Folklore: A Tale of the Doke Chyau (Mushroom)

Folklore: A Tale of  the Doke Chyau (Mushroom)
Kishor Subba Limbu
Source: Pabitra Limbu

Once upon a time, there was a hunter, and his family lived in a village. He used to hunt the prey. His wife told him to share the flesh of the prey with other villagers. The hunter said, "I have to work hard to hunt the prey." Why should I have to share it with the villagers? You keep quiet. This is not your business.

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One day, three or four villagers follow the hunter as a group to go hunting. They are still hunting prey on that day.They distributed the flesh of the prey by headcount. The hunter, on the other hand, counts one head for his hunter skill as one head for the share of the flesh, and the hunter receives two shares of the flesh.They fried some of the flesh for their tiffin. This time also, the hunter distributed by headcount share for the others, and he counted his wife, daughter, and son for the share of the fried meat. The hunter ate his share, his wife's share, the daughter's share, and then the share of the son.
Villagers talked about the hunter's behaviour in the village. Then everyone spat and scolded him. After this, how greedy is the hunter? The hunter killed many prey, but the prey's meat has not been shared with anyone.
One day the hunter died. The villagers said, "The hunter was too greedy." He used to kill the prey and eat it alone. He didn't consider why he would need the villagers at the time.The villagers decided not to go to the hunter's funeral. The hunter's wife kept crying and looking for the villagers, but none of them came to run the hunter's funeral. The hunter's wife wept for days and weeks near her husband's dead body, wishing that the villagers would come to help her. The villagers used to come quietly to observe the situation at the hunter's house. When the hunter's wife felt that the villagers were coming towards the house, she turned down his volume of crying and tried to listen to the villagers' foot sounds. screaming about what the hunter's wife is doing. Asha, the hunter's wife, wept a little when she heard the man coming. The villagers would return, casting a distant glance at the hunter's house.Then the hunter's wife felt that the villagers had gone back. She used to cry louder and louder. She was fed up after crying and looking away from the villagers for many days. She gets that the villagers would not help her, so she has to do something with his dead body. Then she took her husband's dead body in a Doko (a bamboo basket) and carried it out of the jungle. She dug a ditch and buried the dead body by the Doko. The dead body had a rotten and terrible smell. Then she fled somewhere, leaving the village.

It believes she transforms into a singing fly and the hunter into the Doke Chyau (a bamboo basket-covered mushroom).Thus, the Doke Chyau has a terrible smell, and there would be a singing fly around the Doke Chyau. Sometimes the singing fly sings lauder and lauder, and sometimes it sings low.

(Source: Pabitra Limbu, Pachhapan Municipality-6, Sankhuwasabha, Nepal.)

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