The baboon and the moon

A tale about a monkey and a termite, and how they brought the moon into being.

Long ago, when the night was so dark it could swallow the world whole and leave no trace, there lived a baboon. He lived atop a tree so tall its branches caught on passing clouds, and he liked to watch other animals pass by and toss fruit skins at them. Animals did their best to avoid his tree, but the baboon was a clever one, always playing tricks on others, and he would often leave his tree to torment the other animals. Among animals, he was called Bontu for his pride, because he also loved to brag of his tricks to others and spin tall tales. 

One day, when he told hyena how he dusted the jackel’s back with embers and left an ashen mark across their spine, hyena chased him for three days and nights until Bontu finally managed to find a tall tree to hide atop.

This tree, the baboon discovered as night fell, produced tiny sweet fruits which glowed with a pale light in the interminable darkness, and he congratulated himself on finding such a fantastic prize. 

“I am so very clever,” he said to himself as he gorged on the fruit. “Only a truly gifted animal such as myself could possibly hope to have found such a wonderful prize. That stupid hyena could never have climbed this tree, and giraffe would simply eat the leaves and ignore the fruit, the dim-witted brute.”

So heartily loud were his self-congratulations that Bontu didn’t notice he was no longer alone until a small sandpapery voice whispered right in his ear.

“That must mean we are cleverer by far than you, for our queen Moti discovered this tree many years ago and we have lived here ever since,” whispered the voice, and Bontu felt something tickling his ear. He spun, but saw nothing to his left or his right. No-one was behind or above him, and the voice in his ear giggled and laughed.

Scared, and not wanting to antagonise a powerful spirit, Bontu nodded.

“Indeed, your queen must be very wise! Would she allow me to stay a while in your home?”

“I do not think you would fit into our home, but you’re welcome to stay in the leafy branches as long as you wish, if you promise to leave our fruits alone,” the voice whispered, and Bontu felt something tickle its way across his cheek and onto his snout. When he crossed his eyes to see better, a little glowing gadulessa was sitting on his nose.

“Who are you?” asked Bontu.

“My name is Lelisa,” said the termite, and waved his antennae at Bontu in greeting.

Bontu returned to the tree with glowing fruits regularly, sitting among the branches at night and speaking to the gadulessa that inhabited the tree. Most of them were rather indifferent to the baboon haunting the upper branches, but Lelisa was fascinated by Bontu’s stories and listened to his tales with rapt attention. The young termite spent all his free time with Bontu, and the two grew close. Bontu even took Lelisa to see his own towering home tree, and Lelisa was awed by its immense size. However, no matter how friendly Lelisa was towards Bontu, he would not allow the baboon to eat even a single one of the tree’s glowing fruits.

One night, as Bontu watched the gadulessa harvest the glowing fruits, he turned to Lelisa.

“My good friend, I have seen many termites in my life, but only the gadulessa in this place shine like the sun. Why is this so?”

“It is dark underground, but thanks to the fruits we are able to light our paths easily. By consuming the juice of the great fruit we tend, we glow.”

“These fruits are very pretty,” said Bontu, “but I would hardly call them ‘great’. They’re so small that even a gadulessa like you must need two to have a good meal.”

Lelisa paused here, considering. Moti, you see, had a great secret which she did not want known. But Bontu was Leslisa’s friend, and in his great admiration for the baboon he believed Bontu could be trusted. And so, Leslisa told Bontu of the gadulessa’s great treasure.

“From these tiny fruit we grow a fruit that glows like the sun, and that is what gives us our light.”

Now, Bontu had before tasted the tiny fruits of the tree, and they had been the most delicious thing he had ever eaten. How sweet then must this giant fruit be, and how beautiful and bright?

“May I see this treasured fruit?” he asked, mouth watering.

But no matter how he asked, Leslisa refused to show Bontu the magnificent fruit. Thoughts of it consumed him; the baboon could hardly sleep for thinking about the buried fruit and how it would taste. Again and again and again he asked  to see it, he was reduced to begging, but Leslisa was steadfast in his refusal.

Eventually, Bontu could think of nothing but the mysterious, hidden fruit, and he hatched a plan to get it.

With great care and cunning, he located the entrance to the termite’s burrows, nestled between the roots of the tree. Then Bontu began to dig. Under the cover of the night, he carved out a tunnel with his claws, all the way to the river, and when he reached it the waters flowed down the channel and swept into the gadulessa’s home in a silvery flood. As tiny pinpricks of light scrambled for higher ground, tiny voices crying out in terror, a silver light began to grow brighter and brighter, emerging from the depths.

Bontu watched as the gadulessa’s secret fruit bobbed to the surface, glowing with a beautiful silvery light that illuminated the darkness. It was huge and perfectly spherical, a pale white orb of light. Bontu grabbed it so roughly his fingers bruised the milky flesh, but he didn’t care. With all the haste he could muster, still tired from digging, he hurried back to his home tree and climbed up to the sky.

Unfortunately for Bontu, one of the unregarded specks of light that had escaped the termites’ home was Leslisa. Quickly gathering the other survivors, he hurried towards the sky-touching tree that Bontu called home.

The greedy baboon had just reached the top of his tree when the branches shook tremendously beneath him. Clutching his prize tight, Bontu looked down but saw nothing untoward. Still, the branches shook and trembled, the entire tree swaying as though in a high wind. 

Underneath the rattling of the leaves and the creaking groan of wood, Bontu heard a whispering that grew louder and louder as the shaking grew worse.

Even as he clutched the glowing fruit to his chest, the wood beneath the baboon’s feet cracked and sagged, as if eaten away by rot... or termites. Bontu shrieked as Leslisa and the other gadulessa hollowed out the tree, and it splintered and fell away beneath him.

Bontu, and his home, plummeted out of the clouds, and in his fear Bontu let go of the fruit.

The baboon fell and fell and fell. He dropped past the clouds, past the treetops and at long last  he hit the ground with a thud.

Far above, Bontu could see the fruit he had stolen, hanging impossibly high above him in the sky. It glowed in the night, illuminating the darkness, and around it flickered tiny specs of light - Leslisa and his fellow gadulessa, hanging in the sky, attending to their precious treasure. Bontu, bereft of his home and still yearning to taste the fruit swore he would reach up into the night sky if he had to. And that is how the moon got its markings, and why it waxes and wanes, as Bontu eats the fruit and Leslisa and the gadulessa stars rebuild it in a cycle without end.

Author’s notes: Although I’ve used Oromo names, this story is original and not based on any folklore or culture that I’m aware of. The internet informs me that gadulessa is Oromo for ‘termite’.