GROUPING OF VILLAGES IN MIZORAM

GROUPING OF VILLAGES IN MIZORAM
Lest we forget
For Zoram Ni

Background:
Mizoram was hard hit by a famine soon after the region was admitted into the Indian Union. The unsatisfactory remedial measures from Assam government resulted in a political disturbance that tormented the hills for about two decades spearheaded by the Mizo Famine Front, later transformed into a political unit called Mizo National Front (MNF). In February 1966 the MNF intensified its activities and the party decided to start an armed revolt.
The attack on the Aizawl Treasury began at midnight on 28th February, 1966 and the Lungleh Treasury was also attacked on the same day. Simultaneously the outposts of Lungleh, Tlabung, Champhai and Kolasib were attacked and captured whereas Aizawl was held out by the Ist Battalion Assam Rifles.
When the Government of India learnt of the outbreak, troops were sent to the area. By an Extra-ordinary Gazette Notification Published on 6th March, 1966, the Government of India declared the Mizo National Front an Unlawful Organization. Being satisfied that the MNF had been indulging in activities prejudicial to the security of Mizo District in the State of Assam and the adjoining part of the territory of India, the Central Government by effecting the necessary amendment of the rules ordered that Rule 32 of the Defence of India Rules, 1962 shall be applicable to the Mizo National Front.

The Defence Of India (Amended) Rule 32 of 1962
Rule 32 of the Defence of India Rules, 1962 as amended provides that no person shall-

a) manage or assist in managing any organization to which this rule applies.
b) promote or assist in promoting a meeting of any member of such an organization or attend any such meeting in capacity.
c) publish any notice or advertisement relating to any such meeting.
d) invite persons to support such an organization or otherwise assist the operation of such an organization.

If any person contravenes any of the provisions of this rule, he shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to 7 years or with fine or with both.

The Mizo District was subsequently declared ‘a disturbed area’ under the Assam Disturbed Area Act, 1955. The Armed Forces (Assam and Manipur) Special Power Act, 1958 was also applied to the area by which the Government of India, under Article 352 of the Constitution, entrusted the responsibility of law and order in Mizoram to the Army and issued a strict instruction that the Army was to function as in war time but strictly in aid of the civil power. The matter was also discussed in the Parliament. Home Minister G.L Nanda made a statement in Parliament on March 3, 1966 saying, “the total number who took part in all those places- Lungleh, Aijal, Eayrengte (Vairengte), Chawngte and Chimluang (Chhimluang) who resorted to acts of lawlessness and violence were 800 to 1300 tribals… As a result of this, the army has been asked to deal with situation in Mizo Hills District. Transport of troops to Aijal by helicopters has been going on this morning and troops are also moving by road to Aijal and expected to reach by noon today.”

Grouping of Villages

Lt. General (later Field Marshal) Sam Manekshaw, GOC-In-C, Eastern Command, Calcutta, recommended grouping of villages to facilitate effective military operations. The Governor of Assam, B.K.Nehru, opposed the idea and the Central Cabinet rejected the army proposal of grouping on October 20, 1966. The army lobbied for its case during the next few weeks and the scheme was finally cleared by the Government of India on December 5, 1966. In its 6 P.M news broadcast on January 3, 1967, the All India Radio announced the decision of the Government to group villages in Mizo Hills for security reasons. Lt. General Manekshaw and A.N.Kidwai, Chief Secretary, Assam announced the decision in a Press Conference held in Calcutta and Shillong respectively on the same day. Formal orders were issued by B.C. Carriapa, Commissioner of Cachar and Mizo Hills Division and Ex-officio Central Government Liaison Officer for Mizo Hills, under Rule 57 of the Defence of India Rules, 1962.

In forty-nine days between 4th January and 23rd February, 45,107 inhabitants of 109 villages were forcibly grouped into 18 group centres on the main road of Vairengte- Aizawl-Lunglei.
The villagers were ordered to move bag and baggage with whatever property they could carry to the centre. All the grains, fowls and pigs that could not be carried were burnt along with their houses so as to keep food and shelter out of the reach of the insurgents. There was absolute confusion everywhere. Women were wailing and shouting and cursing. Children were frightened. Young boys and girls held hands and looked at their burning villages with a stupefied expression on their faces. Pigs were running about, mithuns were bellowing, dogs were barking and fowls setting up a racket with their fluttering and cackling.

