Then the turtle cut the dead monkey into pieces, put salt on it, and dried it in the sun. The next day, he went to the mountains and sold his meat to other monkeys who gladly gave him squash in return. As he was leaving them he called back:
“Lazy fellows, you are now eating your own body; you are now eating your own body.”
Then the monkeys ran and caught him and carried him to their own home.
“Let us take a hatchet,” said one old monkey, “and cut him into very small pieces.”
But the turtle laughed and said: “That is just what I like, I have been struck with a hatchet many times. Do you not see the black scars on my shell?”
Then one of the other monkeys said: “Let us throw him into the water,”
At this the turtle cried and begged them to spare his life, but they paid no heed to his pleadings and threw him into the water. He sank to the bottom, but very soon came up with a lobster. The monkeys were greatly surprised at this and begged him to tell them how to catch lobsters.
“I tied one end of a string around my waist,” said the turtle. “To the other end of the string I tied a stone so that I would sink.”
The monkeys immediately tied strings around themselves as the turtle said, and when all was ready they plunged into the water never to come up again.
And to this day monkeys do not like to eat meat, because they remember the ancient story.[1]