This is a collection of folktales of the Rohingya people from several different places in Arakan, the homeland of the Rohingya people in Myanmar, including the townships of Maungdaw, Buthidaung, Rathedaung, Sittwe, and Mrauk-U. It represents nearly a year of work: traveling to different parts of my camp and other camps in the area, many hours recording and translating, and even more hours editing and providing clarifications to the editor.
We Rohingya people have our own culture, tradition, folk songs, folk tales, and folk music. Unfortunately, due to persecution, the written Rohingya language has been lost; as a result of the genocide against us, today we are on the brink of losing our rich cultural heritage as well.
Arakan is a place of great natural beauty and prior to the recent violence was a heavenly place for people from both Rohingya and Rakhine ethnic groups. If I close my eyes, I am back among Arakan’s verdant fields, with the gray Bay of Bengal on one side and the Mayyu mountain range looming on the other.
Folktales are common among the Rohingya of Arakan. In particular, elderly people used to tell these folktales to children to teach them morals and lessons.
The people that told me the stories contained in this book currently survive as refugees in camps near Cox’s Bazaar in Bangladesh. Fleeing violence, the Rohingya people have been arriving from Myanmar to those camps for several decades. Most recently, in August 2017, hundreds of thousands arrived in Bangladesh after escaping massacres and looting by Myanmar’s Tatmadaw military forces.
We are a people in exile.
My name is Mohammed Rezuwan. As I write this, I am a 23-year-old Rohingya refugee currently residing in Kutupalong Refugee Camp near Cox’s Bazaar, Bangladesh.
On August 25, 2017, Myanmar’s military forces set fire to my house and the surrounding villages. I remember the gunshots ringing out like thunderclaps, the bullets strafing the sky like clouds of hungry locusts. On that terrible day, my family and I ran to a nearby mountain where we hid for three days before we decided to cross the border to Bangladesh.
The walk to Bangladesh took an entire day. That night, as we approached the border, some Rakhine extremists spotted our group and opened fire. The tide was high, and we could see in the distance a patch of saccharum reeds that offered a place to hide. The young men in the group and I grabbed the little food that we had and, holding it over our heads we ran for the reeds, hiding with others that could also run. There were many elderly and disabled people that could not run and were captured including my own brother Mohammed Zubair, who was mentally handicapped. The extremists did not take pity on those that were captured and they tortured them brutally. I understand that all of the Rohingya people that were captured that day were sentenced to many years in prison. That night, I crossed the border in a row boat, arriving in Bangladesh with nothing but the clothes I was wearing.
I finished high school in Myanmar 2015 and was accepted to university, although I could not attend because at the time, the government was restricting the movements of Rohingya people. I have not yet been able to attend university, although I will one day graduate from university and I continue to work hard to make that a reality. After seeing the plight of the Rohingya people, who don’t even have the right to express their pain and suffering in Myanmar, I dream of being a journalist, in order to bring their situation into the global consciousness.
I have always been interested in studying and researching the culture of the Rohingya people, and in particular the folk stories that have been passed down for centuries. I have been unable to find them in any book that records them. I am grateful to my friend Alex, who edited this book, and his encouragement to collect and translate these folk stories. Without his encouragement and editing, this book would have been impossible.
I am also deeply grateful to my friend Mayyu Khan, a prominent Rohingya artist and poet, who has created all of the illustrations for this book.
Finally, I want to share my heartful gratitude for my beloved parents and the teachers that have shown me unconditional love and encouragement. It is because of you that I can stand on my feet.
Mohammed Rezuwan
September 2020
Kutupalong Refugee Camp, Cox’s Bazaar, Bangladesh