The Village Council Presidents and Elders were ordered at gun point to sign the document that said that they were being harassed by the insurgents, and because their own village did not have communications, educational, medical and other facilities, they had voluntarily asked to be settled in the Grouping Centres under the protection of the Security Forces. Another document stated that they had burnt down their own villages, and that no force or coercion was used by the Security.

V.F.Jafa, an IAS officer of 1965 Batch who served as SDO (Civil) at Lunglei in 1967 and Additional District Magistrate, Aizawl in 1968, who was involved in the task of grouping honestly confessed, “We had to protect ourselves with false certificates”


Second and Third Phase of Grouping

In course of time, public resentment against grouping mounted and it was found that the legal base for the forceful grouping namely, the Defence of India Rules was weak. In Nagaland, it was used and withdrawn again in 1956-57. The Governor of Assam consequently promulgated early in 1968, an Ordinance known as ‘ The Assam Maintenance of Public Order (AMPO), 1968’ which was to be used as the legal base for the continued grouping of villages by force, in preference to the application of the Defence of India Rules.

The Second grouping order for grouping of another 185 villages, with a population of 95,917 to 41 centres was issued by the District Magistrate of Mizo Hills under the Assam Maintenance of Public Order Acts (AMPO), 1968. This was followed by a third forced grouping of 63 villages by the Army with a population of 47,056 in 26 centres in 1969 without any order from the Government. The Government regularized this grouping by an ex-post facto order issued in 1970 under AMRO. By 1972, there were 102 grouping centres accommodating 240,000 persons, or more than 80 percent of the Mizo Hill population of 285,000. The remaining 45,000 people lived in Aizawl, Lunglei, Saiha and a few ungrouped villages in the Pawi-Lakher region in the South.

Purpose of Grouping

The immediate aim of the grouping was to facilitate effective military operation against the underground elements who had taken control of the interior villages by cutting off the sources of food supply and shelter to the MNF as was conceived by the Army authorities. In every grouping centre there was a military unit to control them.

High Court stopped the Grouping of Villages

While the last two phases of grouping of villages were being carried out, the general resentment against grouping mounted to such an extent that one Mizo namely Sub. K. Zahlira (Rtd) of Saikhamakawn Village challenged the orders in the Gauhati High Court as violation of the Fundamental Rights guaranteed in the Constitution. The High Court directed the suspension of all further grouping and asked the Government of Assam to show cause as to why this order should not be made obsolete. The matter was dropped by the High Court on 6.1.1971 after the Government’s assurance that no further grouping of Villages was planned. Thus, the order issued for the third phase of grouping was cancelled. By this time, however, 80 percent of the population had already been relocated although the southern part of Mizoram was spared.

In spite of the grouping of villages in most parts, the intensity of the insurgency continued until about 1970. As a matter of fact, disturbances continued in a virulent form until 1980s.

The Pain
To mention the atrocities committed upon the Mizos, during the first four months alone, the MNF Secretary, Publicity Department, S.Lianzuala said, “So far as my knowledge goes, in North Mizoram district alone, the Indian Army burnt down 21 Villages and gutted 2,133 houses, they raped 54 women, out of whom 2 adult women and a minor girl died due to excessive copulation by a number of soldiers. They burnt 17 churches, and looted many others, cooking, sleeping inside the churches while the villagers were not allowed to worship there. They cursed those homeless bewildered women and children, saying that, ‘we do not care even if you all die, and we don’t need you. What we want is your land’. They treated the innocent Mizo people with fearsome manners and as cruel as possible.”

Tlangchhuaka also emphatically highlighted, “Like the World War II stories of rapes indulged in by Marshal Thukov and his soldiers in Berlin, they (Indian soldiers) did the same in Mizoram. They spoiled many virgin girls… even married ones… some girls were forced to their camps for their own pleasures. There is no limit to their atrocities. The men were driven away towards the jails with no chance to mention their rights. Many were beaten to death, hanged upside down and they suffered all kinds of tortures and as a consequence many were deformed physically. They called the general public meeting in the Churches, and used them for torturing and killing the inmates. They even raped some girls in the churches, and in some churches they did not allow them to come out of their meetings.”

