Phulim – Senya and Jeqva Story

One recording in which Mr Phulim Hakhun, and Mr Khithung Hakhun tell the Senya and Jeqva story. This consists of one sound file: SDM23-20091219-04_SM_T_Phulim_Senya The details of this recording are as follows: SDM23-20091219-04_SM_T_Phulim_Senya_Duration 9’03”, Story of Se²nya³ and Jeq²va¹. This is the story of the origin of the crab (se²) and squirrel (jeq²khi¹). Senya and Jeqva were a old couple. They have one child. The baby was crying for something to play with, called pi¹, it is a kind of fruit. Senya asked Jeqva to go and pluck this for the child, and he went and plucked it, which was falling down to the wak²ngi³ rip¹ - a pig ‘nest’. Because of that the wild pig came out and started cutting the wild bananas and from there the bat came out and then the bat entered into the elephant’s nose, and then the elephant started jumping and at last the elephant killed the jube’s child. Then jube started a court case against these to find out who was responsible, and then a series of questions were asked by the jube family. So first they ask the elephant why he jumped, and he answered that the bat had entered his nose, and they ask the bat and so on until they discover that it Jeqva and Senya who are ulitmately responsible. The final responsibility rested with Senya, so then she has to pay a debt, so she went to the river, and lived under a big stone in the river. She said she would bring all her precious things from her house under the big stone in the river and then a meeting called her to come out. She said, “wait for a moment, I am counting the silver.” Two or three times they called her and then became impatient, and so they had an agreement with the monkey, saying “monkey you have a long tail, and you can stick it under the stone, to see how far it is.” At that time Senya was just near the stone, so when the monkey touched her, she cut his tail, and then when the monkey saw that his tail was almost gone, the monkey stayed back. Next one jungle bird, vae¹phi¹, a bird that digs on the ground for the whole day. There would be a prize if the vaephi could get the money, but he could not. Even so the monkey and the vaephi got a prize. The monkey got a vun¹pha¹ - a white piece of decoration that is on the forehead; and the vaephi got an ornament called me³no³ ra²ti¹, a very beautiful thing that men tie to their legs when dancing. It is no longer used. Since they could not get the valuables from Senya, all the people and animals &c decided to jump on the stone, and because of that Senya became flat, and that is why crabs are flat