How a Boy Turned into a Monkey (A folklore from Nagaland)
Once upon a time there was a boy in a village whose mother had died when he was young. After some time, the father married again in order to have a helpmate for himself a well as to provide a mother for his young son. But unfortunately for the little boy, the stepmother took an intense dislike to the boy from the very beginning and began to ill- treat him. She assigned him difficult chores hut gave him very little food, which was also inferior in quality. But most of this went unobserved by the father who was almost always away at his paddy field far away from home. And though, sometimes, he detected signs of unhappiness in his son, he soon forgot to ask his son because the woman was cunning and he was completely under her charm and domination. (The Ao-Naga tribe of Nagaland have always practised the shifting form of cultivation. According to the cycle, a farmer maintains two fields, the previous year's field where he grows mainly rice and the current year's field where, beside...