When the disturbance broke out in Mizoram, the Indian Security Forces often disrupted and even dispersed church meetings in many villages. Lalthangliana Philips blamed them (the Security Forces) for defiling the churches and sacred properties wherever they went and of robbing and camping in the churches. The soldiers cut and tore the Holy Bibles and Hymn books into pieces and did not allow regular church meetings in most of their occupied villages. He further alleged that some of the Indian Commanding Officers even said, “You bloody Mizos, call upon your God Jesus, and bring him here that we may defeat him along with you.” These vile challenges flared up the religious sentiments of the people and alienated them into becoming strangers” .

Hundreds of Mizo families therefore sought refuge in Shillong and other places in Assam and Manipur and also in Burma to escape the chaos at home, and a further and much larger Mizo population were caught between two fighting armies. There was scarcity of food and other essential commodities in the district. The convoys which were run to bring in foods and other goods under security force protection were few and far in between because of the frequency of ambushes and heavy security force casualties. The Border Roads Organisation, which had been building strategic roads in the district since 1964, was also finding it difficult to build and maintain roads under such insecure conditions. To add to the Government’s discomfiture, there were reports of serious human and civil rights violations and maltreatment of civilians in the hands of the Security Forces.

Opposition

The MNF also understood the idea behind the grouping of villages and therefore, they opposed the grouping in their limited capacity. About 2,000 villagers of Keifang and Tualbung villages were successfully prevented by the Mizo National Army (MNF forces) from being grouped at Thingsulthliah Centre in January, 1967.

Life in the Grouping Centres

The manner by which the Indian troops carried this plan was cruel and treacherous. The Indian troops in battle dress marched in the night and surrounded villages before dawn to make sure that no villager escaped. The people were forced out of their ancestral homes with what they could carry in their hands. They were then driven like cattle to where nothing but torture awaited them. The Indian troops then searched vacated houses and took away any valuables they could find and then burnt the houses while the owners were still watching. As the Government of India thought that starvation of the MNF people will be one of the effective measures to crush their movement, they decided to burn the stores of grain of the people thereby inflicting suffering on the innocents too.

Many people compared the Grouping Centres with ‘Concentration Camps’. At the beginning, these centres were in the open air without any housing facility or even shade. The people had to sleep in open fields for days and nights. Children, even small babies, suffered under the scorching heat of the day and the chilly cold of the night while their parents were building thatched huts. Over and above, the people were given meager subsistence ration even while the troops forced them in fencing the grouping centres.

As they were not provided with housing facility all construction was to be borne by the villagers. Every movement of the people was under the strict vigilance of the troops and suspicion (of supporting MNF) had to be paid for with life. As such, at Thingsulthliah Camp, three boys who had gone to the jungles to cut bamboos for their house were shot dead on the mere suspicion of supporting MNF. Their bodies were covered with leafs and left at the spot. Their relatives, conscious of their unusual absence, went to the place and found their bodies.”

The Grouping centres were also used as forced labour camps. All the able persons were requisitioned to work in the military road construction, carrying water, fire woods, supplies of food items and ammunitions, clearing of jungles along roads, digging bunkers apart from fencing work with strict regimentation. They were forced to work as and according to the labour supervisors’ dictation. If a man raises any complaint he was paid with slashes of the armed supervisor’s whip.

The economic life of the Mizo people was greatly hampered. Jhuming cultivation was the main stay of the people but the people could not pursue their normal duty as they were not allowed to go out of the centre. Sometimes, the civilians were taken as a protection from surprise attacks of the MNF and used as human bunkers in the Army’s patrolling. With no means to earn a livelihood, there was starvation and dependence on the meager supplies.

