(No. 66.) A boy is too lazy to strip sugarcane for himself. His mother, in anger, tells him to stick it up his anus. He does so, and becomes a monkey.
(No. 67.) A lazy girl pretends she does not know how to spin. Her companions, in disgust, tell her to stick the spinning-stick up her anus. She does so, and at once changes into a monkey.
Compare also a Bagobo story collected by Miss Benedict (JAFL 26 : 21), where a ladle becomes a monkey’s tail; also an African saga in Dähnhardt (3 : 488).
The Filipinos have other explanatory myths which credit Lucifer with the creation of monkeys and snakes.
The Lost Necklace.
Narrated by Facundo Esquivel, a Tagalog, who heard the story from a friend from Cebu. The story is Visayan.
Once a crow bought a fine necklace from a merchant. He was very proud of his purchase, which he immediately put around his neck, so that everybody could see it. Then he flew away, and came to a beautiful little garden, where he met his old friend the hen strutting about, with her chicks following her. The hen said to him, “Oh, what a fine necklace you have! May I borrow it? I will return it to you to-morrow without fail.”
Now, the crow liked the hen: so he willingly lent her the necklace for a day. The next morning, when the crow returned for his property, he found the hen and her chicks scratching the ground near an old wall. “Where is my necklace?” said the crow.
“It is lost,” said the hen. “My chicks took it yesterday while I was asleep, and now they do not remember where they put it. We have been looking for it all day, and yet we have not been able to find it.”
“You must pay for it at once,” said the crow, “or else I shall go to the king and tell him that you stole my necklace.”