Hunter School. Sakinu Ahronglong
for their education. And the third wife is called Suya, and her job is diplomacy. She is the one who maintains friendly relations with other tribes of monkeys by going on peace-keeping missions. The three wives support one another, which is the main reason for his authority: they help consolidate his rule. Behind every great man is a good woman, in this case, three!”
Early the next morning, my father called me awake and told me to get ready to go up the mountain with him. But he did not tell me why. All I knew was that we had to walk a long way. When we got to where we were going, Father said, “This is not our hunting ground, and it is not the Monkey King’s territory, either. It belongs to another tribe.”
“What are we doing here, Dad?”
“Last night an old hunter of our village told me that on the way home he heard a monkey screaming. I was worried that the Monkey King’s wife might be caught in a hunter’s trap, so I have come to have a look.”
We had come to where the old hunter had heard the scream. We searched for a long time. We did not hear the sound of a monkey. Right when I was about to give up, my father called my name. “Look, Sakinu, over there.”
Right there at a water source we found the Monkey King’s third wife, Suya. I asked my father how he knew that the lady monkey was the wife of Pula the Monkey King. “See the scar on her left leg? On her diplomatic missions she has to go on distant journeys. One time she fell into a trap set by a hunter along the way. I happened to be in the area. At the time she did not know me yet. She assumed that I was the one who had set the trap. So when I went to release the iron from her leg, she bit me with her sharp teeth. But I released the leg all the same and put on a salve made from essence of camphor oil. You know, the Little Nurse ointment we apply to your mosquito bites to ease the pain and reduce swelling. I ripped a strip from my shirt to bandage the wound for her. When she left, she looked at me – she was about half a metre away, and she took a good long look at me. She showed me her sharp teeth again, but this time she was smiling. She swatted her tail around a couple of times before jumping into a tree and swinging off.”
This time Suya had been caught in a trap for several days. She was hungry and weak. The part of her in the trap, her right hand, was badly infected, maybe even gangrenous. It was all red and swollen up, and you could see the bone. She was whimpering, which told my father: It hurts so much!
Father said, “I’m here, everything’s going to be alright.” Father patted her head several times. She was still whimpering. I was standing to the side, feeling very sorrowful. When he released her hand from the vice, she did not even move, as if she had some unspoken understanding with my father.
“Suya’s hand is so bad that it might never be well again…” he said.
She was licking her injury and whimpering from time to time, as if to tell my father something. She said a lot of things that I did not understand. Father said she was very homesick.
The next day at sundown, Father took Suya back home, to the place where Pula the Monkey King often appeared. Suya screamed with excitement to find herself back where she belonged.
“The Monkey King’ll be here soon.” But the sun was setting, and the light was growing dim. It was time to leave, but Pula had not appeared yet.
“Kama,” I asked, “where is he? Is Pula gone for good?”
My father did not speak, or at least he did not answer my question. “Son,” he said. “We will come back tomorrow.” And with that we took Suya home.
The next morning, we went to the same place we had waited the night before. It was quiet in the woods. All we heard was the wind in the leaves, until there was a different swish, the sound of Pula the Monkey King swinging through the forest. Woowoooo! Today his distinctive voice carried with particular clarity.
My father said that the Monkey King had been able to smell her from far away. Soon he appeared in the place where we had first seen him. He was jumping up and down. He strenuously shook the tree and screamed, joy in his face.
He wanted to see his wife. They had not been together for a long time. Father released the chain he had put around her neck and watched as she limped very, very slowly and started to climb with great difficulty up the tree to the place where only Pula the Monkey King could stand. She leaned against him and said to her man, “I missed you so much.” Then I saw the Monkey King climb onto her body and enjoy a pleasure he had not had in a long time. And judging from the demure expression on her face, she was enjoying the attention.
In the final scene to the happy reunion I was able to witness, Pula was licking her lame right hand before they disappeared together into the forest.
I saw the Monkey King and his monkeys and his three wives in the same place a few times after that. He got along well with all his wives, especially with Suya. But his first and second wives did not get jealous on that account.
One time I asked my father what Pula meant by some gesture or scream, but he answered otherwise. “Pula is so strong and supple! He travels like the wind, and his every motion is like a passing breeze. Son, do you know what animal has four hands and four feet?”
I thought about it for the longest time, but all I could come up with was a spider.
Father’s answer made me laugh. “When a monkey is in the tree, it has four hands working at the same time. And when a monkey is on the ground, it has four feet walking at the same time.”
“Dad, does that mean Suya has three hands and three legs?”
He just smiled.
Pula’s babies are getting bigger every day. Someday they will inherit the mountain domain over which their father rules, and hopefully they will rule as wisely as their father did. And when I have children of my own, I am going to tell them the story of the Monkey King.
Grandpa’s Millet Field
“Dad, where has Grandpa gone?”
My father pointed to that yellow patch on the hill behind our village.
“Dad, what is that?”
“It’s your grandfather’s millet field. You will find him there. He is taking care of his millet.”
Gazing up, I was feeling a bit guilty. It’d been too long since I last came home, and last time I was home I didn’t even notice the millet field on the hill. Now I’d seen it, there it was, the field that my grandfather was going to spend the rest of his life taking care of. I was feeling really down and started to cry. I couldn’t help myself. That’s when I realised how long it had been since I had come home and how unfamiliar with it I was getting. Suddenly I felt like a stranger in the place where I had grown up.
“How is Grandpa? Is he feeling well?”
“He’s the same. He goes up the mountain to work every day, and he is just as healthy as before,” Father said. “Since the millet gave birth, ever since the grains of millet formed, Grandpa has been going up the mountain every day and not coming back until the sun sets behind the mountain.”
“Why?”
“Well, your grandfather is competing with the birds to see who can get up earlier. If he is too slow to the field, the birds will eat all the millet. And he cannot come home too early or the hungry late afternoon birds will get at the grain. Your grandfather says that it has been too long since we planted millet in our village. So it has been such a long time since the birds in the mountains got the chance to eat quality millet. They know that your grandfather planted the millet, so they told their friends to come help eat it.
“A couple of days ago some new birds flew to the field. Grandpa was so happy, like he had seen an old friend. He said he hasn’t seen that kind of bird since he was young. He even lets such birds linger in the field and play. He only shoos them away after they eat their fill. He was sad on this particular occasion and even started crying in the middle of his millet field because the new birds reminded him of his childhood playmates. And now all his