Whenever there was an encounter between the security forces and the MNF, the aftermath was that the security forces either burnt down the village nearest to the place where the encounter took place or beat up the male members of the village or the first group of civilians they met. Such incidences generated bitterness and hatred in the public. In many of the encounters or ambushes, the security forces hardly ever caused casualty to the MNF but great harm did come to the innocent civilians.

The security forces also grossly abused the special power given to them, namely, arresting a person on suspicion. In many cases, they wrongly detained such persons for long periods and tortured them. Sometimes they used this method as a weapon of intimidation. For instance, if a villager reports to higher civil authorities against the wrong doing of the security forces in his village, the latter will arrest him charging him as a MNF sympathizer and threatened him with dire consequences.

Another instance of bitterness against the security forces is occasioned by their utter disrespect to the Church congregation. In some cases the security forces suspected some MNF or their agents as being present in the church congregation on Sundays. They came and drove the congregation of the Church in a most vulgar manner and herded them together in the open ground outside for long periods whether in rain or sunshine. There was a feeling that they were treated as aliens, worse than enemies.

Failure of Grouping

In spite of the grouping of villages, the intensity of the insurgency continued until 1970. As a matter of fact, disturbances continued in a virulent form until mid 1976. The main idea behind the grouping concept, that is to deny sources of food supply to the MNF, was thus belied. The desired results were never achieved.

The overwhelmingly harmful effect of Village Grouping on agricultural activities resulted in near famine conditions. The Government had no choice but to allow the villagers to go back to their old villages to enable them to work on their jhum. Thus, the grouping operations only caused untold sufferings and miseries to the general public resulting in the total ruin of the village economy and, more importantly, in the alienation of the minds of the villagers. The strange thing here was that the Government of India repeated the same measure in Mizoram in 1967 after it had failed miserably in Nagaland in 1967.

Beauty and the Beast???

CHAWNGVUNGI AND SAWNGKHARA
(CHAWNGVUNGI LEH SAWNGKHARA- MIZO THAWNTHU {1964})
Once upon a time in a village, there was a beautiful girl by the name of Chawngvungi. She came of a good family for her father was a man of standing in their village. There was also a young man called Sawngkhara who regularly courted her. But Chawngvungi found Sawngkhara ugly and repulsive, and would give him no attention even when he called. But Sawngkhara had a magic potion called ‘Zawlaidi’ which he decided to use on Chawngvungi because he was deeply in love with her while she wouldn’t give him a second glance. He applied the potion to Chawngvungi’s waist band as she was weaving on the loom and stopped calling on her for three days. In that time, Sawngkhara’s Zawlaidi had worked and Chawngvungi began to so long for him that she could no longer get on with her work. She could only hang on to her loom without weaving, and when friends called her to gather wood, she could not bring herself to go out with them.

Chawngvungi’s mother became immensely worried and she cried,
“Chawngi, your friends go forth to gather wood,
Else sit at home and work their looms,
For whom are you pining that you sit idle?”

To this Chawngvungi would reply,
“Oh mother, my friends they go and gather wood,
Or sit at home and work their looms,
Pining for Sawnga I lie limp upon my looms.”

Then on the third night, Sawngkhara made his way to Chawngi’s house and shouted for her,
“Chawngi, open the door for me,
It is I, Chawnga, come to call on you.”
Chawngvungi’s mother was not keen to see the man and shouted back, “Let the son of a Bawmzo go sleep at the Suar.”
To this Sawngkhara replied,
“Ka pi, My mother a Bawmzo she may be,
But my father, he be the famed Hauchema.”

Chawngvungi’s mother had no reply and therefore sent her daughter to open the door. The ‘rick rack’ of the opening door could be heard as soon as the words left the mother’s mouth. Since she was so displeased to see Sawngkhara, he did not stay long that night.

The following day, Chawngvungi and her mother went to their field to farm. There Sawngkhara had turned himself into a little bird that could be heard singing “Chawngler, Chawngler” from across the valley. When she heard this Chawngvungi said,
“Hark Mother! Even the birds across the valley sing
‘Chawngler, Chawngler’
Let us be gone mother let us go home.”

Her mother quickly retorted, “They say no such thing, all I hear is ‘Di ngai, Di ngai’ and continued with her work. But since Chawngvungi could not bring herself to be of any help, they finally did go home and this went on for three days together.

