Once upon a time, there were an old man and an old women carrying bananas. Along the way, they came across the rabbit who slept on the path. The old lady felt sympathetic, she held the rabbit and put it gently on the banana basket. The rabbit who pretended to be asleep woke up and ate the bananas along the way home. He ate many bunches of bananas so the basket became lighter. The old lady felt it so she exclaimed to her husband;
“ I wonder why the basket is lighter.”
The old man looked at the rabbit and suddenly realized that the rabbit ate their bananas. He told his wife.
“ Look, the rabbit ate our bananas.”
When the rabbit heard that he jump out from the basket and ran to the hole.
On the next day, the old man persuaded his wife to observe the rice field. The rabbit who was around heard that so it volunteered to go to the rice field.
“ I will go to the rice field myself and pull out the young rice plant. You both just stay home and cooked for me so I can eat when I’m back. I will go and do it quickly.”
The old couple was pleased with the rabbit’s offer. They let the rabbit go to the rice field to pull the rice plants.
When the rabbit arrived at the field, he did not pull the rice plants but used the scythe to cut them. The rice filed was in a mess.
When the old man and his wife finished cooking, they went to the rice field to see how the rabbit worked. When they arrived at the field, the old lady called the rabbit to have lunch under the shade of the tree. While the old woman served lunch to the rabbit, the old man went to see how the work was done and was shocked to see that his rice field was totally destroyed.
He shouted to his wife whose ears could not hear clearly and whose eyes could not see clearly too.
“ Grandma, the rabbit destroy our rice field hit it don’t let it go”.
The old woman could not figure out what her husband said so she asked the rabbit;
“ What did my husband say? Can you hear it?”
“ He told you to serve me more meat because he was pleased with my work.” The cunning rabbit replied.
At the same time, he ate very fast for fear that the old man would catch him. The old man came closer and told his wife to hit the rabbit for destroying his rice field. This time, the old lady heard clearly what her husband said. She caught the stick and tried to hit the rabbit but the rabbit was very fast to avoid the stick. It ran into the hold. The old man then told his nephew to watch the hole and he would get the fire and the dry hay to burn the rabbit in the hole. The rabbit tried to find the way to escape from the hole. The bad plan popped up in his mind when he saw the young boy. He said to the boy;
“Hey Boy, why don’t you come in here? Don’t you see that the sky is going fall down? Come hide in this cave with me?”
The innocent boy believed that he quickly open the rabbit’s cave and went in. The rabbit jumped out very fast telling the boy that it would watch the sky for him outside.
When the old couple came back with dry hay and fire, they burned the cave without knowing that the nephew was inside.
The rabbit was around there. It mocked the couple by saying;
“Ha ha, grandpa and grandma,
How foolish you are.
You killed your own nephew, you burnt your own nephew. Ha.ha.ha.”
When the old grandparents heard that, they hurriedly found their grandson but it was too late. The boy was dead. They were very angry so they tried to catch it but it was too fast to follow. The rabbit ran too fast and did not watch the well in front of it so it fell down the well. During that time, there was a tiger passing by, the cunning rabbit shouted to him;
“Tiger, don’t you know that the sky is falling down. Come here, jump in quickly my friend if you want to save your life”.
The tiger had no time to think, it jumped into the well. When it was in the well the tiger was annoyed by the rabbit. The rabbit grabbed its ball in order to make the tiger annoyed and threw it away. Not long after, the tiger was very angry, it grabbed the rabbit’s neck and threw it away from the well.
The rabbit then shouted loudly calling villagers attention to come to see the tiger in the well.
“Come on, come on everyone, come and see the foolish tiger falling down the well”
However, it turned out that the tiger was rescued from the well. The rabbit then hurriedly climbed up on the top of the bamboo tree. When the bamboo trees were blown by the wind, they made the sound.
The tiger heard that so it asked the rabbit.
“What are you doing?
“I’m playing the fiddle. Would you like to try? The rabbit asked.
“Of course, I want to try.” The tiger replied.
“ But if you want to make a nice sound you have to put your tail between the two trees.” The cunning rabbit said.
The tiger did that, when the wind blew hard, the bamboo tree squeezed and cut the tiger’s tail.
The tiger was very angry, it chased the rabbit. The rabbit ran away until it came across the big hive of the wasps. The rabbit pretended to hit the hive and made the sound like a drum.
“ Gun too ou, Gun too ou”
The tiger was very curious so it asked the rabbit.
“What are you doing?
“I’m playing a drum.” The rabbit replied.
“ Let me try.” The tiger said.
“ You must hit it hard. As harder as you can so that you will make the loudest sound. I will wait over there to check how loud it is.” The rabbit went far enough pretending that it was waiting for the sound of the drum from the tiger.
The foolish tiger hit the hive hard and this made many wasps fly out from the hive and stung the tiger on its two cheeks. This is the reason why tigers have big high cheeks until now.