In one village on the slope of Mount Sesean there lived a peasant with his wife. They had five daughters with long hair: one with three fathoms, another with five fathoms, a third with seven fathoms, and a fourth with ten. The longest hair—seventeen fathoms—had the youngest sister Mangguana. For her long hair she was nicknamed Landoh Rundun - “Long-Haired”.
Every day the girls went to swim in the Tabu River, which flows into the Sadan River. One day Mangguana came to the sisters at the river and began to wash her hair with water mixed with lemon juice. Suddenly one hair fell out. She was annoyed: after all, her hair was her beauty and pride, she loved it and took care of it. She rolled up this hair and put it in a lemon peel, and then threw the peel into the middle of the river, and it was carried away by the current.
[To avoid overheating of the head (sunstroke), Indonesians lubricate their hair with coconut oil and rub it into the skin, and when they wash their hair, add lemon juice to water to wash off the oil.]
Two days later, Bendurana, the son of the Bugis Raja who ruled the lower reaches of the Sadan River, ordered his servants to bathe his herd of buffaloes. They drove the buffaloes into the river, rubbed their backs, and Bendurana looked after them. Suddenly he sees something shining on the river, as if the current is carrying a star.
Bendurana wanted to know what it was, and he ordered one servant to get this miracle. The servant got closer and looked: it was as if the lemon was floating. I just stretched out my hand to take it, but my hand withered.
Bendurana was surprised and ordered another servant to bring him a lemon. As soon as this servant swam closer, he became blind in both eyes.
He sent a third servant, but before he could grab the lemon, his hand broke.
Benduran sent seven servants, but none of them had any luck. And the lemon peel kept spinning and floating forward.
Benduran felt uneasy. He wanted to get a wonderful lemon so much that he himself jumped into the water. As soon as he touched the water, the lemon peel stopped and floated towards him. As soon as he took it in his hands, all seven servants recovered, as if nothing had happened to them. In the lemon peel, Bendurana found a black hair, a shine came from the hair, and when Bendurana measured it, it turned out that it was seventeen fathoms long. Bendurana was surprised and wanted to find a girl with such long hair.
He came to the palace, showed the hair to his father and mother and said that he wanted to go look for a girl with long hair. His parents let him go.
The next day Bendurana called his servants, and they went up the Sadan River. They see: a peasant hoeing the ground. Bendurana asked him:
“Do you know if there’s a girl here with seventeen fathoms of hair?”
He answered:
- I haven’t heard of this one. Maybe she lives upstream?
Bendurana went further and met another peasant. This one sowed seedlings. Bendurana addressed him:
“Have you seen a girl with hair seventeen fathoms long in these parts?”
“I don’t know,” said the peasant, “maybe she lives closer to the upper reaches?”
The Raja's son goes further and sees a man taking seedlings out of the ground. He also knew nothing and advised Bendurana to go up the river.
Then Bendurana saw: a peasant was planting rice seedlings in the field. And he didn’t know anything, he just gave the prince advice to look for the girl higher up the river.
The peasant who was weeding the rice also did not know such a girl and sent Bendurana further.
Even further up the river he saw a peasant driving birds away from the field. He was already getting some rice. This peasant said:
- I heard about such a girl. She lives further away, near the Tabu River.
The Raja's son set out on the road again. He met the reaper and asked him where the girl with hair seventeen fathoms long lived. The Reaper showed him her home on the slope of Mount Sesean and the place where she went to swim.
And Benduran sent a servant to woo a girl with long hair for him. Mangguana and her father refused him - Mangguana did not want to marry a man with short hair, and even in Songkok. The matchmaker began to say who Bendurana was, but Landoh Rundun did not want to listen to him.
[The short hair and cap showed that Bendurana was an outsider. The Toraja wear their hair long and tie a piece of cloth around their head. ]
Bendurana got angry and went back. He walked for a day or two, then stopped and ordered his servants to block the Sadan River with a strong and high dam.
The Sadan River overflowed like a lake. The water flooded the banks and approached Mangguana's house. Then Bendurana hung a bunch of mangoes around the belibis duck's neck and sent her to Mount Sessean. A duck swam to Mangguana's house. The girl rarely saw mangoes, she wanted to try them. She took the mango belibis from her neck and ate them, and the duck returned to Bendurana. The prince saw that the belibis had returned without a burden, opened the dam, and the water ran away. So he sends a servant to find out whether his matchmaking was accepted or not. Mangguana gives the answer:
“I didn’t want to get married before, and now I don’t want to.”
Servant says:
“Didn’t you eat the mango, where is your gratitude?”
And Mangguana answers:
- True, I ate the mango, but my decision is firm: I will not marry Bendurana.
The servant returned with an answer. Bendurana got angry and again dammed the Sadan River. This time the water had already reached the floor in Mangguana’s house. The father began to advise his daughter to accept matchmaking, but Mangguana and her mother did not want to hear about it.
[The Torajans place their houses on high stilts. To reach the floor, the water must be very high, i.e. the flood must be very strong. ]
Bendurana again sent the duck for an answer. She sailed back and said: the bride does not give consent. Bendurana raised the dam even higher - the water was already approaching the upper rafters of Mangguana's house.
