AI illustration
Alamat ng Pagong at Matsing
Tagalog people tell of a turtle and a monkey who find a banana plant in the river. The monkey takes the leafy top and the turtle takes the roots. Only the turtle's half grows. The monkey climbs to eat the fruit, and the turtle uses his wits to punish him.
Folklore is retold; versions differ.
Old stories: The Turtle and the Monkey
Sources: Wikipedia: The Turtle and the Monkey (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Wikidata (CC0)
The story
This fable is about a turtle and a monkey who quarrel over a banana plant. In the Tagalog form, the monkey is the stronger animal, but the turtle wins by clever thinking. The tale belongs to the group of stories where a small, slow animal beats a bigger one.
Wikipedia says folklorists trace this story to the Ilocano people. They also link it to Indian story arts. The Ilocano version explains why monkeys do not eat meat. In Tagalog, it is known as Ang Pagong at ang Matsing.
The story is well known partly because of Jose Rizal. In January 1886, while he visited the painter Juan Luna in France, Rizal drew the tale in 34 plates in an album that belonged to Luna's wife. For this reason, people call him the first Filipino cartoonist. In July 1889, his retelling in English appeared in Trubner's Oriental Record in London. Scholars call this a beginning of Philippine children's literature. Many later retellings have kept the tale alive in schools and picture books.