Story of Python, originally titled Meislesani Kereng Koktwoma and sourced from the Kalai people, is an Indian folktale collected in Tripura, Northeastern India, about the secret affair between a girl and a python, his killing by her father, and the creation of a river by the girl's drowning in water. As the tale continues, the girl's younger sister survives and marries a king, gives birth to a group of siblings, but is tricked by the king's wicked co-wives.
The second part of the tale is classified in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as tale type ATU 707, "The Three Golden Children". These tales refer to stories where a girl promises a king she will bear a child or children with wonderful attributes, but her jealous relatives or the king's wives plot against the babies and their mother. Many variants of the tale type are registered in India, although they comprise specific cycles in this country.
Summary In this tale, a man named Sardeng Singh, also called Sardeng Achai, has two daughters. They live in a tong and work in their jhum fields. Since he cannot pay the rit, the rain drips through their roof during rainy season. One day, his elder daughter promises to marry anyone who can fix their tong house. The next morning, they find the roof repaired, and discover the one that did it was a python. The elder sister fulfills the vow and marries the python, and asks her younger sister to invite the snake for a feast. This goes on for some time, until one day the elder sister, the python's human lover, is working at another jhum field, and Sardeng learns from his youngest his elder's dalliance with the animal, and goes to the jhum field to kill it. He orders his youngest to call for her brother-in-law (kumui): the python appears to them and he cuts off its head. The head rolls over to a lunga (a type of valley), while Sardeng takes the body to his house for his daughter to cook it. After they feast on the snake, they save some for the elder daughter, who comes home with a strange feeling of grief.
The pair of sisters returns to the jhum field and the younger calls on the python, but it does not answer. The elder sister begins to call for him with a melancholy voice, and tries frantically to search for her lover. She finds a stream filled with many khumpui flowers, where her father threw the python's head. The elder sister plucks a flower and places it in her ear, then begins to sing a song and gradually sinks into the river, believing that her husband is in the water. The younger sister cries for her elder abandoning her, but the girl says the cadette can find a six-branched banyan tree on the road where she can find shelter, which she is to climb and say she is beautiful and fit to be queen, then a king will marry her. The cadette does as instructed, while the elder sinks into the river and finds a palace there with her husband. Back to the cadette, she climbs the tree and is found by a passing bindias (royal hill force). The king takes the youngest sister and marries her.
Months later, she becomes pregnant, to the jealousy of the king's other queens. While the king is away on a hunt, the co-queens blindfold her with seven folds and arrange her labour near a stream. Helpless to do anything, the new queen gives birth to six sons and a daughter, who the co-queens replace for woods and stones and throw in the river. After the king returns, the co-queens trick him into believing his new queen is a witch, orders for her nose and ear to be cut off and banishes her from the palace to take care of goats in the jungle. As for the children, their aunt, who is living with her husband down in the river, rescues her nephews and niece and raises them. Years later, the girls from a nearby village come to fetch water from the stream, when they discover their earthen pots are broken. They inform the king, who sets up a boat racing contest in the stream. The river-aunt tells her nephews of the event and the siblings attend the contest. The king is there also, notices the children and goes to touch them. The children rebuff him, and say they are princes and a princess. The king takes the septet to the palace and bids them identify their mother. The children say their mother is the one grazing the goats. The king brings her back, and the children tell their whole story. The king learns of the co-queens' conspiracy and punishes them, then restores the children's mother as his wife. The king divides the kingdom into seven parts, each for one of his children. The tale explains this land is ancient Tripura, the Gumati river the place where the elder sister lives with her python husband, and the Dombur a sacred shrine.
Publication The tale was also translated as Sacred River, and Seven kingdoms for seven siblings, and sourced from the Koloi.
