/ 



Fables 199 



(the bamboo ladder is called "aldan"). He went home and had 

 nothing to eat but rice, so he cut his ladder into small pieces and cooked 

 all day, but the bamboo was still very hard. He could not wait longer, 

 so called his friends and asked why he could not make it like the people 

 had in the other town. Then his friends laughed and told him his mis- 

 take. 



87 

 A man went to get coconuts and loaded his horse heavily. He met 

 a boy and asked how long to his house. "If you go slowly, very soon; 

 if you go fast, all day," said the boy. The man did not believe, so hur- 

 ried his horse and the coconuts fell off, so he had to stop and pick them 

 up. He did this many times and it was night before he got home. 



88 



Two women went to get atimon 1 which belonged to the crocodile. 

 "You must not throw the rind with your teeth marks where the crocodile 

 can see it," said the first woman. Then they ate; but the other woman 

 threw a rind with her teeth marks in the river, and the crocodile saw it 

 and knew who the woman was. He was very angry and went to her 

 house and called the people to send out the woman so he could eat her, 

 for she had eaten his atimon. "Yes," they said, "but sit down and 

 wait a while." Then they put the iron soil turner in the fire until it 

 was red hot. "Eat this first," they said to the crocodile, and when he 

 opened his mouth, they threw it very far into his body and he died. 



89 2 



There was a man named Dogidog who was very lazy and very poor. 

 His house was small and had no floor, only the boards to put the floor 

 on. He went to the forest to cut bamboo with which to make a floor, 

 and he carried cooked rice with him. When he got there he hung the 

 rice in a tree and went to cut the bamboo. While he was gone, a cat 

 came and ate the rice, so when the man got hungry and came to eat, he 

 had no rice, so he went home. The next day he went to cut again, and 

 when he had hung the rice in the tree, the cat came to eat it. The third 

 day he went again and hung the rice in the tree, but fixed it in a trap ; 

 then he hid in some brush and did not cut bamboo. The cat came to 

 eat the rice and was caught. Then the man said, "I will kill you." 



1 The fruit of a wild vine. 



2 The chief incidents in this tale resemble those in the Sea Dayak story of Sim- 

 pang Impang. See Hose and McDougall, Pagan Tribes of Borneo, Vol. II, p. 144 

 ff. (London, 1912.) 



