The Buso-Monkey

One day a man went out, carrying seventeen arrows, to hunt monkeys; but he found none. Next day he went again, and, as he walked along on the slope of the mountain called Malagu'san, he heard the sound of the chattering of monkeys in the trees. Looking up, he saw the great monkey sitting on an aluma'yag-tree. He took a shot at the monkey, but his arrow missed aim; and the next time he had no better luck. Twice eight he tried it; but he never hit the mark. The monkey seemed to lead a charmed life. Finally he took his seventeenth and last arrow, and brought down his game; the monkey fell down dead. But a voice came from the monkey's body that said, "You must carry me."

So the man picked up the monkey, and started to go back home; but on the way the monkey said, "You are to make a fire, and eat me up right here."

Then the man laid the monkey on the ground. Again came the voice, "You will find a bamboo to put me in; by and by you shall eat me."

Off went the man to find the bamboo called laya, letting the monkey lie on the ground, where he had dropped it.

He walked on until he reached a forest of bamboo. There, swinging on a branch of the laya, was a karirik-bird. And the bird chirped to the man, "Where are you going?"

The man answered, "I am looking for bamboo to put the monkey in."But the karirik-bird exclaimed, "Run away, quick! for by and by the monkey will become a buso. I will wait here, and be cutting the laya;
then, when the monkey calls you, I will answer him."

In the mean time the monkey had become a great buso. He had only one eye, and that stood right in the middle of his forehead, looking just like the big bowl called langungan (the very bad buso have only one
eye; some have only one leg).

After the Buso-monkey had waited many hours for the man to come back, he started out to look for him. When he reached the forest of laya, he called to the man, "Where are you?"

Then the karirik-bird answered from the tree, "Here I am, right here, cutting the bamboo."

But the man had run away, because the bird had sent him off, and made him run very fast.

As soon as the bird had answered the Buso, it flew off to another bamboo-tree, and there the Buso spied it, and knew that he had been fooled; and he said, "It's a man I want; you're just a bird. I don't care for you."

Directly then the Buso began to smell around the ground where the man had started to run up the mountain-side, and, as quick as he caught the scent, he trailed the man. He ran and ran, and all the time the man was running too; but soon the Buso began to gain on him. After a while, when the Buso had come close upon him, the man tried to look for some covert. He reached a big rock, and cried out, "O rock! will you give me shelter when the Buso tries to eat me?"

"No," replied the rock; "for, if I should help you, the Buso would break me off and throw me away."

Then the man ran on; and the Buso came nearer and nearer, searching behind every rock as he rushed along, and spying up into every tree, to see if, perchance, the man were concealed there.

At last the man came to the lemon-tree called kabayawa, that has long, sharp thorns on its branches. And the man cried out to the lemon-tree, "Could you protect me, if I were to hide among your leaves and flowers?"

Instantly the lemon-tree answered, "Come right up, if you want to." Then the man climbed the tree, and concealed himself in the branches, among the flowers. Very soon the Buso came under the lemon-tree, and shouted to it, "I smell a man here. You are hiding him."

The Kabayawa said, "Sure enough, here's a man! You just climb up and get him."

Then the Buso began to scramble up the tree; but as he climbed, the thorns stuck their sharp points into him. The higher he climbed, the longer and sharper grew the thorns of the tree, piercing and tearing, until they killed the Buso.

It is because the monkey sometimes turns into a Buso that many Bagobo refuse to eat monkey. But some of the mountain Bagobo eat monkey to keep off sores.