Etiological myths are explanatory tales about why things are in the world. For instance, one finds stories that explain why sky is blue? Why sun is so hot? Why men die? etc. etc. This curious tale from Battara tribe in Chetliguda district of Orissa explains how women got to have breasts.
She was my best friend in seventh grade. We sat on the same bench. Shared food, shared our secrets, gossiped and secretly giggled at our teachers.
As teenagers, these were exciting years of our lives as everything around us seemed bubbling with life. . But it was mostly the curiosity of our changing bodies that played on our minds. One day my friend came up to me and whispered in my ear “ I have to tell you something very important ” What I asked, baffled by her urgency. “Don’t ever- ever eat leftover food or zoota. Especially, if it is a fruit eaten by a boy”. Not getting the clue I asked “why?”
She told me this story
Once there was a Brahmin couple. They did not have children for years. After doing sever penance to lord Shiva, they were blessed with a girl child. The couple was so happy that they would spend all their time pampering the new born baby. Once a sage came to their house begging for alms. But the couple was so engrossed with the new born baby that they did not hear the sage’s request. The sage got furious for being ignored and cursed the baby that she would be the cause of pain and shame for her parents by becoming an unwed mother.
The couple was saddened by the sage’s decree. But they could do nothing to revert sage’s mood. When the girl grew in to a beautiful woman, old parents told her about the sage’s curse. Girl heard the father’s plea and promised him that she would never hurt her parents by bringing shame to the family. In order to avoid the fate she declared she would renounce from worldly pleasures and live life of a celibate nun. With heavy heart, her old parents agreed to her resolve. Thus the girl started living alone in a small hut outside the town. As a nun she would live a simple life having no belongings. She did not eat any cooked food; slept on a hard floor and kept away from all male company.
One day when she had gone to the lake to fetch the water. A thief running away from the cops entered her hut. Hungry and tired he searched for food and found a fruit in the corner. As he took a bite; he heard footsteps approaching the hut. He dropped the fruit and ran away in the jungle. When the girl sat down to eat she found the only fruit which was her food for the day was half eaten. Who could have come in this jungle besides animals? She thought to herself. May be a hungry rabbit might have taken a bite. Since she had nothing else to eat she ate the remaining fruit and drank water to keep her hunger away.
Alas! The fate had caught up with her. The girl got pregnant after she ate the fruit. The sage’s curse had come true.
Story Collected by : Vidya Kamat
Location: Karvar, Karnataka
Story Told by: : Pratima Kamat
Image source: Wikipedia
Satti, Shati or Shashthi, is a goddess propitiated on the sixth day of the birth of a child in Goa, a small state on the western coast of India. It is believed if she is not propitiated appropriately she can harm a newborn child and the mother, even causing their death. Shashthi generally afflicts newbornchild and the mother in form of puerperal fever. Hence she needs to be pleased.*
According to common lore,a daughter in law stolesome food from her father-in-law’s home. Afraid of being humiliated by her in laws, she blamed it on a black cat, who was duly punished for stealing. Incidentally the cat was the vahanaof Satvai CHECK. The cat decided to take revenge for being wrongly accused and started stealing her children as soon as they were born. Cat would take away her children and give it to Satvai. She thus stole six of her sons. When the daughter in law realisedwhat was happening, she prayed to goddess Satvai and asked for forgiveness. Satvaithen advised the daughter in law to sculpt acat out of rice flour and tie this to theimage of the goddess with a sacred thread andworship both. Once the child is born the sacred thread should be tied to the new-born baby as a sign ofprotection of Satvai. This should be done with a vrata or a vow, whereby the new mother should keep a fast on the sixth day by drinking only milk and fruits.
It is also believed that Satti visits new born child on sixth day and writes his/her destiny on her forehead. A midwife (voizin) generally conducts the ritual of Satti on the sixth day of birth of newborn baby. A winnowing fan is placed in the chamber of the new mother. Rice, coconuts, betel leaves, betelnut, flowers, vermillion powder, lampblack and turmeric are placed uponthe winnowing fan. An oil lamp is lit for entire night. Women of the family sometimes play games like fugadi. And conch and empty vessels are blown to drive away the evil spirits. The purpose of these festivities is to keep the child awake through the night when Satti comes visiting to write his fate. It is believed that death follows Satvai and if he sees a sleeping baby then he may snatch him away.
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*Over time, the characterizations of Shashthi underwent a gradual evolution. Aforementioned folk traditions originating between the 10th and 5th centuries BCE associated the goddess with both positive and negative elements of fertility, birth, motherhood and childhood. However, between the 4th century BCE and the 5th century CE, a shift occurred in which Shashthi was increasingly depicted as a malevolent deity associated with the sufferings of mothers and children. The fifth century text KashyapaSamhita calls Shashthi by the epithet Jataharini (“one who steals the born”) and provides a list of the malevolent activities in which Shashthi is believed to engage, including her practice of stealing fetuses from the womb and devouring children on the sixth day following birth. For this reason, the text recommends that she be propitiated through worship in her honor on this day in the delivery room and on the sixth day of every fortnight thereafter.
Over the past 1500 years, the characterization of Shashthi gradually shifted toward that of a benevolent and protective figure. Shashthi’s evolution mirrors that of the demonessJaraof the Mahabharataand a similar Buddhist goddess, Hariti all of them are characterized in early texts as malevolent goddesses, but over the course of time these deities transformed from devourers of children into their saviors and protectors.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shashthi
Story collected by: Dr. PandurangPhaldesai
Text Source: Goa: Folklore Studies by Dr. PandurangPhaldesai
Location : Goa
