It was evening time. After having dinner, everyone in the village went inside their houses to sleep. A little while ago, it had rained heavily. After managing the rainwater from flooding into the pigpen, Rwisumwi and her family also went inside the house. For a brief moment, the husband and wife conversed in bed and were just about to fall asleep. Right at that moment, Rwisumwi heard a piglet crying. She immediately got up, lit a match to ignite the lamp, opened the door, and stepped outside. Rushing out, she hurried towards the pigpen. The mother pig was grunting loudly in distress.
She must have been thinking, “A fox bit and took away my baby. If I hadn’t been tied tightly with a rope, I would have chased after it. I would have thoroughly bitten the fox’s legs and mouth. No matter what, I would have rescued my child and brought it back.”
The mother pig was struggling hard to break the strong rope she was tied with. She kept trying to break free, but because she would roam and ruin the crops in the garden if left untied, Rwisumwi had securely bound her with a durable rope at her usual spot. Though the mother pig could not break free, she kept grunting heavily. The other piglets were also whimpering closely beside their mother.
Rwisumwi suspected that a fox had definitely taken away one of the piglets. By the light of the lamp, she began counting the piglets one by one. She counted them repeatedly. After counting carefully, she figured out the tally: one piglet was indeed missing. The fox had certainly taken it.
Looking at her husband’s face, Rwisumwi said—
“That sinful fox took one away. That is why I kept telling you that the pen needed to be properly secured. Because the pen wasn’t sturdy enough, the fox managed to sneak in and slip away.”
Looking at Rwisumwi’s face, Laothai (her husband) replied—
“The foxes have become far too daring. Only yesterday, when I went to fetch the cattle near the edge of the master’s land, I heard them howling ‘phitha houwa, phitha houwa’. How on earth did that wretched fox find out there were piglets here to come and steal like this…?”
“That sinful fox has carried it away fresh and alive. It will be greedily tearing it apart and devouring it by now…”
Did it take a male piglet or a female piglet?
Rwisumwi looked closely. She saw that one male piglet was missing. The wicked creature had taken the male one.
Rwisumwi spoke in a sorrowful voice. Wondering what could be done, she thought for a moment and then said:
“Wait, I just remembered! If you sharpen a machete on a stone, its edge becomes razor-sharp. That wicked fox couldn’t have reached very far yet; it might be crouching somewhere with the piglet in its mouth to take a breath. Or else, it might still be slowly moving away with it in its jaws.”
Saying this, Rwisumwi went inside the house and returned carrying a broad-bladed machete (sikha phathanga).
The broad-bladed machete (sikha phathanga) was the one used for cutting raw jackfruit, raw papaya, and gourds. Bringing it out, Raisumai began sharpening it against a stone, making a scraping ‘shiva shiva’ sound. Seeing his mother doing this, her son Alangbar asked:
“What are you doing, Mother?”
In response to Alongbar’s question, the mother replied:
“They say that if you sharpen a machete, the fox’s teeth will ache and turn blunt. Because its teeth ache, it will drop and release the piglet it is holding in its mouth.”
After sharpening the machete for a little while, Rwisumwi felt tired. Looking up at Alongbar, who was standing right next to her, she said:
“Here, son, keep sharpening this machete for a bit. Who knows, maybe the fox will actually release the piglet it has caught in its mouth…”
Hearing his mother’s words, Alongbar felt like laughing. He wondered deep down inside whether this superstition could actually be true. Nevertheless, he began doing the task his mother requested. Feeling as though his own teeth were getting set on edge, he kept sharpening the heavy machete on the stone for a while. The blade was incredibly blunt; sometimes when Alongbar was asked by his mother to cut gourds to cook for the pigs, it required immense effort to cut through them. Alongbar remarked to himself that even if he used this machete to cut wild grass, it wouldn’t even be sharp enough to cut it properly.
After a short while, everyone went back to sleep. Rwisumwi, however, did not feel like sleeping. Her husband had fallen asleep and was drifting off. Rwisumwi kept focusing her attention toward the pigpen. She was straining her ears toward the pen. When Rwisumwi finally climbed into bed to sleep for a little while, right at that moment, she heard a piglet crying. Immediately, she took the lamp, opened the door, and headed straight toward the pigpen. A piglet was running toward the pigpen from the direction of…
Having lost its way, it was wandering around. Looking at it closely, she saw that its belly was completely mauled and bitten by the fox. Its entire body was covered in blood. Its intestines were spilling out from its belly—it was a severe, terrible wound. Seeing this, Rwisumwi felt immensely sad, but on the other hand, she was also very happy that it had returned alive.
Rwisumwi went to the bedroom and woke her husband up.
“The piglet has come back! That sinful fox has mauled its belly badly.”
Immediately, her husband startled awake. Alongbar was also already staying alert and awake. He too opened the door and stepped outside immediately. Rwisumwi tore an old piece from her dokhona and wrapped the rags tightly around the piglet’s body. She nursed and took care of the piglet as best as she could. Seeing the piglet return, Alangbar was astonished; he couldn’t comprehend how on earth the piglet managed to come back. “Does sharpening a machete really make the fox’s teeth ache so much that it can’t eat and actually releases its prey…?” He began to wonder if what his mother said was actually true. In this way, after a short while, everyone in the family went back to sleep. Rwisumwi couldn’t sleep well until about 12 o’clock at night. It was only around 1 o’clock that she finally drifted off into a deep sleep.
Despite spending the night with so much worry and tears, she woke up in the morning just as the drongo birds (pherenga) started singing. When she got up, the village roosters were crowing across every household. It is the domestic roosters that wake the village people up. The birds perched in the corners of the backyard joyfully wake everyone up. Once the village people wake up, no one wishes to go back to sleep; they eagerly get up to start doing some work. Laothai got up, hitched his plow, and went off to the fields to plow the land.