Khrane* created the birds, and when they were ready, he called a man named Brassa from the earth and said to him, “Look, the birds that I have created will go to the earth to warn you that the rain is coming. So when you see these birds in your fields, get ready to cultivate immediately, for showers of rain will follow.”

When Brassa returned to earth, the neighbours gathered around and asked him what Khrane had told him. But he, being a man anxious for his own profit, kept the matter secret and said that Khrane had merely asked how they all were doing.

After a time, the birds created by Khrane came flying around the village, and Brassa went immediately to clear the jungle for cultivation. A few days later, a shower of rain fell for the first time on the earth and made it soft. When the other people saw the rain falling, it seemed to them a wonderful thing, and with great joy, they collected the water and drank it.

Now, when Brassa left his house to cultivate his fields, his wife was expecting a child, and he said to her, “Before long, water will fall from the sky. If the child has been born before then, wash his body with the heavenly water.” On the very day the rain first fell, the woman gave birth to a male child, and after he was born, the mother took him out of the house to wash him. But as the people had drunk all the water, she could not get so much as a single drop for him, and in a little while, he died.

When Brassa returned home and heard of the death of his child, he was full of grief and said to himself, “I’ll make these fools drink as much water as they want.” He went to Khrane and begged him to send more rain, and Khrane, not understanding what Brassa had in mind, poured rain incessantly on the earth for several days, and there were great floods.

Now everyone held Brassa responsible for the heavy rain and reproached him. Some of them came to his house and beat him till he was half dead. Then they flayed him alive and threw his flesh in different parts of the country. The Kaman Mishmis believe that the earth got its fertility from Brassa’s flesh.

A Folkstory from Arunachal Pradesh sourced from the book Myths of the North-East Frontier of India compiled by Elwin Verrier .

Additonal Information:

• The Kaman Mishmi people are one of the three tribes of the Mishmi people of Tibet and Arunachal Pradesh.
• In Arunachali mythology, Khrane is deity associated with creation and the natural world, particularly revered among the Kaman Mishmi people.

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