In the nights when Sawngkhara would visit Chawngvungi, he would always find the door locked by her mother and he started to worry. He finally decided to use the Zawlaidi on her as well and applied some on the broom she was to use. From that time on, she too was infatuated with Sawngkhara and looked forward to his visits. As soon as the sound of his footsteps reached their sumhmun, she would quickly send Chawngvungi to open the door, which the girl did most enthusiastically.

In time, Sawngkhara’s family sent emissaries to ask for Chawngi’s hand in marriage. It could have been that her mother was jealous for she insisted on being given the family ‘Darhuai’ as bride-price for her daughter. Though Sawngkhara’s family had great misgivings about parting with their ‘Darhuai’, their pleas fell on deaf ears and they finally gave it away as a price for Chawngvungi’s hand, for her mother would accept nothing else.

As they were leaving for Sawngkhara’s village, Chawngvungi said to her mother, “Mother, if the leaves of our banyan tree droop, say to yourself, ‘My Chawngvungi is sick’; if the branches turn dry and break, know that I have died, and come running in tears.” In her turn, Chawngvungi’s mother replied, “Go mourn Sawngkhara and come back soon.” Having heard this exchange, Sawngkhara’s mother quickly retorted, “Chawngi’s mother, we’re not taking her to mourn Chawnga, we’re taking her to bear sons and daughters.”

In a little while from then, not long after Chawngi bore a son, she became greatly ill and died soon after. Her mother, observing the banyan tree, soon learnt of Chawngi’s death and came in tears, claiming her daughter’s body. She and Sawngkhara’s family began fighting for Chawngvungi’s body and cried their songs of mourning in derision. Chawngi’s mother cried,
“Chawngi, Chawngi, didn’t I tell you
‘Go mourn Sawnga and come back soon,
Chawngi, Chawngi.”

To this cry of lamentation, Sawngkhara’s mother came up with her own cry,
“Chawngi, o dear expensive Chawngvungi,
We offered brass and necklaces
But your mother, rejecting asked for the ‘Darhuai’
Chawngi, o dear expensive Chawngvungi.”
Sawngkhara’s sisters also joined the mourners crying,
“Ka pi, we never brought her home to mourn Sawnga,
We brought her home to bear him sons, we brought her home to bear him daughters
Chawngi, Dear expensive Chawngvungi.”

In the midst of all this, Sawngkhara held his infant son and cried, “Chawngi, get up, your son Liantea cries in hunger”, and he could not be consoled. When his friends saw him in such a state, they thought it best to take him out for a while for they were afraid he might die from crying so much. Decided upon such a course of action, they took him hunting to Lentlang.

Even the hunting trip could not raise Sawngkhara’s spirit, for he saw Chawngvungi’s face in the flowers there and so longed for her that he would pluck the flowers and keep them. And when they came back from their trip, he was told that Chawngi’s mother had run off with her body. Sawnga immediately set off after her with the hope of reclaiming his wife’s body. On the way, Chawngi’s mother had washed her body in a stream and there he found her nail which had been broken off. This broken nail he took with him and returned home. It is said that he performed the ‘Kuang ur’ over that broken nail for three long years.

Sichangneii- a Mizo 'Swan Lady' tale

Once upon a time there was a bachelor who would get up each morning to fetch water from the village pond. But before him, someone always managed to dirty the water he was to fetch, and yet he had no clue as to who that might be. An old woman once said to him, “I know who dirties your water. Sichangneii and her sister fly down from the sky every morning thus leaving the water dirty. You should one day wait up for them and catch her to make her your bride, for they are immensely beautiful. But even if you are to catch them, do so from behind. If you approach them from the front their beauty will dazzle you and you won’t be able to catch them.” So the next morning, this man got up with the first crow of the cock and lay in wait for the sisters. Sichangneii and her sister did fly down for their bath. So great was their beauty, the pool of water positively sparkled on their approach. When he saw this, the man quickly jumped down on one, but he missed her and they flew off towards the sky again. The nest morning, he again lay in wait and this time succeeded in catching one. He caught Sichangneii, the elder of the sisters and took her home where he pulled off her wings and hid them inside a phulraw thei which he kept on the rapchungsang. Then he made Sichangneii his wife.

