Once upon a time there lived a woman named Pottori Tondon. One day her husband went hunting in the forest. By noon he returned to dinner, and Pottori Tondon asks:
-Where is your prey?
“There’s nothing yet,” the husband answers.
“If you hear a Chechak screaming, run,” Pottori Tondon tells him.
Then she secretly screamed and sang:
Chechak, chechak, your head hangs along with the dry meat.
The husband heard this and rushed headlong into the forest, and Pottori Tondon began to dry the meat.
When her husband returned from hunting, he asked:
- Who was it that screamed like a Chechak and scared me so much that I ran into the forest?
Pottori Tondon replied: “It’s me.”
The husband became furious and hit her on the head with a dagger. Pottori Tondon was in great pain, she jumped out of the hut, ran to the river and threw herself into the pool.
And she had two daughters. They followed their mother, stood near the pool and sang:
Mother Pottori,
Pottori Tondon
With a broken head
Rise from the water
Feed your daughter
She's hungry
Her belly is empty
She wants milk
And she cries all the time.
Pottori Tondon swam out and gave her youngest daughter the breast. I fed her and dived into the pool again. Both girls returned home. The father was surprised and asked his eldest daughter:
– What did you feed your sister that she is silent? The eldest daughter replied:
- Only mulberries.
The next day both girls came to the shore again and the eldest sang the same song. Pottori Tondon surfaced, fed her daughter, and then sank back into the pool. At home, the father again asked the eldest daughter:
– Why isn’t your sister losing weight, since she’s no longer breastfed?
She answers:
– I’ll give her mulberries.
The father did not believe it and got angry. The next day, when the daughters left, he quietly followed them and began to spy on them. He looked - the girls approached the pool and the eldest sang:
Mother Pottori,
Pottori Tondon
With a broken head
Rise from the water
Feed your daughter
She's hungry
Her belly is empty
She wants milk
And she cries all the time.
Pottori Tondon swam out to feed her daughter. The husband saw this and wanted to grab her, but she slipped out of his hands and swam into the pool.
The next day the girls came to the shore again and began calling for their mother, but she was not there. They waited for a long time, the younger sister began to cry, and Pottori Tondon still did not show up.
They wandered along the river bank. If they came across a tree with fruits, the elder sister would climb on it, pick the fruits, and then they would eat them together. They found two fruits - the eldest gave one to the younger, they found three - each of the sisters took one for herself and another half.
They wandered like this for many years. The younger sister was already grown and did not need to be carried.
One day they saw a mango tree. The older sister climbed onto it, began to tear mangoes and throw them down, and the younger sister picked them up and ate them. Suddenly a wild boar came running. The older sister from above says:
“Just be quiet, sister, don’t be afraid of anything!”
The boar began to chew mangoes, and the eldest one from above tossed everything. Then she stuck a knife into one fruit and threw it down.
“Don’t touch him, sister,” she told the younger one.
The boar saw this mango and swallowed it. Younger. looks - a boar is rolling on the ground. She shouted:
- Step on him, step on him, sister! And the older sister answers:
- No, sister, let the boar die on its own, and we will eat its meat.
Then she went down to the ground and saw that the boar had died.
She went to get a fire to fry the meat, and said to her sister:
- Wait for me here.
In the forest she saw the hut of Indo Orro-Orro. The girl asked the old woman for fire, and she asked:
- Why do you need fire, granddaughter?
The girl answers:
“We want to roast a porcupine.” Indo Orro-Orro says:
- Eating a porcupine is like eating your grandfather, tell the truth, girl, what do you want to fry?
The girl answers:
- Stinky crab, grandma.
“This is your grandfather - you can’t eat him,” Indo Orro-Orro says again. Tell me the whole truth, what are you going to fry?
- Cabana, grandma! – the girl confessed. Indo Orro-Orro shook her head.
- Granddaughter, granddaughter!
She gave the girl some fire, and together they went to roast the wild boar. When the boar was roasted, Indo Orro-Orro began to cut the meat. The girl says:
- Give the leg of the boar to my sister, grandmother! And Indo Orro-Orro answered her:
- You can’t, he’ll love boar’s legs - he won’t be able to live without them!
The girl asks:
“Then give your sister a boar’s ear!” :
– You can’t, she’ll become too curious.
– If you can’t have an ear, give me a heart!
“Give her your heart, and then she won’t even look at other food,” answers Indo Orro-Orro.
Then the old woman began to divide the meat:
- This is for my legs, this is for my hands, this is for my eyes, this is for my head...
So she took all the meat for herself, but the sisters got nothing.
Then she put the meat in the basket, hung it on a stick and went home, followed by her sisters.
They walk through the thickets, with stones all around. The elder sister says:
“The basket got caught in the branches, grandma.”
“Help me unhook her, granddaughter.”
The girl took meat from the basket and put a stone in its place. Soon she said again:
“The basket got caught, grandma.”
Indo Orro-Orro says again: “Come on, help me unhook her!”
The sisters again took meat from the basket and put a stone in its place. So they dragged all the meat from the basket.
Finally they reached the Indo Orro Orro hut. She says to her husband:
- Take the boar meat! And the husband answers:
- Take these stones for yourself. Your chest is hard like stone, your breath is like fire in a stove, your hands are like ladles, and your ears are wide like a cauldron lid.
Indo Orro-Orro answered him:
- If I burn, I will turn you into ashes, if I boil, I will pour into your mouth and hit you in the head!
She just looks - there are, indeed, only stones in her basket. She got angry, let's throw stones in different directions. Then she missed the sisters - and there was no trace of them.