Analysis Tale type According to Stith Thompson's and Jonas Balys's index of Indian tales, the tale type ATU 707 shows 44 variants across Indian sources.Crowley, Daniel J. "Haring's Herring: Theoretical Implications of the "Malagasy Tale Index"." In: Journal of Folklore Research 23, no. 1 (1986): 46, 48. Accessed November 19, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3814480. Researcher Noriko Mayeda and Indologist W. Norman Brown divided Indian variants of type 707 in five groups: (1) quest for wonderful items; (2) reincarnation into flowers; (3) use of wooden horses; (4) children sing a song; (5) miscellaneous.Mayeda, Noriko; Brown, W. Norman. Tawi Tales; Folk Tales From Jammu. American Oriental Society New Haven, Connecticut, 1974. pp. 543-544.
In the joint work of folklorists Stith Thompson and Warren Roberts, Types of Indic Oral Tales, in some variants of type 707, there are two girls lost in the jungle: a king finds one and marries her, and the other becomes the children's rescuer later in the story.
Interpretation The story functions as an etiological tale for the origin of the Tripura state. According to Bengali scholarship, it reveals aspects of Tripura social life, namely, the cultivation of jhum as their main livelihood, and the work of both men and women in the fields.
Motifs According to Stith Thompson and study of motifs of Indian literature and oral folklore, the tale contains the motifs N 711.1., Prince finds maiden in woods and marries her; and S 451., "Outcast wife united with husband and children".Thompson, S., Balys, J. (1958). The oral tales of India. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. p. 422.
A motif that appears in the Indian variants is that, in the conclusion of the tale, jets of breastmilk flow from the children's biological mother, the disgraced queen, confirming their blood relation.Schmidt, Sigrid. "Internationale Märchen in Namibia. Bewahren und anpassen". In: Fabula 62, no. 3-4 (2021): 294-295. https://doi.org/10.1515/fabula-2021-0015
Variants According to Bengali scholarship, the story is a popular tale in Tripura. In the same vein, according to professor Suparna Saha, while some tales have a similar narrative core, they have different versions in different villages of the Tripura state, like the story Khumpui, which appears across North Tripura and South Tripura.
Khumpai Bāruru In a tale from Tripura with the title The Khumpai flower (Khumpai Bāruru), in a village in Tripura, an Acai, a priest (or Achāiung, in another translation), has two daughters. Both daughters go to the jum field and eat food at noon. One day, the sky becomes overcast with storm clouds. Fearing for their lives, the elder sister promises to marry whoever helps them. A snake appears and builds them a shelter, then vanishes into the jungle. The two sisters take shelter and wait for the storm to pass, then return home. The next day, the elder sister chooses to remain true to her word, and her younger sister invites the snake to share their food. This goes on for some time, until their parents notice the girls looking slimmer and discover the incident. The father goes with the younger sister and kills the snake. The next time both sisters go to meet the snake, the elder finds out that the snake was killed and follows its usual path to a precipice. She finds the head of the dead snake and a Khumpai flower nearby. As she stands near the flower, a gush of water begins to flood a waterfall and drowns the elder sister - forming the Gomati river. As the elder sister drowns, she tells her younger sister not to cry over her, since the snake was a god; and she advises her to wander to a crossing of seven paths, climb a banyan tree with a loom on top, and proclaims she will become queen. The younger sister goes to the seven paths, finds a golden loom inside and earns her living by spinning, weaving and selling her exquisite designs. One day, Raja Subrai of Tripura announces he will marry the girl whose clothe will be judged excellent. Many candidates try, but in the end the king chooses the "lady of the tree" (the younger sister) as his new queen. The girl cries tears of joy and creates the Haora river. Raja Subrai is already married to other queens. When the newest queen gives birth to their children (in seven consecutive pregnancies), the co-queens replace the children for animals (the first son for a toad) and cast them in the Gomati river. Raja Subrai, tricked by the jealous queens, exiles her from the palace. As for the children, the seven brothers are rescued by their aunt and raised in the river. After some time, the seven brothers decide to take revenge on the queens: they go to a ghàt and break the jars of the queens' maidservants. As soon as he situation escalates, the king and a crowd assemble to solve the altercation. The exiled queen is brought to them and the seven brothers leave the river castle to embrace their parents, and the co-queens are executed.
Chibuksane (The Snake)