Belibis came again for an answer. Mangguana and her mother did not know what to do. They were afraid that things would turn out even worse, and accepted matchmaking. But, although they agreed, their souls still did not lie with Bendurana - they reluctantly agreed, they had no other choice.
He opened the Benduran dam and the water subsided. When the ground dried out, he went to Mangguana's house to look at his bride. He stood near the house, waiting for her to come out. And Mangguana’s mother has her own thing on her mind; She decided to deceive the groom. First, she ordered her eldest daughter to leave. Bendurana did not want to accept her: after all, her hair was only three fathoms long. The mother sent her second daughter, Bendurana refused her too - her hair was five fathoms long. Then the mother ordered her daughter to come out with hair seven fathoms long, and he also sent her back. He didn’t want to take the girl with hair ten fathoms long either. Finally Mangguana herself had to come out. The Raja's son took a hair out of the lemon peel, applied it to Mangguana's hair, saw that there was no deception, and was delighted.
He married Mangguan, although her mother bit her elbows out of frustration. They live one day, then they live another. Bendurana wanted to take his wife to the Buginese land, to his father’s kingdom, but his mother would not let her. He cannot forgive his son-in-law for his short hair and songkok hat.
Mangguana fell in love with her young husband, but is afraid of her mother. So she asked her mother to bring her water from a distant source. The water there flowed from the crevice one drop at a time.
Mangguana gave her mother a tabung with a holey bottom: even if you fill it with water, it will never be full.
The mother went to fetch water, and the young people quickly began to get ready for the journey. Before leaving, Mangguang asked her husband to move the well that was behind her house to Bugis land. For Bendurana this was not a difficult task. He ordered the servants to raise the well, and they went to the Bugis land. In the village of Pangga, near the town of Rante-pao, water from a well splashed. Since then, Pangga has the same water as the wells on Mount Sesean.
Mangguana’s mother took a long time to collect water, but the tabung was still incomplete. Finally she saw that the tabung was full of holes. Then she returned home and saw that Mangguana had run away. She began to cry and moan, did not take anything into her mouth - and fell ill.
And Mangguana did not forget about her mother in her husband’s palace. She ordered the dog, who came running after her from her parents' house, to run to her native village and find out how her mother lived. The dog returned to the palace tired and immediately lay down on the floor. Mangguana guessed that her mother was sad.
Some time passed, she again ordered the dog to go on its way. The dog returned completely sick and turned away from food. Mangguana realized that her mother was sick, was not eating and was barely breathing.
The third time she sent the dog to find out what was wrong with her mother. The dog returned, walked up to the wall, leaned against it and died. Mangguana began to cry: she guessed that her mother had died and the body of the deceased had already been leaned against the wall.
[Part of a Toraja funeral rite. The funeral continues for several days. ]
She began to ask her husband to quickly get ready for the journey, to go with her to her village in the land of Toraja. She wanted to look at her mother one last time and arrange a funeral celebration.
Bendurana agreed, and they went up the Sadan River, and with them about fifty other people. Bendurana took with him only a buffalo hide and a rooster skin.
They walked for so long that the funeral festival in the village of Mangguana had already ended. In one village, Bepdurana began scraping buffalo skins and rooster skins. The scrapings immediately turned into live buffaloes and roosters. Since then, this village began to be called Kia, which means “scraper”.
They walked past villages, and people rejoiced as they looked at them. “It looks like there will be a big holiday,” they thought and followed Bendurana, driving his buffaloes. Little by little, the buffaloes became visible and invisible near Bendurana, and whole crowds of people followed him. Each of them carried a rooster under his arm.
When they came to the village where Mangguana lived, her mother had already died a year ago, the funeral festival had long ended, and the body of the deceased was carried to a cave carved out of the rock on the slope of Mount Sesean.
Mangguana began to cry and threw a bast shirt over herself as a sign of mourning. She ran forward and told people to bury their mother. They don’t listen to her, they want to finish the funeral as soon as possible, they see crowds of people coming from afar, they think that the enemy is coming to war against them. While they were arguing, Bendurana and the people approached - they had nowhere to go. Then Mangguana showed them her royal robes and said:
“We didn’t come to fight you.” I want to organize a big funeral celebration in honor of my mother. Let this be the second holiday.
The peasants were glad that the matter ended peacefully, and when they saw all the buffaloes and roosters, their eyes lit up and their mouths began to water.
And they began to slaughter countless numbers of buffaloes and set off the roosters, and ate the dead ones. The same thing happened with buffaloes - their meat was divided among all the guests. And Mangguana’s fellow villagers slaughtered a lot of pigs. They exchanged them for buffaloes - after all, Bendurana did not bring pigs with him from the Buginese land. For many days everyone had fun and feasted. Only when the holiday ended was Mangguana's mother buried.
They say that there are people near Rantepao - they themselves saw how many people walked along the bank of the Sadan River to the upper reaches, and then returned downstream. They were lucky: whoever saw this procession with his own eyes will have a house - a full cup and he will succeed in everything in life.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru