660 REPORT—1896. 
small village named Chipra, which lies six miles to the west of Ranchi, 
the chief town in the wild and hilly district of Chutia Nagpur. This is 
the most western part of Bengal, and borders on the Central Provinces of 
India. This old woman was entirely uneducated. She only understood 
the Uraon language and perhaps a little rustic Hindi. She had very little 
idea of civilisation. 
There are internal evidences of matter, idioms, and words in the tale 
itself which seem to me to stamp it as a genuine Uraon folk tale and not 
made up by the Christian narrator or borrowed from literary or Aryan 
sources. 
1. Once upon a time the Moon covered up her children with a large 
leaf basket, and, having boiled sweet potatoes, sat down to eat them. 
2. At that time the Sun came to her and said : ‘Sister, what are you 
eating? Give me also a little.’ 
3. The Moon gave. 
4, The Sun tasted it, and asked her : ‘Sister, what is this ?’ 
5. The Moon said : ‘I have boiled my children from hunger, and I am 
eating them.’ 
6. The Sun slunk away to his home, and boiled his children in a very 
large pot and ate them. 
7. Then the Moon uncovered her children. 
8. The Sun saw this, and he seized a bow to kill the Moon with, and 
chased her. 
9. The Moon went and hid in a banyan tree. 
10. The Sun came up and hit the Moon, and took out a small piece. 
11. The Kunr’gars (that is, the Uranws) say that the same banyan 
tree is seen in the Moon to this day. 
12. Again, they say that the Sun cut the Moon in two ; therefore the 
Moon is sometimes small and sometimes large. 
13. They say there were also many children of the Sun, but if they 
had remained all men would have died from the heat. 
Ill. The Tale of Dadgo Village. 
This tale was first of all written down for me as an exercise in English 
by one of my pupils, the Rev. Markas Manjan, a native Uraon pastor in 
the S.P.G. Mission in Chutia Nagpur. He came originally from the 
village of Dadgo. It is a remote village about twenty miles south-west of 
Ranchi. A few miles south of it we begin to meet with the Uriyas, the 
Aryan people who inhabit Orissa, and who speak a language closely allied 
to Bengali. Markas Manjan wrote the tale first in English, but long 
afterwards I got the Uraon version from him. The two versions agree in 
all important particulars. 
Though Markas Manjan could write in the Roman and Deva Nagri 
characters, and was a fair High Hindu and English scholar, I very much 
doubt if he had ever read any tales, as his education had been for the 
most part in Biblical and theological literature. 
This tale is important, as containing much wndesigned evidence about 
the habits and customs of the Uraons. £.g. :— 
1. Division of lands. 
2. Husking of rice. (Manner and locality.) 
3 Two kinds of rice fields. (Upland and lowland.) 