Indo Orro-Orro ran after her and saw: girls sitting by the road in the bamboo thickets eating boar meat. She grabbed the sisters, brought them to her hut and made them fatten them so that they would become fatter. She didn’t even tell them to leave their place - so they sat all the time near the fireplace.
The sisters began to get better. One day Indo Orro-Orro tells them:
- How are you getting better, kids? The sisters answer:
“We’re still skinny, grandma, we can slip between your teeth.”
- Well, I'll wait another two months. Then you can be eaten.
A week passed, two, three... Indo Orro-Orro looked at the sisters from all sides and asked:
- Well, granddaughters, are you getting fat? The sisters answer:
- Little by little, grandma.
The old woman went to the river bank and began to sharpen her teeth. She sees a black chick crossing the river.
Indo Orro-Orro says:
Black Chechak, you are swimming across the river, Apparently you will come home first. I sit and sharpen my teeth - A delicious dinner is waiting for me! I will swallow my granddaughters at once.
-What are you saying, Indo Orro-Orro? – the black Chechak was surprised and turned back. And she again:
Black Chechak, you are scurrying back and forth, Apparently, you will be the first to run home. I sit and sharpen my teeth - A delicious dinner is waiting for me! I will swallow my granddaughters at once.
Chechak ran as fast as he could to the Indo Orro-Orro hut and said to the two sisters:
– If you reward me, I’ll tell you something. Sisters ask:
- What should I reward you with? Do you want gold? Black Chechak says:
- What do I need gold for?
- Do you want us to give you some rice? Chechak replied:
- Rice, so rice! Now listen: take a louse and put it in the southern room, take a bug and put it in the middle room, catch a flea and plant it outside near the mortar.
Soon Indo Orro-Orro returned from the river and shouted:
- Hey, granddaughters!
The louse from the southern room replied:
- I'm here!
The old woman entered this room and shouted again:
- Hey, granddaughters, where are you?
The bug from the middle room answers:
- I'm here!
She entered the middle room, saw that there was no one there, and shouted:
- Hey, granddaughters, where have you gone? And the flea from behind the mortar answers:
- Here I am!
Indo Orro-Orro went downstairs where the mortar stood, and then she saw the shadows of the sisters who hid in the trough. She rushed towards them, but the trough split in two, and the sisters began to run as fast as they could. The old woman is behind them. So they climbed a coconut tree, and Indo Orro-Orro climbed a keladi. She began to read the spell: “Coconut palm, go down, and you, Keladi, rise.” And the sisters say theirs:
“You are a palm tree, go up, and you, keladi, go down.”
So the coconut tree began to grow higher and higher, almost reaching the sky, and the keladi disappeared into the ground. That's how they remained - the coconut palm is tall and the keladi is short. The sisters asked God: “If our mother is in the east, throw us to the east, if in the west, throw us to the west. If she is in the north, let the palm tree fall with its tip towards the source; if the mother is in the south, let it fall with its tip towards the mouth.”
The palm tree fell to the east. Its top just lay at the entrance to Pottori Tondon's house.
They see: a mother feeds pigs. She didn’t recognize her daughters - they had grown up and become big. The sisters tell her:
- Mother, give us some pork mash. Pottori Tondon gave them chatterboxes. The Poelii sisters say:
– Can we look in your head for this?
“Well, look,” the mother answers them.
So the sisters began to sort through and scratch her hair. They saw an old mark on her head - the mark of a dagger and began to cry. Mother asks:
-Where is this water dripping from? The sisters answer:
- Probably from the gutter.
The mother went and washed her hair, and the sisters began combing her hair again. As soon as they saw the mark of the wound, they burst into tears again.
Pottori Tondon asked again: Where is this water flowing from?
They answered her:
The rivers of South Sulawesi flow from north to south.
- Probably from the roof.
She didn’t believe it, raised her head and saw: the girls were crying. She asks:
- Why are you crying? The eldest daughter answers:
“We remembered how our father hit our mother on the head with a sting dagger.
Only then did Pottori Tondon realize that this was her daughter. She hugged them and they cried together. The mother took the yam leaf out of her youngest daughter’s mouth—it was pig feed, after all—and gave her daughters some rice.
“We will stay with you and not return to father,” the daughters said.
“Well, stay,” says the mother. “But the trouble is, I married a boa constrictor.” He'll be back home soon. But don't be afraid! Here's four for you! coconuts. You, the eldest, take two nuts and hide on the roof in the front part of the house, and let the youngest hide with her nuts on the other half of the roof. When the boa constrictor crawls and goes to sleep, throw the nuts on the floor one by one. And I’ll prepare a pot of boiling water.
In the evening the boa constrictor returned. He crawled to the door and said, “Ugh, something here smells like human spirit.” Pottori Toidon answers him:
-Where does a person come from here? You've been hunting all day and haven't met a single one, and I don't even see any people - I've been sitting here alone all day.
The boa constrictor dozed off, and the youngest daughter threw one nut from the roof onto the floor. The boa constrictor woke up from the noise and asked:
-What is this?
Pottori Tondon responds:
- These are mice.
Another nut fell. The boa constrictor asks again:
-Who is that there? And she told him again:
- These are mice.
The boa constrictor woke up three times, and when the fourth nut fell, he did not move: he finally fell sound asleep. Then Pottori Tondon pulled the board out of the floor, and the boa constrictor fell into the buffalo barn, and she also splashed boiling water on the buffaloes. The burned buffaloes began to jump, rush around the barn and trample the boa constrictor. So they trampled him to death.
From that day on, the sisters lived happily with their mother. Whether they met their father again or not is not mentioned in the fairy tale.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru