When the spider saw the grasshopper had arrived and was busily engaged dancing, being very hungry he stole off by himself to the room where the food was and put his hand into the pot. But, just as he was going to take out a piece of meat, he happened to look up and saw the skin of the grasshopper, which was so lifelike that it deceived him into thinking that it really was his friend on the wall, so he pulled his hand out of the pot and said, trying to laugh, “It is all right, Dabi, my friend, I was not going to eat anything, I just came in to see what the food was like.” He then went out again to where the people were dancing, and to his great surprise he saw the grasshopper, where he had left him, dancing and enjoying himself with some pretty young girls.
The spider could not understand how it was that the grasshopper had managed to get back to the play so quickly, but, as he saw him there, he was too hungry to trouble much about that, and went back again to get the food he was so much in need of. Everything was quiet when he returned, so he lifted the lid again, and took out a large piece of yam, and had only taken one bite, when his eye was caught by the grasshopper’s skin in the same place where he had seen it before. The spider was amazed at this, and thought there must be some ju-ju in it, so he put the yam down and ran out of the house, shouting as he went, “All right, Dabi, I only thought I would like to taste the food to see that it was good.”
But when he got to the dance he again saw, to his intense astonishment, that the grasshopper was dancing away as merrily as before.
The spider then went up to his father-in-law and asked him to stop the dance, as he wished to go home at once. This was done, and they all went back to the chief’s house together.
Chief Tawu then gave both the spider and the grasshopper a dog each as a present, and shortly afterwards they started off together on their-return journey.
After walking a short distance outside the town, the spider was so hungry that he stopped and killed the dog his father-in-law had given, and very soon had eaten the whole of it.
He then tried to get the grasshopper to kill his dog, but he refused, saying, “The dog was given to me by the chief as a present and not for food. I shall take it home with me.”
When the spider had finished eating his dog, he put the skull of the dog in his bag, and asked the grasshopper to go in front of him. Shortly after this, the dog, scenting some game, dived into the bush, and very soon returned to the path with a small bush buck in his mouth. As the grasshopper had gone on in front and had not waited for his dog, the spider took the buck, and, having cut its head off and put it in his bag next to the dog’s skull, he sat down and eat the body.
When he rejoined the grasshopper later in the day, he produced his bag, and took out the buck’s head, and told the grasshopper that his dog’s skull was very clever, and had killed the buck. Although the grasshopper knew quite well what had happened, he did not say anything, but walked on again in front with his dog as he had done before.
That night they slept in the bush, and the next day, when they got near the first town they had passed through when leaving home, the dog again dashed off into the forest, and chased a bush cow which he bit very badly in the leg.