Ethiopian Folktales

Narrator Unknown

The monkeys used to eat grains of sorghum but they never allowed the baboon to eat them.

The baboon was angry and thinks, “How can I hurt the monkeys?”

One day he climbed the trees and started playing a harp. When the baboon was playing the music a lion heard the sound and asked him to make an instrument like this for him.

The baboon said, “If you want me to make a harp like this, I need the strings. They must the be made from the skins of the monkeys.”

The lion kills all the monkeys and gives the skins to the baboon. The baboon asks the lion to take the skins to the water and wash them. When the lion was washing the monkey skins the baboon pushed him into the water so the lion was drowned.