The Leap of Ka Likai
This story has to be one of the saddest and most horrific myths I have read so far. There was a woman named Ka Likai who had a wonderful husband and beautiful little girl. Ka Likai's husband died and so she ended up marrying another man to help her burden of raising a girl by herself. Her new husband was very selfish and was mean to the girl when Ka Likai was gone. One day she had to go on a long trip for work and left her husband to watch the girl. The husband decided to kill the girl and had chopped her up and cooked her to feed to the girls mother. After dinner, she pulled a bowl of betel nut towards her and saw her daughters severed hand in the bowl. The husband confessed to what he had done and she went and jumped over a waterfall to end her life.
How the Ox came to be the Servant of Man
Most of the stories in between the first and last of this half seemed to have a laziness theme. Also, most of these stories were about how different animals came to live with man. This one stood out to me because of the warning that is given. It seems to resonate today as well.
Man had become wasteful and ignorant. The god called on the ox to deliver a message to them. The message was to not be so wasteful because they would perish from want at some point. On the way to tell man, the bugs and flies kept bothering the ox. A crow came and took care of the bugs for the ox. The ox then told the crow what he was going to do. The crow became distraught because he lived on the extras from the humans. After some pleading from the crow, the ox mixed the two requests into one to help the humans and the crows and other animals that lived off of mans waste. After the god found out what the ox had done, he knocked his top teeth out and punched a hollow in his waist. Afterwards, the ox was looking for pasture and shelter and offered his help to mankind in return for those things.
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Rekla Race. Source: Wikimedia Commons.
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