In one of the remote villages, there was a man with eight children: six males and two females. But he died, leaving them in the care of their pregnant mother. She gave birth after her husband’s death to a male child, but he resembled a monkey!
His appearance was bad. The villagers and relatives refused his presence among them and asked his mother to get rid of him. But she refused, embraced her child, and told them she would raise him like his brothers. So they expelled her outside the village and sent her to live with her child in a distant hut.
So the mother lived with her sons and her monkey child together. She taught the child to speak, like his brothers, until he became qualified to deal with people. One day, his older brothers went out to clean the forest and take care of it. He asked them where he could farm. They mocked him and pointed him to an unsuitable piece.
He left them and headed there and began working hard. When he finished, he went to his brothers, who were working hard removing thorns and preparing the land. He returned with them to the house. The next day, he went with them and did in his piece what he did every day.
One time, one of his brothers asked him what he did by staying with them. The monkey boy told him that when he felt tired from cutting trees, he would come to rest and sit with them. The brothers laughed and thought he was lying. They said to him: Why don’t you show us what you did? He took them to his piece, and they were amazed when they saw great cleaning and preparation of the forest, more than they were capable of doing.
Then the brothers afterward prepared the land and plowed it. But the monkey boy didn’t have a plow, nor livestock to help him in the work, nor any rice seeds to plant with him. The only thing in the house was pumpkin, so he took seeds from it and planted them in his land.
When his brothers asked him what he had planted, he told them he had planted rice seeds. The brothers would go every day to look at their growing crop until the harvest time came. They celebrated and invited their mother and their monkey brother to eat. Everyone enjoyed the delicious crop.
Meanwhile, the monkey boy said he would harvest his crop too after two or three days. So he asked his mother to clean the house and invite his brothers and their wives to eat. He went to the field and brought the largest pumpkin that had grown. When he cracked it open, it was full of rice. Everyone rejoiced at the delicious food and ate from it until they were satisfied.
When the feast came, the brothers had finished their crop. The monkey boy brought them pumpkin rice, and they rejoiced greatly at that. The planted rice was enough for a full year. After a period, the brothers decided to go out to buy some horses. The monkey boy went out with them, but he didn’t have money. All he had was a roll of ropes. While walking, the brothers felt ashamed of their brother and asked him to stay away.
He preceded them on the road and reached the horse merchant’s place first. There, he heard the horses talking among themselves, where one of them said to the others that he could run very fast and jump twelve jumps during his run. Here, the monkey boy immediately put something in the horse’s hoof to make him lame.
In the morning, when his brothers arrived and went to buy horses, they didn’t buy the horse that was lame in its foot. Its owner lost hope of selling it. But the monkey boy offered him the roll of ropes as its price. The merchant agreed and said: This is better than nothing. It seems the horse is sick and might die before I can benefit from it.
After the boy bought the horse, he removed what was in its hoof, so the horse began running quickly. He surpassed his brothers and reached home before them. There, they offered to exchange, but he refused. Days and months passed, and the monkey boy became wealthy. He had a lot of money, but he lacked one dream, which was to marry a woman he loved.
He asked his mother to search for a bride for him, but she told him the matter was difficult and he had to find a girl who would accept him as he was. So the boy went to the riverbank and found some girls there. He took one of their clothes, hid on the tree, and hung the clothes there. When the girl came out, she took one of her friends’ clothes and went to the boy to bring her clothes.
There, the boy told her he desired to marry her. The girl was amazed at this monkey who spoke. He asked her to accompany him, and after that she decided. The girl agreed. The monkey carried her on his back and ran with her to his mother’s house. There, he told her his story, and his mother told her about the goodness of his heart and his intelligence that made him richer than his brothers. The girl agreed to marry him. Afterward, the monkey lived with his wife and mother in great happiness. His wife saw in him only the beauty of the soul.