The White Mark on the Buffalo

Under a buffalo's neck, just in front of its chest, there is often a white mark. It is faint, and it lies across the throat like a freshly tied scarf. The coat is a wet, shiny gray-black, and only that patch is white. The mark is real, and the Hà Nhì have a very old story to explain it.

The Hà Nhì are one of Vietnam's ethnic groups, and they live in the high mountains of the north. This story is heard far up in the Mường Tè area, in Lai Châu province. It is heard, too, in the Bát Xát area, in Lào Cai province. In the Y Tý area there, where cloud and mist often hang low, live the Black Hà Nhì. They build houses of rammed earth, with thick, cool walls pounded entirely by hand. They lead water in and build up banks, and their rice terraces climb step by step almost to the peaks. In a Hà Nhì village, a man named Pờ Xì Giá told this story.

Long ago there lived a young man named Trà Lớ. He was orphaned as a newborn and lived alone in a ragged hut. He worked hard all year, yet never had enough to eat or enough clothing to keep warm.

One day, coming home from his hillside field, he met some children of the xú cà, meaning the rich and powerful families of the area. They had crowded around a skinny black dog and were beating it. Then they walked off laughing and left it lying limp by the road.

Trà Lớ was moved, and he carried the dog home. He cared for it like a friend, shared his rice with it, and warmed it by the fire. After many sunrises and sunsets, the dog grew strong again, and the hut was a happier place.

Another season in the hillside fields came round. Trà Lớ went out to clear his field, working from first light until the sun went down behind the mountains. When he stepped inside, he stopped short. The hut was neat and clean, and a tray of food sat carefully covered and still warm.

He leapt to the door and called toward the forest, inviting his kind helper in to eat. He called nearby, and no one answered. He called far off, and only the mountains echoed him. The next day it was the same. The rice was good and the soup still hot, but no one ever answered.

On the third day, he set out as usual, but halfway there he turned back and hid behind the wall. After a while, a young woman came out of the door. Her face was as red as a peach flower in summer, her skin as white as the inner shoot of a wild banana. Trà Lớ stepped in front of her. Flustered, she tried to run, but he held her back.

She admitted that she had done the cooking. She had not dared to eat with him, for fear the rice was underdone and the soup bland. Then she said something that left him stunned. He had saved her, and her parents had sent her to live with him.

Trà Lớ shook his head hard. He was ugly and poor, he said, with nothing but a dog. How could they be husband and wife? She smiled and told him he was not ugly, but very handsome on the inside. Only a poor man's heart knows how to love the poor, and even those whom others beat and chase away. Then she told him she was the very dog he had been caring for. If he did not believe her, he could look under the bed.

Trà Lớ suddenly realized the black dog had not run out to greet him. He bent and looked under the bed. The dog was gone. Only its skin was left, just shed.

From then on the two were husband and wife. In the mornings they went up to the fields together. In the evenings, when the clouds sank low, they came home together, one behind the other along the narrow field banks, like a pair of turtledoves.

After a moon or two, the wife asked him to choose land for a bigger house, with a chicken coop, a pigsty and a buffalo pen. She said it could be done in one night. He did not believe her, but he still marked out a wide plot with poles. That evening she warned him that whatever rain and wind came, he must keep his eyes shut and sleep. If he looked, the work would be ruined.

Past midnight, thunder and lightning roared. Rain poured as if the whole sky were emptying. Then, all at once, there was silence.

In the morning, Trà Lớ opened his eyes. His hand touched a cool wall, not the torn woven panel of his old hut. Above him rose the roof of a tall, wide house. In the yard, crowds of servants came and went, among chickens, pigs and whole herds of buffalo and horses. From then on, his was the richest household in the area.

The news flew far and wide. The xú cà did not believe it and went together to see. Once they saw his yard, every one of them craved it, and jealousy rose inside them. Whenever they met Trà Lớ after that, they chose cruel words to slip into his ears. Wealth was worth nothing with a dog for a wife, they said. Why not drive her out and marry one of their beautiful daughters?

The first time, Trà Lớ felt a little less happy. After the second and third times, he began to think they had a point. Like water dripping until it wears away a stone, his heart slowly changed. He had loved his wife so dearly. Now he looked at her with bitter eyes.

His wife patiently urged him not to listen. He would not hear it, and glared and shouted at her.

One day the xú cà kept him a long time, pouring more poison into his ears. Trà Lớ ran home, scolded his wife, and ordered her out of his sight.

Her eyes filled with tears. By listening to the xú cà, she said, he could no longer tell white from black in his heart. Soon he would lose all this, and then regret would come too late. Trà Lớ was like a man lost in the forest, who sees the path less the farther he walks. He kept driving her out.

Silently, she scooped water into the rice mortar. Suddenly a column of water shot up high. The house swayed and cracked, and in the blink of an eye the whole homestead became a deep pond.

She stood in the middle of the pond, murmuring and waving her hand. The servants rushed into the pond and vanished. Then the buffalo, cattle, horses, chickens and pigs vanished too.

Trà Lớ was terrified. He had time only to snatch the white scarf from his head. He ran after the last buffalo, a skinny one, tied the scarf around its neck and pulled it back. A moment later, the young woman and the house were gone. On the bank stood only one skinny buffalo, a white scarf around its neck.

Trà Lớ wept and writhed in grief. His beautiful wife and his wealth would never return. The xú cà came to sneer at him. His heart stung worse than chili rubbed into the skin. He grieved until he forgot to eat, and he turned into a house gecko clinging to the wall.

The house gecko still clicks its tongue on the walls of homes. The Hà Nhì say it clicks in regret for the wife and fortune it lost, all for listening to the xú cà.

And ever since, there has been a white mark under the buffalo's neck. It is the scarf Trà Lớ used to hold the buffalo back. It stayed there so long that it grew into the skin.

That buffalo was the only thing that stayed with people. To this day, buffalo follow people to the fields and wade through the mud of the highest terraces. Whenever a buffalo stands resting in a field, the white mark is still there under its neck. It lies across the throat, as old as the story.