So Yange decided that whenever he left home, he would imprison her within their house. When he departed, Yange removed the ladder leading to the second floor of their house and barricaded the door and windows while his wife remained inside. After that, every time he went hunting he would fortify the house.

During one expedition, Yange followed a wounded deer. Not noticing where he was going, he lost his way. For twenty days he wandered about, looking for some familiar landmark to bring him back to Yukan. He kept worrying about her and was tormented by fears that she was being unfaithful. Yange kept the fruit he had collected, however. He wanted to share it with her.

At last he found the trail home. “My dear Yukan! I’m home!” he called as he saw his house. But no reply came. Propelled by jealousy, Yange rushed to the house. He lifted the ladder into its proper place, broke the seal on the door, and leaped inside, only to see his wife lying dead. There was an empty cooking pot above cold ashes in the hearth. The poor mother-to-be had starved to death.

“Forgive me, forgive me!” Yange cried out in remorse. Without his wife, he had no wish to go on living. He tied his own body to his wife’s and set fire to the house as they lay together inside. The bright flames consumed them both.

God was so moved by Yange’s sorrow that instead of punishing him for the obsession that had brought about the death of his innocent spouse, He restored the two to life as a pair of rhinoceros hornbills, birds the Dai admire for their devotion to each other. To safeguard his mate after she has hatched her eggs, the male bird brings tree resin and mud in his beak and seals the hole in the tree where the female is looking after the nestlings. He leaves only a tiny opening through which he puts fresh fruit into her mouth. Should one of them be shot by a hunter, the other is sure to die of heartache.

Suffused with romance

In contrast to the seven anonymous couples featured in our first story, the leading figures here are clearly identifiable personalities. Still, the tale’s purpose is not so much to dwell on the lovers as to provide an engaging literary context for transmitting Dai cultural values from one generation to the next.