Saved by Acho Lala

Dangphu Dingphu, there lived a girl with her mother. They made their living by growing kambran rice. Kambran rice is a variety of rice that grows on dry land prepared by slashing and burning forest.

One day her mother sent her to guard their crop. She went to the field and drove away

birds throughout the day. When she returned home in the evening, she saw her mother climbing a ladder to the attic, and asked what she was doing.

“I’m going to store grains in uwa.” Uwa is a large round cane container for storing grains.

“Why have you come home early? Didn’t birds eat our rice?” the mother asked.

“No. I chased them all,” she replied. The mother sent her to the field every day with two keptang and a chilli paste for lunch. Keptang is a pancake made from buckwheat flour, normally eaten by a poor family. She did not complain and worked the whole day, shooing away birds by hurling sticks and stones.

Every time she went home in the evening, she noticed her mother climbing closer and closer towards the roof. One evening she found

her on the rooftop.

“Mother, what are you doing?” she asked. “Yesterday you’re in the attic, today you are on the rooftop.”

The mother replied she was looking for guests who would be coming to visit them. The next morning, the girl again went to the field, taking along keptang and chilli paste, and began to chase the birds as usual. When

she returned home that evening, she found her mother flying in the sky above their house.

“Where are you going?” she shouted.

“I’m going, you stay there,” the mother replied.

Her mother was a khandoma (dakini). She was running away from the land filled with krinpo (demons). The girl didn’t know what to do and began to cry. But her mother was unmoved. She felt hungry and looked for food in the kitchen. After eating, she went out and started to play on a swing.

As she was lost in thought about her mother, a daughter of krinmo (demoness) arrived disguised as a beautiful girl, and asked her, “What are you doing?”

“I’m swinging?” she replied.

“What do you get by swinging?” the krinmo asked. “From here, I can see the road trodden by my mother,” she answered.

The krinmo became curious and asked if she could also play the swing. The girl agreed and the krinmo began to swing.

“Will you be here tomorrow?” the krinmo asked her. “I’m not going anywhere, this is my home,” she replied. After some time, the krinmo went home and the girl was alone.

The next morning as she sat on an orange tree near the house, the krinmo returned, carrying a sack.

She asked, “What are you doing?”

“I’m eating oranges planted by my mother,” she replied.

“Please share me your mother’s oranges,” the krinmo requested.

“I’ll throw one and you catch it.”

“Don’t throw them! My hands smell foul!” the krinmo said.

“Open your sack and I’ll throw them.”

The krinmo replied her sack also smelt foul and asked her to pass an orange with her hand. As the girl stretched down her hand holding one orange, the krinmo caught hold of her hand, pulled her down, put her inside the sack, and carried her.

After crossing a valley and a mountain, the girl called out from inside the sack, “Sister, since we’ve travelled one valley and one mountain, you must be tired; let’s take a rest.” The krinmo was indeed tired of carrying the girl, and took a rest.

As they were resting, the krinmo asked her to search for lice on her head. She began to search lice with her left hand, while with her right hand she secretly filled the sack with many small stones.

After a while the tired krinmo fell asleep and the girl ran away to her house. The krinmo got up and continued her journey, carrying her

heavy load, not knowing that her captive had run away.

“As promised, I finally brought some meat today,” she said and straight away emptied her sack into the boiling cauldron her mother

had prepared.

Not meat but small stones fell into water. Her hungry parents and relatives were angry and scolded her for her stupidity. The next

morning the krinmo’s daughter returned to the girl’s place and caught her again in the same way from the same orange tree. This time, she did not stop on the way.

“Tonight, you’ll make a big feast for my family,” she said to the girl inside the sack.

After she reached home, the krinmo was about to pour the girl alive into the boiling cauldron when she shouted, “Wait! Wait! I’m only a little girl. This is not the right time to eat me. I’m too small for the whole family. Let me first grow bigger and then you can eat me.”

The mother krinmo agreed that she was too small, and spared her for one night. The next morning the other demons went to hunt while

the demon’s daughter stayed behind to guard her. The clever girl converted ropes hanging above the boiling cauldron into a swing and

began to play. These ropes were meant to first hang and then drop her headlong into the boiling cauldron.

She began to play and sing, “As I look from here, I can see the road of my father and mother.” Her voice was so sweet, melodious, and sad that the krinmo grew curious and asked her to get down from the swing so that she could also see the road of her father and mother.

“But you can’t see the road in your dress; you’ll have to wear my

clothes,” she replied.

The krinmo was convinced that the reason why she could not see the roads of the poor girl’s mother from the swing in her house earlier was because of the dress, and she exchanged her clothes with the girl’s.

When the krinmo was swinging, the girl cut the rope, and down the krinmo fell into the boiling cauldron.

That evening, the mother krinmo arrived first and asked whether she had boiled the girl.

“It is ready, mother,” she replied.

“Are salt and butter amount okay?”

“Yes, nothing can be more delicious,” she said.

The mother krinmo asked her to call the older brother Nengkar for dinner. The girl went out nervously, and accidentally stepped on a pad

of cow dung and slipped.

“Nengkar,” she shouted.

“Are you my real sister?” Nengkar became suspicious. “Look at my dress,” she replied.

She again slipped over a pad of cow dung while calling the younger brother. The younger brother also asked if she was his real sister.

But as the family was enjoying meat, they all agreed it was the most delicious meat they had ever tasted. In the meanwhile, the mother

krinmo sent the girl to pound paddy. She pounded three times, spit inside a tshom three times, and began to run as her spit miraculously began to pound paddy in her place. Tshom is a large round mortar made of

wood block used for pounding paddy into rice with a human-length wooden staff.

It was not until demons began to eat legs and hands that they discovered they were eating one of themselves. All of them went out in search of the girl. She was nowhere in

sight. They followed her footsteps and found her climbing a cypress tree.

Seeing one of the krinmo climbing the cypress after her, she requested the tree to grow taller. The cypress agreed and became taller.

As the krinmo climbed nearer and nearer her, the girl saw the moon and called, “Acho Lala! Please throw me the iron chain, not the

woollen rope.” Acho Lala is the children’s name for the moon.

Acho Lala replied, “Wait, I’m getting up.”

She sang the same request, and the moon replied, “Now, I am washing my face.”

The krinmo was very close to her feet but she continued to sing to the moon. Acho Lala replied, “Now I’m preparing breakfast.”

Then he said, “Now I’m eating breakfast and now I’m taking my ox for grazing, and now I’m giving water to the ox.”

As the girl reached the top of the tree, the krinmo was only a finger-length away from her feet. At last, Acho Lala threw down a

long iron chain. She caught the chain and climbed towards the moon.

The krinmo’s claws caught hold of her feet and ripped off a lump of flesh. After the girl had climbed on the moon, the krinmo imitated

her, “Acho Lala! Send the woollen rope, not the iron chain.”

As it did with the girl, Acho Lala replied he was getting up... he was washing his face...until at last the woollen rope was thrown down. The krinmo caught hold of the rope and began to climb towards the moon.

When she was halfway into the sky, the woollen rope snapped, and she fell down, reducing her flesh to liquid, and crushing her bones into powder.

Today, a curve on the bottom of our feet is the mark of the krinmo’s claws that ripped a lump of flesh from the girl’s feet a long time ago.

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