SANGKURIANG (version 2)

 Once upon a time in West Java, Indonesia, lived a princess named Dayang Sumbi. She was beautiful and kind-hearted. Her hobby was weaving cloth. But sometimes she could be very lazy. One day her weaving tool fell, but she was too lazy to get it herself. She shouted out, “Can anybody help me get my tool? If you are a female, I will take you as my sister. If you are a male, I will marry you!”

 A male creature came, but it was a dog. His name was Tumang. He happily brought the tool to her. Dayang Sumbi was very surprised, but she kept her promise. She married the dog. Tumang was actually a man who had been cursed by a witch to become a dog. But at certain times Tumang could turn back to be a normal man. Their only son, Sangkuriang, was soon born, and he grew up to be a handsome and healthy boy. He always played with his very loyal dog, Tumang. He did not know that he was actually his father, because Dayang Sumbi hid the secret from him. Sangkuriang liked to hunt in the woods, of course with Tumang.

 One day Dayang Sumbi asked him to bring home a deer’s heart. But, after hunting for several days, he could not fi nd any deer in the woods. He did not want to disappoint his mother and was thinking hard how to bring home a deer’s heart. Suddenly, he had a very bad idea. He killed Tumang! Then, he brought his heart home and gave it to Dayang Sumbi.

Sangkuring could not cheat her. She knew it was Tumang’s heart. So, she got very angry and hit Sangkuriang’s forehead with a piece of wood and told him to leave. With a bad wound on his forehead, Sangkuriang left he village.

 Many years later, Sangkuriang grew up to be a powerful man. One day he went back to his village. He met a beautiful young woman there, and he fell in love with her at the fi rst sight. It was Dayang Sumbi! She never got older because she had been granted eternal youth by the gods. Sangkuriang did not know that she was his mother, so he came to her and proposed to marry her.

 When he walked closer to her, Dayang Sumbi got very surprised. She saw the scar in Sangkuriang’s forehead, and soon she knew that he was her son, who left her a long time ago. She told him the truth and tried hard to explain it to him, but he did not believe her. She did not want to break his heart, so she accepted his proposal but gave him an impossible thing to do. She wanted him to build a lake and a boat in just one night!

 Sangkuriang agreed, because he knew that he could make it with the help of his genies. By midnight he fi nished the lake and then started making the boat. Dayang Sumbi was thinking hard to fi nd a way to fail him. Before dawn, she asked the people in the village to burn the woods in the East, and the light made all the cocks crow. Thinking that the night would be over soon, the genies ran fast and left Sangkuriang before the boat was fi nished. Sangkuriang realized that Dayang Sumbi had cheated him. He got very angry and he kicked the boat upside down. It gradually became a mountain and it is now known as Mt. Tangkuban Perahu