Atondido Stories
Why the Bananas Belong to the Monkey
Perhaps you do not know it, but the monkeys think that all the
bananas belong to them. When Brazilian children eat bananas
they say, "I am a monkey." I once knew a little boy in Brazil who
was very, very fond of bananas. He always said, "I am very
much of a monkey." If you are fond of bananas the Brazilian children
would tell you that you are a monkey, too. This is the story they
tell to show us how it all came about.
Once upon a time when the world had just been made and
there was only one kind of banana, but very many kinds of mon-
keys, there was a little old woman who had a big garden full of
banana trees. It was very difficult for the old woman to gather
the bananas herself, so she made a bargain with the largest mon-
key. She told him that if he would gather the bunches of bananas
for her she would give him half of them. The monkey gathered
the bananas. When he took his half he gave the little old woman
the bananas which grow at the bottom of the bunch and are
small and wrinkled. The nice big fat ones he kept for himself and
carried them home to let them ripen in the dark.
The little old woman was very angry. She lay awake all night
trying to think of some way by which she could get even with
the monkey. At last she thought of a trick.
The next morning she made an image of wax which looked
just like a little black boy. Then she placed a large flat basket on
the top of the image's head and in the basket she placed the best
ripe bananas she could find. They certainly looked very tempt-
ing.
After a little while the biggest monkey passed that way. He
saw the image of wax and thought that it was a boy peddling ba-
nanas. He had often pushed over boy banana peddlers, upset
their baskets and then had run away with the bananas. This
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