend itself to analytical thought. But she knew that these two discomforts were there in her mind.

The first was much the simpler. Her sister had married into a family who lived on the next ridge, and there was no doubt about it, they were doing better than the little homestead where Sundari lived. Their sheep and goats and cattle were increasing. And they were showing their prosperity in a practical form. At the last fair, Ganga Devi had been loaded with silver ornaments—great hoops of silver in nose and ears, collars and bracelets, and anklets, and a heart-shaped piece of worked silver, of intricate device, hanging over her breast. And a rich new bodice of brightly coloured silk, deep crimson beneath a cloak of apple green, and a splash of orange in her petticoats. She had been dressed like a bride, and Sundari herself could make no such show. If she was to have such ornaments as that, the homestead must have more cattle and sheep.

If anyone in this part of the hills wants to become more prosperous, he will first consider which god to propitiate. Every valley has its godling, an influence for good or evil, whose kingdom does not stretch beyond the next ridge. They were there before the Hindus came over the western passes into the plains, and little by little seeped up into the mountains. They will perhaps be there when Shiv and Vishnu are forgotten. The little gods have taken on for the time being a faint smack of Hinduism, but at heart they are no more Hindus than their worshippers. They acknowledge the suzerainty of the great gods, but no more. And in their own kingdoms they are supreme, terrible little gods who can kill or maim a man or blight a harvest. They are concerned with crops and cattle and rain, the fish in the rivers and the fertility of women; and, so long as they are not crossed and many goats arc killed before them, they will not step outside their limits. They do not meddle in politics, and the big gods leave them alone.

Sundari lived on the crown of a ridge, and there was no reason why she should not go to Kaunr to the east or Bhairab to the west. She might go to either (or rather, she might send one of her husbands) to sacrifice a goat, and beg the god to make her prosperous. But the little gods were inclined to disregard vague prayers of that kind. They were far more likely to interest themselves in something definite, such as destroying her sister's cattle. But she could hardly send one of her husbands to ask the godling to curst (Janga Devi and her household. Even if she could persuade one of them to go, the priest would tell the villagers; and Ganga Devi might well go with two goats, and turn the curse on Sundari. No, the way to the gods could not be a secret way, and therefore this did not look a very good way.

Thoughts of her husbands led Sundari to her second grief. This was much less clearly formulated than the first, and she could hardly have put it into words. But it was very real. As is the custom in this part of the hills, she had married three brothers. They were joint in ownership of land and cattle and sheep, so that it was natural to share one wife, at any rate until they were rich enough to afford a second. But joint ownership did not in practice work out quite so simply, in the case of a wife. The land and animals they truly owned, and with regard to them they could practise some division of function. Though each knew something of the others' work, one was the husbandman, another the shepherd, and the third, who looked after the cattle, was also the man of business and affairs, and it was he who went to the plains to buy salt and sugar and iron, or to the headquarters of the subdivision to pay land revenue. Now it may be that a wife requires three functions in a husband; she needs a lover to beget her children, a master to give her daily tasks and set her to housekeeping, and a protector to fight dragons and wild beasts, if they molest her, or lawyers, tax-gatherers, and policemen in a more developed world. If her husbands had been content to accept these three roles, Sundari would have been happy. Gopalu, the cowherd, was well-fitted to be her protector; Jodhu, the husbandman, might have ordered her daily life; but Autaru, the youngest, the shepherd, he was the lover to please her. And there would have been no difficulty about the children, for all of them, like the whole homestead, would stand in the name of Gopalu, the eldest.

But of course there could be no question of any such pleasant arrangement. All must take their turn as lovers. And although Sundari did not object actively to either of the others, she did not feel she saw enough of Autaru; and in fact she saw less of him than of Jodhu and Gopalu, for he was often away in the high grazing grounds with his sheep.

As she brooded on her two troubles, rankling there at the back of her untaught, unformed mind, gradually they turned themselves into problems. How to get more prosperity, more Wealth in herds and flocks; how to get more of Autaru to herself. And in neither problem could the godlings help her, for she could only go to them through the husband and the priest.

