The ghost tribe

The ghost tribe

Bengali Title

মোরং জাতির ভূত

Category
Indigenous Folktale

English

A long time ago, nestled in the woods of a scenic valley, there was a beautiful village called Morong. A local tyrant king would send his men every year to this village to extort money from its people. Every year his men would return almost empty-handed. One day, the king ran out of patience and declared that he would have all the people of Morong executed if they failed to pay taxes. The village council held an emergency session to discuss the king's threat. It was decided that everybody would participate in a Puja for seven consecutive days to request divine intervention. On the seventh day, God himself showed up and heard the pleas of the people. He felt pity for the poor villagers. But instead of providing them with wealth, He peformed a miracle and made the entire village invisible to mankind. Every new generation born after that day was also born invisible. This is how the villagers of Morong evaded the tyranny of kings for the rest of time.

In fact, to this day, the Mro people have a tradition of cutting the limb of any animal they hunt in the forest. Not doing so allows the ghosts of the Morong to claim the animal for themselves.