In course of time, the couple were blessed with seven beautiful sons whom they named Kaptheia, Dotheia, Haitheia, Chhintheia, Mantheia, and the youngest was called Tlumtea. The couple had a field but since they had seven healthy sons who needed care, they had to take turns- while one went to the field, the other would stay home and look after the children. When it was the father’s turn to stay home, he would bring their mother’s wings out and put one on each of them and they would dance with glee. On their mother’s turns, they would just sit at home and be bored with nothing to do. One day when they were with their mother, Tlumtea blurted out, “Mother, when Father is at home, he puts on us wings of some sort and we would always dance with glee.”

Now the father had warned his children against saying anything to their father so the elder sons tried to cover up by saying, “Hah!! He is lying through his teeth!” But their mother pursued and asked Tlumtea, “Tell me where your father keeps those wings” and Tlumtea was quick to reply, “There in that box on the rapchungsang.” Then she sent Tlumtea to get the box for her and she put on her wings again and stood at the door asking her sons, “Children do I look nice?” the elder sons quickly said, “Not at all, you look shameless, come inside quickly before anyone sees you.” But Tlumtea in his innocence said, “No way, Mother, you look beautiful.” Then she jumped outwards near their verandah railing and asked the same question again. Her sons gave the same reply and when Tlumtea again said she looked beautiful, she suddenly took off and flew back to the sky. When their father got home from the fields, he asked his children where their mother was and he was told everything that had happened. At this the father said, “Then with your mother gone, I am going to kill myself, let me til mu chhu keh”. The elder sons tried to stop him but Tlumtea in his curiosity said, “No, Father just do it!” the father did so, and on Tlumtea’s urging did the same to the other side also. He was then writhing in pain but Tlumtea did not understand. So he danced in delight shouting, “Father is dancing!” hammering their water bottle to keep the beat. In a little while, their father died and they were left orphans.

The brothers began to worry and they said to Entheia, “You have the strongest eyes, look and see if you can find Mother.” He looked and looked and finally saw his mother at her home in the skies buh deng rice. Then Kaptheia took aim and struck an arrow right at the side of their mother’s sum. Seeing this, their mother threw a rope down for them and they all climbed up to the skies. In their mother’s house also lived her brother who hated the seven brothers, and he was also a cannibal. He had a plan to kill them all by felling a tree and letting it fall on all the brothers. So one day he took them out, felled a tree near to its breaking point and sat them down beneath the tree to eat their lunch. As soon as they were settled, he made an excuse and left them to cut the tree so it might fall on the brothers. But Dotheia took charge and kept the tree at bay while Haitheia shoved it sideways so it couldn’t hit them on its fall. When their uncle came back, he was surprised and said, “Oh! Children, I thought you’d all have died!” to which the brothers deridingly said, “We don’t want to die just yet, you white-calfed wretch of a man”. Another day he took them all to burn their jhum land with another plan to kill them. As soon as they reached, he commanded them to stay right in the middle and eat their lunch while he went down to gather crabs from the nearby stream. But what he actually did was burn the jhum and since the brothers were right in the middle of the fire, they began to worry. They called on Haitheia and he started digging a pit into which they all ran in. then Chhintheia closed the pit. When the fire died down, the cannibal uncle came up and with satisfaction looked at the burnt jhum saying, “Aha! These must be their skulls all burnt to ashes!” and started picking up the ashes and eating them as he came. But when he reached the place where he had left them, he found them all safe and happily eating. In embarrassment he said, “There, children, you are all still safe, I thought you would have died of the fire”. The brothers again derided him and said, “We don’t want to die just yet, you white-calfed wretch of a man”. They narrated the entire incident to their mother on reaching home that evening. Their mother, worried for her sons’ lives said, “This man is a cannibal and I’m afraid he might really kill you and eat you all up one day. Its best that you return to earth now and go set up a trap for animals at Mual sarih”. The brothers obeyed their mother and went back to earth.
On setting up a trap following their mother’s instructions, they were extremely successful and often had to carry meat in their wooden baskets. One day, as they sat down to eat their meat at the leikapui, they said, “these meat our mother and father will never eat” and started feeling melancholic. In their longing, they looked up towards the skies where their mother lived and just then, their mother threw down the waist from cleaning her rice and they were all blinded. They continued to pick up their meat even in their blind state and distribute it among themselves. At those times, a Chawmnu often picked up a share and the brothers began to worry that they did not get their fair share. So one day Tlumtea was distributing their shares and as he did so, he would ask, “Now whose hand is this?” and his brothers would reply, “It is mine”. When he came to the Chawmnu’s hand, he got no answer and he immediately knew this hand did not belong to any of them. He suddenly caught hold of the hand, picked up the creature and crushed it atop a hardened rock nearby. The impact of the blow tore open the Chawmnu’s head and its brain spilled all over the place. Some of the spill landed on Tlumtea’s eyes and his eyes could make out some of the sights. Learning that this was medicine for blinded eyes, he put some more on his eyes and now he could see clearly. He then put some on all of his brothers’ eyes and they could all see again.

From then on they decide to farm a field and they would stay nights at their farmhouse and take turns cooking their food. The first turn was Kaptheis’s, the eldest. When he was done with the cooking, a Chawmnu came and threatened, “Kapthei, would you prefer I take you or the food you’ve cooked?” Kaptheia naturally feared for his life and said, “Obviously the food instead of my life” and the Chawmnu took all the food he had cooked. Now when his brothers came back to eat, they had to wait till the food was cooked again and ready to be eaten. This happened with all six brothers till it was Tlumtea’s turn to do the cooking. He, in his turn, weaved a large bamboo basket as he did his cooking. The Chawmnu came again and asked her usual question to which Tlumtea also gave the same reply. But when she made a move to eat the food, Tlumtea said, “Just wait a little while, it is not fully cooked yet, why don’t you sit down for a while?” The Chawmnu sat down near where Tlumtea was weaving and asked him why he was weaving such a large basket. Tlumtea replied, “It is the coop for a great big cock that we have, almost as large as you. If you would fit in, our cock would naturally fir, wont you please get in so I can try it on for size?” As soon as the Chawmnu was inside, Tlumtea quickly sealed the basket and she was trapped inside. He said, “I’ll take you home with me for the children would love to play with you.” The Chawmnu was worried, she said, “Tlumte, allow me to buy myself out. I will give you knives, hreipui, arrows, tuthlawh, mithuns and wives-one each for every brother.” To this Tlumtea agreed and the Chawmnu gave him all immediately except for the mithuns which he was told to collect at a later date.

When his brothers came home, he proudly declared he had cooked food without them having to wait for it to be cooked again. But as they sat down to eat, he asked, “Would you prefer to eat now, or would you rather we distributed knives amongst ourselves?” To this his brothers replied, “Should there be knives, by all means, distribute them.” Tlumtea did so, and it was the same for all the other things which he had received from the Chawmnu, up to their wives. Now Tlumtea had cleverly blackened the face of the most beautiful maiden and he got her as his wife since his elder brothers had not chosen her. When their work was done, he said, “Now let us see whose wife is most beautiful, let them wash their faces clean.” When they did so, they found that Tlumtea had got the most beautiful of the maidens. He told his brothers that all their gifts had come from the Chawmnu and that he had also been promised mithuns at a later date.

In a while, the brothers went off to collect the promised mithuns, and while they were gone, the Chawmnu came near their house burning logs for coal and called out to their wives, “Give me water to drink”. The wife of the eldest went with water and the Chawmnu quickly ate her up. She called for water again and when one wife went to give her, she quickly ate her up and this happened to all the wives of the six olde brothers. But Tlumtea’s wife was in labour at the time and she had borne a son, she managed to get up with great difficulty to offer water when the Chawmnu caught hold of her hand and took her home. The child she had just delivered and left somehow grew up on its own without much care.

When the child had grown, he got to thinking, “Haven’t my fathers left a single paper money-I wish I could take it when I go in search of mother!” and he searched the house and found a single paper money under the table.