The Flood
Written By, Chianeng Thao
Told By, Waher Vang
 
   A Long time ago, there lived two brothers and a sister. Both of their parents passed away when they were little. Every morning the two brothers went to work on the field. The sister stayed home and cleaned the house and did the cooking. One morning, the two brothers went to the farm  to clear the field for planting rice. They worked all day long and came home at dusk.
 
 
Grandmother's Path Grandfather's Way
By, Lue Vang and Judy Lewis
 

        The next morning, they woke up very early and went to the field to finish what they left undone the day before. The two brothers could not believed their eyes. The part that they had cleared was filled with tall weeds and grasses. They thought that the weeds and grasses must have grown over night, so they went straight to work. The second morning, they packed lunches and went to the field. They found the same thing happened again. As before, they only thought that they needed to work harder so they just went to work. At the end of the day, the younger brother said, "look, we have cleared the field more than we have ever done. We should not have much to do tomorrow." "Right! We worked very hard today. Let’s go home before it is too dark," said the older brother. When they got home, the sister had already cooked dinner. They all ate dinner and went to bed.

 
     On the third day, the sister woke up early and prepared lunches for her brothers as usual. The two brothers went to the field. They found that something very strange had happened to their field. The whole field was again filled with weeds. They could not explain what  had happened. They looked at each other with frightened looks. "Who would do this to us?" We are poor and work very hard on this field. Why?, said the older brother. " I don’t know who could have done it?, said the younger brother.  The two brothers could not understand why their field was filled with weeds and grasses after they continued to week it. The older brother suggested that they should work on it a little and come back tomorrow. On the way home, the older brother said, "let’s go back and see who would come to our field after we left." The younger brother agreed and they went back. Instead of going straight back to the field, they hid behind some bushes and waited a long time.

    A big shadow came over them and covered the whole field. This shadow was in the form of a giant man. They saw him begin to replant all the weeds and grasses that the two brothers had pulled out. "Let’s shoot him before he sees us," said the older brother stepping forward. "Wait! Wait! First lets ask him why he is doing this to our field?" The two brothers slowly approached the giant man and spoke softly. "Why are you doing this to our field?" The giant man looked at them with a friendly face. "Oh my children, you must not plant and work anymore on this field. It will not last.", said the giant man. He told them that there was no need to work so hard because water will flood the world and all lives on Earth will die.  He also told them to build drums (Hmong refer to it as the funeral drum). The Giant man instructed the younger brother to build a wooden drum that fit both him and his sister. He then told the older brother to build a metal drum, simply because he knew that the older brother tried to kill him earlier. Finally, he told them that they must make these drums by September the fifteen. The two brothers hurried home to do as the giant man had comanded.  The Younger brother began to gather woods to make his drum, and the older brother gathered metals to make his own drum.
 
    In a few weeks, the rain began to fall heavily. The brother and his sister went into the wooden drum, while the older brother went into the metal drum. The rain fell for seven days and seven nights. It flooded the world and killed all human life including animals and insects. The drum was floating higher and higher until it finally  hit the sky and made a loud crash. The King of the sky did not know where the noise came from, so he looked down onto Earth and discovered that water had flooded everything. He decided to poke holes in the land with gold and silver spears. The water then slowly flowed away and the drum came back down on land. The drum hit a big rock and cracked open.  The brother and sister saw light shining  through crack so they  broke the drum open and stepped out. There was no one around and no sight of life anywhere. They were the only two people left on Earth. They started to build shelter and continue to live life as usual. Years and years passed by with just the brother and sister on Earth because there was no way to repopulate the world
 

 
The Whispering Cloth, by Pegi deitz Shea
 

    One day, the brother asked the sister to marry him, but she rejected his offer. She told him that brother and sister can not marry each other. It is taboo to be married to one of your own sisters or brothers. She would not marry him. He went back to work on the field. The next day, he asked her again and she still refused. The third time, she suggested that they should each take a rock up to the top of the mountain and roll it down from opposite slopes. If both of the rocks came back up to the top of the mountain then she will agree to marry him. The brother consented to the test and they each took a rock and rolled it down the mountain.

    In the middle of the night, the brother went and took the two rocks up to the top of the mountain. He then quickly came back to bed. In the morning, they both went to the top of the mountain and found the two rocks sitting on top of each other. The sister was shocked, but she believed that it was a sight from god  and they should be married. She turned to the brother and said, "the rocks proved that we should be married to each other." In one year, she gave birth to a baby. This baby was no an ordinary child. It was round like an egg. The couple did not know what to do, so they decided to cut it up into pieces and throw it away.

    So they cut the egg up into pieces and threw it everywhere. At dusk, they went to bed, and when they woke up in the morning. There were people and animals everywhere. People were cooking and feeding animals like chickens and pigs all around. They saw children running and chasing after one another. All these people make up the many  different Hmong clans.
 
 

 
 
The Whispering Cloth
by, Pegi Deitz Shea
 
 
 

    The clans came from the pieces that the couple threw away. The pieces that landed in the pig pen "nkuaj npua" became the Moua clans. The Vang and Yang clans came from the pieces that were in the garden. Those that landed in the goat pen "nkuas ntsis" became the Lee clans and many more clans came to be depending on where they landed as above. This was how life was created in the beginning of the world.

 
Hmong folktales like this Flood story teach, much like Aesop's fables do in the United States.  There are folktales for audiences of all ages; children audiences are told shorter, simpler versions, while folktales for adults may be longer and much more complicated.
What do you think the moral of this folktale is?