# The Tortoise Prince and other Singpho Tales

- Link: https://writersworkshopindia.com/2022/07/04/the-tortoise-prince-and-other-singpho-tales/
- Published: 2022-07-04T21:58:33+00:00
- Author: shuktara

4.7/5 - (4 votes)

**Author and Illustrator:** Gumlat Ong Maio[⌊A sample cover of the book: bright green coloured handloom sari with gold embossed nameplate and lettering for the title and author's name. The border of the sari lines the right hand margin of the cover.⌉](https://writersworkshopindia.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/The-Tortoise-Prince.jpeg)
**
Pages:** 96 **Year of Publication:** 2022 **Price:** Rs 350 **ISBN:** 978-81-956648-
8-7 (9788195664887)

_**About the Author**_
 Gumlat Ong Maio has written three novels, _Once Upon a Time
in College_ and its two sequels forming the College Trilogy, and a collection of
cartoons called _Cheap Pencil_. His second novel was selected among the top three
books of the month by Notion Press Editors’ Pick, Chennai, in 2017.

He has been honored by the Arunachal Pradesh state Government with the Governor’s
Young Achievers Award 2018 for literature. He was also a recipient of the Indian
Awaz “100 Inspiring Authors of India” award in the same year.

His cartoons are regularly uploaded on his Facebook page, “Once Upon a Time Somewhere”,
which has over 25,000 followers. He works as a Medical Officer under the Arunachal
Pradesh Government. He is a member of North-East Writers Forum and Arunachal Pradesh
Literary Society. This is his maiden book of poetry.

_**About the Book**_
 In his introduction to the book, Gumlat writes:

“The book is a compilation of fourteen folktales in balladic, rhyming verse of the
little-known Singpho tribe inhabiting Arunachal Pradesh and Assam. The Singphos 
are barely eight thousand people with no written history. They began converting 
to Theravada Buddhism hardly a century back but animism and worship of Nats (spirits)
are still an indispensable part of their belief system. It is an unusually hybrid
spiritual system with the non-violence of Buddhism on one side and animal sacrifice
for appeasement of offended Nats on the other.

There are tales about the redemption of a flute-playing tortoise prince banished
by his human father, about why cats bury their faeces, the origin of the universe,
a stinky dragon wife, how fireflies came to exist, why goats are scared of rivers,
how a tadpole outwitted a tiger, the mythology behind the tribe’s annual dance festival,
among others. I do not claim myself as their original source. They have existed 
among the Singphos for eons, transferred orally from one generation to the next,
and each generation has interpreted a familiar story in a different way depending
on the narrator. Due to the lack of written records, the same familiar folktale 
narrated by five different people seems to have different story arcs with five different
endings, even though the characters are the same. Sometimes, the same person, asked
to repeat a tale five years down the line, had a different take on the story and
it had a different ending from the one he recited five years previously.”

_**Contents**_
 _Introduction_ / 7 The Tortoise Prince / 9 The Elephant and the 
Tiger / 19 The Snake and the Goat / 25 Revenge of the Unborn Egg / 31 Smell of the
Dragon Princess / 38 The Tiger and the Cat / 45 Fowl’s Fate / 50 Origin of Fireflies/
55 When Man Met Fire / 59 Origin of Shapawng Yawng Manau Poi Festival / 66 The Sun
Twins / 76 The King They Chose / 80 Genesis / 83 Origin of Cha / 89