Pini

Pini was born on April 4, 1271, in a small hamlet on the flat, wet land near the Brahmaputra in what later became Nagaon. The village answered to local chiefs who took dues in grain and labor. Her family spoke a Tibeto-Burman tongue at home and used an Eastern Indo-Aryan speech in the market and when dealing with outsiders. Their household mixed spirit rites with Hindu observances; the rice pot and the hearth sat close to a small corner shelf where offerings were set.

Her father, Borang, transplanted rice seedlings in the monsoon months and kept seed rice in a raised bamboo bin. Her mother, Gomla, carried water, weeded, and watched children while pounding rice. Pini arrived as the fourth child. The eldest, Binthi, was sixteen when Pini was born. She knew the household routines: rinsing cloths at the pond, rocking a baby on her hip while stirring boiled greens. She held Pini during Gomla’s early weeks of milk. Two others had not survived. A son, Dimrang, had died in 1268 at one year old. The next girl, Solta, had died as a newborn in 1270.

In the summer of 1271, Binthi developed a fever that would not break. She lay on her mat for six days, and Gomla divided her attention between the sick girl and the nursing infant. Binthi died before the harvest. The household lost its extra hands for carrying water and minding Pini during fieldwork.

After the first rains of 1272, Gomla began giving Pini thin rice water alongside breast milk. In August the child developed watery diarrhea and stopped keeping down food. Borang fetched water from a cleaner bend and salt from a trader; the ritual specialist Talchi tied a thread at the doorway and took rice, betel nut, and a chicken egg for an offering to the household spirits. Pini died on August 24, 1272. Her parents wrapped her in cloth and buried her on higher ground beyond the house platform, pressing a handful of cooked rice into the soil beside her.