African Folk Tales by Yoti Lane

Author:Yoti Lane
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dover Publications
Published: 2015-09-17T04:00:00+00:00

THE GREEDY MONKEY

LIFE IN THE jungle is never easy. Animals and birds have to keep very busy in order to feed themselves and their families. Usually they find enough food, but sometimes, owing to drought or floods, no one has enough to eat.

Once there was a particularly severe drought, and the jungle folk suffered severe hardships. They roved for miles to find sufficient to keep them alive. One of the most persistent food hunters was a monkey. She was very fond of food herself, and also prided herself on being a very good housewife, and mother. Her name was Mala. Mala had a baby of whom she was very proud. It had a beautiful shiny coat and Mala believed this was because she always managed to include palm nuts in the baby’s diet. Mala was very clever about finding these nuts, and she set off early every morning, leaving her husband at home to mind the baby.

One day, after travelling for miles, Mala had almost given up in despair, when she at last came across a palm with a few nuts on it. In her eagerness to gather them as quickly as possible, she dropped one. Being such a careful housewife, she hated to think the nut might be wasted, and slid down the tree so quickly, that she reached the ground at the same time as the falling nut. To her disgust the nut rolled into a hole. Determined not to lose the nut Mala scrambled in after it. Ahead of her she could hear the nut rolling down further and further. Undaunted she followed. Still the nut went on, and Mala realised that this was no ordinary hole she had found, but a long tunnel leading down into the depths of the earth.

Some people might have become nervous, and turned back, but not Mala the monkey. When there was a possibility of food Mala was not to be put off by darkness, or even danger. So on and on she went, and then suddenly the tunnel came to an end.

Beyond the tunnel Mala saw a clearing with beautiful green grass, trees full of fruit, and flowers, and beyond a lovely river sparkling in the sunlight. Some of the trees and fruits Mala had seen before, but many others were quite unfamiliar. In the clearing many animals, looking very well fed, were gambolling cheerily. All this was so unexpected, and so unlike the world Mala had left up above that she paused in sheer amazement.

The pause lost her the nut she had been following for it rolled out of the hole on to the ground, and a small monkey playing by himself, picked it up, and proceeded to eat it.

With a screech of dismay Mala leapt out of the hole, and began to chatter angrily. Startled by her sudden appearance and the noise she was making, the baby monkey dropped the nut. But he had already taken a big bite out of it. Mala began to weep.

As she wept the animals began to gather round and asked anxiously what ailed her.

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