Why Buffaloes Have a Neck Mark

Under a water buffalo's neck, where the soft skin of the dewlap hangs loose, a finger may find a small, round bump. The elders say every buffalo has one, from the old buffalo used to heavy plowing to the calf just tottering out to the fields behind its mother. The bump is tiny, and hardly anyone notices it. But in the villages, people still tell a very old story to explain why it is there.

Long ago, buffaloes could truly talk like people, in deep voices that were clear in every word. Because of that, no herder dared to let a buffalo go hungry or thirsty, or to treat it unkindly. One sentence from the buffalo was all it took, and the master of the house would know at once who worked hard and who was lazy. In a certain stretch of countryside, where field ran into field as far as the eye could see, a well-off farming family kept a big, strong bull buffalo to pull the plow. The farmer hired a boy from the hamlet to herd it, to feed it and give it water, to lead it out to the fields every morning and bring it home every evening.

This boy was known all over the hamlet for loving play more than anything. Every morning, as soon as he had led the buffalo to the dike, he tied its rope loosely and left it to graze on its own. Then he ran off to play stick games, fly kites, or wade into the pond to catch fish with the other children his age. Some days he played so long that he forgot the sun had climbed straight overhead. He forgot the buffalo too, standing forlorn and alone in the middle of the field. The grass around its feet had been trampled flat, with not a single blade left to graze.

One day, he played until late in the afternoon before he suddenly remembered the buffalo. He ran out to the field and saw that its belly had shrunk in, flat and hollow. Clearly it had eaten almost nothing all day. Night was coming, and the master would soon be home. The boy panicked. Afraid of being scolded, he thought up a trick. He ran into the garden and gathered a heap of dry areca palm sheaths. He pressed them all around the buffalo's belly until it bulged. Then he scooped up soft mud from the paddy and smeared a thin layer over the outside. At a glance, the belly looked round and glossy, just like a buffalo that had eaten its fill all day long.

The next morning, the master led the buffalo out to plow as usual. But the buffalo walked slowly and heavily, panting with every breath, with none of its usual strength. After only a few furrows, the master stopped and looked hard at the buffalo. Then he asked the buffalo what was wrong with it, and why it was so lazy today, when its belly was full to bursting and yet it could hardly walk.

The buffalo lowered its head. In a sad but honest voice, it told the master everything. Its belly only looked full. Under the mud there was nothing but dry areca palm sheaths pressed around it. The thin coat of soft mud was only smeared on to make it look right. For the whole of the day before, the buffalo had not eaten a single blade of tender grass.

When the master heard this, he stood frozen for a moment. Then he grew so angry that his hands shook. He knew at once that the boy had been fooling him all this time. He called the boy over and punished him severely. He gave him a thorough scolding, then sent him straight home and would not let him herd the buffalo for even one more day. The boy was so ashamed that he could not lift his head. He walked away with his face down, tears running down his cheeks, not daring to cry out loud.

A few days later, an old man passed by that same field. His hair was as white as silk floss, and he leaned on a bamboo staff. He saw a boy sitting all hunched up alone at the edge of a paddy, his eyes red and his whole body heavy with sadness. The old man stopped, sat down beside him, and gently asked what had happened. The boy told him the whole story from beginning to end, still sore at heart. Because he had played too long just once, it had all come to this. He had lost his work, and on top of that, the very buffalo he herded had exposed everything in front of the master.

When the old man had heard it all, he sat silent for a long while, gazing far off toward the buffalo grazing nearby. Then he slowly took a stick of incense out of his shirt pocket. He lit it until it burned evenly, and softly murmured a few words that no one could make out. He went up to the buffalo and gently circled the burning incense around its neck. A thin wisp of smoke rose and curled around the buffalo's neck like an invisible charm. It wound around it exactly three times, then slowly faded into the evening breeze.

From that moment on, the buffalo's voice grew fainter and fainter, like an oil lamp whose wick has burned low. It tried to speak as it always had, but it could no longer put any words together. All that came from its throat was a low nghé ọ, the deep lowing call of a buffalo. From that day on, no buffalo anywhere in the world could talk like people ever again.

Later, the place where the smoke had curled around the buffalo's neck healed into a small, round bump. It was as if a trace of that old charm still lingered there. The bump was passed down from one generation of buffaloes to the next, from mother to calf, all the way to this very day.

The buffalo can no longer tell its own story in words. Yet day after day it still goes out to the fields, patient and hardworking. It pulls the plow, wades through the mud, and helps people grow their rice, as if nothing had ever happened. The old people in the village say that it was because of the truth one buffalo spoke long ago that all buffaloes after it lost their voices. A buffalo resting at the edge of a paddy will answer anyone only with a gentle nghé ọ. But the little bump under the skin of its neck still quietly tells the old story, just as the buffalo once could, back when it knew how to speak.