Tamarind Ṭikkā

Overview

A woman driven away by her seven sisters-in-law raises a son beneath a tamarind tree. His youngest maternal uncle learns that the boy’s horoscope predicts good fortune and misfortune for the uncles’ daughters, but falsely tells the mother that the child will eat her. She refuses to kill him. As a youth he collects minute amounts of flour, coconut and palm syrup beneath his fingernail; each fills and overflows a vessel at home, supplying cakes for his marriage proposals.

After the youngest uncle accepts him as a son-in-law, Ṭikkā revives that uncle’s dead buffalo cow. He cuts a white stick from the jungle edge, strikes the body and orders it into the cattle-fold; the cow rises, runs home and subsequently enlarges the herd through its calves. The source gives neither a botanical identity for the stick nor an explanation of these powers.

His later successes use deception: a dressed corpse is falsely presented as a killed great-grandfather to obtain compensation, and he claims that stolen clothing came from hanging beneath a bridge. Six hostile uncles imitate him and drown. The corpse is not revived, nor is his claim that hanging cures lumbago established. Parker’s North-western Province text ends with Ṭikkā, his wife, her parents and his mother surviving; the horoscope’s suggestion of kingship is not a narrated coronation.

Origins & earliest records

Sri Lankan narratives collected and translated by H. Parker

Records & interpretation

Complete tale and all its printed variants/comparative notes read; relevant introduction passages on collection and translation directly read.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

1. 01

   Village Folk-Tales of Ceylon, Volume I

   H. Parker (collector and translator) · 1910

   No. 9, Tamarind Ṭikkā, pp. 100–105; comparisons pp. 105–107

Family & connections

A source-supported family tree or inspiration record has not yet been compiled for this profile. Related reading below indicates a connection in subject matter, not a proven lineage or creative influence.

Primary records and illustrations

References

Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.

1. Historical collected oral narrative translationParker, Village Folk-Tales of Ceylon I — No. 9, Tamarind Ṭikkā, pp. 100–105; comparisons pp. 105–107Research access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.