.jpg)
Senin, 29 April 2013
The Legend Of Lahilote
Long ago there lived a humble young man
named Lahilote in a remote village of ancient Gorontalo. One night Lahilote who
lived near a water spring which was the upper stream of a river and
made a living by collecting rattan in a nearby forest dreamt that was given a
piece of such big rattan called "Hutiya Mala". The young man sprang
up from his sleep upon the surprising dream.
A few days later on his way to the
forest, Laholote chanced to glance down the river and see a group of seven
beautiful fairies who were bathing joyfully. The seven beauties left their
"selendangs', the magic scarves they used as the wings, on the river-bank.
Greeed soon lured Lahilote to steal and hide one of the selendangs. As they
were aware of the presence of Laholote, the fairies soon stopped bathing and
got out of water and fetched their selendangs. They all flew to the heaven
leaving the poor one who cried and sobbed desperately because she could not
find her selendang. Lahitole approached and comforted her, then brought her
some proposed her to be his wife. The beautiful accepted his proposal and soon
they married.
One day Lahilote told his wife that he
had got to go to the forest to collect rattan. His wife insisted to accompany
him but he did not let her go with him. To keep herself if busy Lahilote's wife
wondered over the house and by chance she found her lost selendang kept very
carefuly in a bamboo tube. She felt very happy but at the same time very
disappointed to know her husband's unfairness. She soon wear the selendang and
flew away to the heaven to leave her husband behind.
Lahilote got home happily because
at that time he succeeded in collecting a great deal of rattan. But soon he got
very much disappointed
to know that his wife had flown away and
the bamboo tube where he had kept the selendang was empty. At that very
difficult moment, suddenly came a wise Polahi (a certain tribe living in the
forest) man who gave him a piece of magic rattan. He told Lahilote that the
rattan could bring him to the heaven. Eventually Lahilote succeeded to fly to
the heaven and meet his beloved wife. Lahilote was allowed to stay in the
heaven.
After some time, when his wife was
looking for lice Lahilote's head, she happened to see some graying hairs among
his. Soon she sprang up and got away from her startled husband. She told him
that no one with graying hair is allowed to stay in heaven. Upon his questions,
she told her husband:"Love fades away when you get a graying because here
in heaven you are no more than a shadow as soon as you get a piece of graying
hair."
Broken-heartedly, Lahilote got down from
the heaven making use of a piece of board. He swore:"From this point of
Pohe beach up to the border of the shroud to cover my dead body, my left
foot-print will be printed forever."
At the moment we can find a stone in the
beach of Pohe, in the Province of Gorontalo with a foot-print stamped on it.
The locals believe that it is the foot-print of Lahilote.
