The Re Re Bird

The wind slips through the mountain gaps of Mường Tè. On some nights, when thick clouds roll in, a small cry suddenly rises above it, steady and sad: re re, re re. The Hà Nhì people there still tell one another that whenever that sound is heard in the mountain forest, rain is about to fall. No one forces the bird to call like this. Yet whenever gray clouds gather, its voice rises again, aching, as if it were begging forgiveness of someone far up above.

In the village of Mù La, in the Mường Tè area, people still tell the story behind that cry. It is told just as a woman named Khoảng Ho Pú once told it. The Hà Nhì here build rammed-earth houses. Their thick walls of pounded earth stay cool in summer and warm in winter. They are raised entirely by hand, with no cement, sand or gravel. Outside, terraced fields climb step by step almost to the mountaintop. Bringing water to those fields has always been a matter of life and death for the whole village, generation after generation. This is how the story goes.

Long ago, when all creatures lived together in harmony, life lacked nothing. Streams flowed all year round. Channels carried water up to the highest terraces, and the forest trees gave sweet fruit. No one had to worry about being full today and hungry tomorrow.

But one year, a scorching heat lasted through two whole growing seasons on the hill fields. Not a drop of rain fell. The streams shrank day by day, the channels and paddies cracked, and the grass withered on the slopes. Birds stopped flying and beasts stopped running. They only lay panting in the shade of dry trees. Even people, cleverer than all other creatures, could do nothing. They went thirsty day after day, their lips cracked and their throats parched.

In that hopeless hour, someone found a trickle of water seeping from a sheer cliff. The cliff rose so high that it reached halfway into the clouds. People and creatures gathered at the foot of the mountain and talked over how to open a channel and bring that water home. Looking up at the towering, treacherous rock, everyone felt a stab of fear. But fear or no fear, the water had to be brought back. There was no other way.

Just as they were about to set off together, a small bird with speckled feathers hopped out and cried loudly to stop them. It said the work was pointless. Human hands and feet were far too weak to cling to a cliff that steep. Better simply to stay thirsty and be done with it. It even added a few insolent words. Whoever wanted to go could go, but it would certainly not go. And if the water ever did arrive, it would not deign to drink a single drop.

Hearing this, people and creatures only turned and glanced once at the cheeky bird. They set off together all the same, and not one of them lost heart over those words.

They twisted forest vines into ropes and clung to the cliff inch by inch. Their hands chiseled the rock while their shoulders carried section after section of bamboo pipe to bring the water down. One moon waned, and another grew full again. Sweat soaked the backs of their shirts. Some were so tired that tears welled up, yet their hands never stopped chiseling the rock and opening a way for the water. At night they lay down with aching backs, and in the morning they climbed the same cliff again. At last, after so many days of patience, clear water flowed along the newly cut channel down to the foot of the mountain. The creatures rejoiced. They drank their fill and bathed to cool off, and laughter and voices rang out across the whole land.

But the speckled bird did not dare come near that water. It remembered the insolent words it had spoken and feared that all the creatures would drive it away. So it only huddled in a far corner, gazing sadly across. With its throat burning from thirst, it kept opening its beak and calling: re re, re re, as if begging the heavens above to take pity and forgive it.

The sky stayed fiercely bright, as if the heavens heard nothing at all. The bird lay still in one place, its heart heavy with regret. But it did not give up. Its voice grew hoarse, yet it never stopped: re re, re re, day after day.

At last the heavens were moved to pity the creature that had come to know its fault. Dark clouds rolled in, and rain poured down, wave after wave, washing away the last of the drought from the hill fields.

And ever since, the Hà Nhì people of Mường Tè have known a small bird that lives quietly on its own. It seldom flies with the other birds of the forest. People named it the re re bird. Whenever its call rises in the mountain forest, the elders still tell their grandchildren, in a very gentle voice: the heavens are taking pity on one who knows its fault, and rain is coming soon.

On misty nights in the mountains of Mường Tè, a faint re re, re re still drifts through the air. It is the voice of a bird that still remembers its old lesson and still calls to the sky whenever it is thirsty. And the sky above, year after year, always answers it with rain, just as it once answered the whole village that opened a channel together on the high cliff.