Ethiopian Folktales

Narrated by Belay Makonnen

A man was very poor. Being poor, he went out to live in the country. He lived by cultivating pumpkin and maize. At this time groups of monkeys would steal his crop, so he couldn’t leave it, and he was very disturbed by the baboons. He kept an eye on the baboons coming to steal so that he could chase them.

One day, while he chased them, all ran away except one baboon child. He took the baboon child home, being enchanted by her. So he became friends with her, fed her, and when she grew up a little, he took her to the field with him.

While he was sowing the seeds in order for the seeds to grow, the little baboon picked up all the seeds and ate them.

“No, that’s not the way. It must grow and then we’ll have more seeds,” he tells her.

So she understood his advice and did as he said.

He was demonstrating to her, “You should put the seed down like this,” and she did as he said.

So the plants grew, and sometimes she helped him in weeding, and so they lived together.

Being a female baboon, he had sex with her when she reached puberty, and she gave birth to a child who looked like a man and walked on two legs.

They got a second child. A second child came and they lived working together in the field.

Of the two children the first was male and the second female. When they grew up they married each other. Being four, the work developed very much.

The grandchildren married each other and bore children, and so, forgetting the species of baboon, they lived as men and went on living together very happily.