The Turtle and the Monkey

Read the Tagalog fable of the Turtle and the Monkey, a story about sharing and cleverness first written down by José Rizal, retold for children.

Region: Tagalog region, Luzon
Category: Learning Stories
Ages: From 4, with three reading levels (ages 4–6, 7–9 and 10+)
Languages: English, Filipino (Tagalog), Bisaya (Cebuano)

About the legend

Being: Tagalog animal fable
Cultural meaning: In Tagalog storytelling, the turtle is the small, slow one who wins with patience and a clever idea, and the monkey is the quick, strong one whose greed trips him up. José Rizal wrote that Tagalogs saw the turtle as a poor little creature, clever in its own way, more to be pitied than admired. He also noted an old belief: if you step on a turtle, the sole of your foot will crack into many lines. He thought it might be a way to keep children from stepping on slow turtles.
Fun fact: José Rizal wrote that Filipino children learn this story when they are very small, and that hardly any Tagalog story is better known.

Cultural notes

José Rizal called it "the Tale of the Tortoise and the Monkey" and gave its Tagalog title as "Ang buhay ni pagong at ni matsing". He published it in English in "Two Eastern Fables" in Trübner's Record (London, July 1889) and wrote that many sayings, phrases and comparisons in everyday life go back to it. He compared it with the Japanese "Battle of the Monkey and the Crab" (Saru Kani Kassen, as he spells it), where a crab and a persimmon tree take the places of the turtle and the banana, and argued that the Philippine form is older and plainer, and known in every island, province and dialect. The pointed shells in his telling are a kind of spiral snail he calls susu. The folklorist Dean S. Fansler printed three more versions in Filipino Popular Tales (1921), two from Pampanga and one from Batangas, listed others from the Visayas and from Bagobo and Tinguian storytellers, and traced the whole cycle back to the Buddhist Jataka tales of India. The turtle's trick of begging not to be thrown into the water is also found in the Brer Rabbit stories.

About this retelling

Traditional retelling of a Tagalog fable The Tagalog fable of the turtle and the monkey, as José Rizal wrote it down in 1889, retold for children.

José Rizal's 1889 telling gives the story its whole path: the banana tree floating down the river, the turtle's idea to cut it in two and each plant a half, the monkey who takes the leafy top, the turtle's half that bears fruit, the monkey who climbs up and eats every banana, the sharp snail shells around the tree, the coconut shell, the choice between the mortar and the water, and the turtle's escape. The monkey who cannot swim, the promise of half the bananas, the peels he throws down and the water buffaloes cooling off in the river come from a Pampanga version printed by Dean S. Fansler (1921). We changed three things for children. In Rizal, the monkey tells the turtle to choose her death; here it is a punishment. His monkey bleeds; ours only gets his paws pricked on the shells. Other versions, where the monkey is killed and the story goes on with other monkeys, are left out. The turtle's words from the river, the new shoots from her roots and Monkey alone at the end were written for Filipino Tales. The dialogue is our own wording, though the offer to climb, the choice between the mortar and the river, and the turtle's answer follow Rizal closely.

Sources

Themes

Fairness
Sharing
Cleverness
Luzon
Tagalog
Animal fables
Pagong at Matsing
José Rizal
Banana tree
River
Sharing