How monkeys came to be

People have always been fascinated by monkeys because of their close physical similarity with these animals. Some scientists are even of the idea that people actually came from monkeys and only became more developed through a natural process called evolution. But one folktale has it the other way around; it says monkeys were once people:

A long time ago, there was a small town at the foot of a forest-covered mountain. Just above the town, on the hillside, stood a little house in which lived an old woman and her grandson.

The old woman was very industrious. She earned their living by removing the seeds from cotton. She always had near at hand a basket in which she placed the cotton and a long stick that she used for a spindle.

The boy was lazy and would not do anything to help his grandmother. Instead, every day he went down to the town, met up with his friends, and gambled. He would spend whole days there.

One day, when he had been losing money, the boy went home in a bad mood. And upon seeing that his supper was not ready, he got mad at his grandmother.

“I am hurrying to get the seeds out of this cotton,” said the grandmother, “and as soon as I sell it, I will buy us some food.”

The old woman’s words didn’t pacify the boy, who then went into a rage. He picked up some coconut shells and threw them at his grandmother, making the old woman angry. She started whipping him with her spindle, and the cotton in the basket was thrown all over the boy.

Suddenly the boy was changed into an ugly animal. The cotton turned to hair which covered his whole body. The old woman’s spindle stuck to his behind and became a tail.

As soon as the boy realized that he had become an ugly creature, he ran down into the town and began rounding up his gambling companions, whipping them with his tail. At each whip, one of them became an animal, until they all turned into animals like the boy.

The townspeople did not want to have the ugly animals around in the town, and drove them away. The animals ran to the forest and, afraid that the people would still follow them there and drive them farther away, they climbed up the trees to hide. And the hairy tailed creatures were since known as monkeys.