But at the back of her mind was another way to get her will. Whether because of the custom of polyandry, which certainly makes them more self-willed than other women, and may, as in Sundari, produce a state of sulky irritancy, or because of some trick of ancestry or climate, the women of these parts are known throughout the neighbouring hills for witchcraft. Just as every Brahman can be a priest on occasion, so here every woman carries with her a knowledge of dark things and she may be forced to develop strange powers. Sometimes she has the evil eye; she has developed in herself the power to blight any good thing that comes within her influence. She can curdle milk and make sheep barren; she can place her power upon a man so that he will go mad and die. The knowledge is handed down from mother to daughter; it is a weapon in the armoury of each. Perhaps it is needed in a land where brides are sold for silver and a woman's natural weapons go for nothing; not for her the sidelong glance, the fluttering eyelid; and perhaps the mother who hands on the knowledge of witchcraft is not far distant in intention from her who sends her daughter to a finishing school. The men do not know this secret lore, though they are well aware of its results, and they will not go near a woman who is marked out by her own prosperity and the misfortunes of her neighbours as having taken up her weapons and developed the power of evil.

There is a story that long ago someone was so foolish as to talk of this power in a British court of law. The incredulous magistrate asked for proof, and sent for some lemons from a basket which had just arrived at his house. They brought him six. Three he opened; they were juicy and fragrant. Three he placed on his table before the witch as a test; and when he opened these, they were dried up, flesh and juice withered. He carried the experiment no further. But nowadays even these backward people know better than to talk about such things in court.

Sundari sat and brooded. She did not want Jodhu and Gopalu. She did want Autaru. She wanted more cattle and sheep. If she had a ghost at her service, he could make the cattle fertile and the crops grow, as no living man could do. And she knew how to take power over a ghost. If she had one husband less, she would have a larger share of Autaru. Gopalu had gone away for the day; he would not be back before evening. Autaru, her lover, had gone to the high grazing grounds that morning with his sheep. He would be there some days for the lambing. Jodhu was in the fields below the house, spreading dung on a field he meant to plough for the winter crop. Jodhu would come home for his morning meal before long. Jodhu was the man. If Jodhu should die, in a way she knew, his ghost would serve her faithfully; and Autaru would have to stay behind to look after the fields. Her resolution hardened. She stood up and went into the house.

Inside the house she went through certain spells, learnt from her mother. Then she made the vow that was the centre ol all the magic. If the nameless one would grant her prayer and turn to poison the food that she would cook, she vowed that she would give the poison to the first man to enter the house. If she did not, the curse would fall on her, and all her food would be poison. Then she went out again, and took a leaf of the first green thing she saw. It did not matter what it might be. She took it back into the house, and pronounced over it the second and most difficult part of the rite. Then she cut the leaf up very small and mixed it with flour and began to bake a cake. When it was cooked she put her hand on it; if the spell had failed, the cake and the pot would stick to her hand, and she would have to try again. But it did not stick. All was well. Peace, the charm's wound up.

She turned with the cake in her hand as she heard the bleating of sheep outside. Autaru came in. She gazed at him with stony horror.

‘I had to come back,' he said. T got up to the shrine at the top of the hill, and tied a rag on the tree to keep away ghosts. Then just as I was leaving, I sneezed. That was bad enough, but there, right in the way, cutting grass at the corner was that witch, Kalyan Singh's wife. I couldn't go on, could I? If I had left the shrine after sneezing, and met a witch, the sheep would have been ill. All the lambs would have died. So I came back. Give me something to eat.'

She dared not break her vow. She gave him the cake.

He squatted to eat it.

'I shall go again to-morrow,' he said. 'Are you glad I came back?'

But there was no to-morrow for him. He staggered to his feet, his hand to his head.

'My head is swimming,' he said. 'I can't stand.'

He caught for a moment at the post of the door, reeled outside, and fell lifeless on the roughly paved terrace, with his right hand on the little egg-shaped hollow still half-full of partially husked rice.

[This story was told me by a forest officer, himself a hillman, of his near neighbours to the west; and the only liberties I have taken with it are to elaborate the motive, about which he was not very clear; and to shorten the period of sickness, which in the original lasted "some weeks.- But alas, when I moved into the district of which the story was related, I was told there were no witches there. 'A little farther west', they said, 'there are many witches. But not here.' But that my informant believed every word he told me, I have no doubt. P. W.]

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