Why the Monkeys Got the Bananas

Why the Monkeys Got the Bananas

People say monkeys especially love bananas. In this old Brazilian tale, they were convinced that every ripe banana in the world belonged to them at least a little.

It began long ago, when banana gardens were still rare.

There lived a hardworking woman with a large garden beside her house, full of banana plants. When the heavy bunches ripened, it was difficult for her to harvest them from the tall stems by herself.

One morning, a large monkey appeared on the fence.

“Good morning,” said the woman. “You are an excellent climber. Will you help me gather the bananas?”

The monkey immediately became interested.

“What will I get?”

“Half the harvest. Half for you and half for me. Fair?”

“Fair!” agreed the monkey.

She climbed nimbly up the plants, cut down the heavy bunches, and stacked them beside the house.

When it was time to divide the harvest, the monkey looked at the large golden bananas, then at the smaller fruit from the lower parts of the bunches.

“If I climbed so high, the best ones should be mine,” she thought.

She quickly pulled all the largest, ripest bananas toward herself and left the smaller ones for the woman.

“Wait,” said the woman. “We agreed on half, not that you would choose all the best fruit for yourself.”

“But you have as many bananas as I do,” the monkey replied, and hurried away before the woman could object.

The woman was upset not because of the bananas themselves, but because the monkey had broken their agreement.

“I must help her understand that a fair division is more than simply counting pieces,” she decided.

The next morning, the woman made a funny figure from wax near the garden. She put an old hat on it and placed a basket of the most fragrant ripe bananas beside it.

Soon the same monkey came down the road.

She saw the basket and stopped.

“Good morning! May I have one banana?” she politely asked the wax figure.

It said nothing.

“I’ll take only one,” the monkey repeated.

Silence.

The monkey frowned.

“Hey, I’m talking to you!”

The figure did not move.

Then the monkey forgot her manners.

“If you won’t answer, I’ll take one myself!”

She reached toward the basket, leaned on the wax figure’s shoulder, and immediately became stuck.

“Oh! Let go!”

The figure, of course, did nothing.

The monkey tried to push away with her other paw. That paw became stuck too.

“What a mess!”

She tugged again and somehow managed to stick one foot as well.

Now the monkey hung beside the wax figure in such a strange position that she did not know whether to be angry or laugh.

“Help!” she shouted.

Monkeys came running from all over the forest: large and small, old and young.

“What happened?”

“This figure won’t let me go!”

The smallest monkey walked around it.

“Wax softens when it gets warm. We should ask the Sun for help.”

“How will the Sun hear us?”

“We’ll make a tall monkey tower!”

The monkeys climbed the strongest tree. The biggest sat on the lower branches, smaller ones climbed higher, and the monkey with the loudest voice reached the very top.

She lifted her face to the sky.

“Sun, please help! Our friend is stuck in the wax!”

The Sun heard.

Its rays grew warmer.

The wax slowly softened. First the monkey freed one paw, then the other, then her foot, and at last she jumped away from the figure.

All the monkeys cheered.

“Hooray!”

The large monkey sat on the ground and stared at her sticky paws.

“I think I got more than one banana today,” she muttered.

Just then the woman came out of the garden.

“Well,” she said, “shall we talk about our agreement now?”

The monkey lowered her eyes.

“I was unfair. We agreed to divide the harvest equally, but I took all the best fruit.”

The woman nodded.

“I need help gathering the harvest, and you monkeys like bananas. We can make a new agreement.”

The monkeys pricked up their ears.

“How?”

“You help care for the garden, gather ripe bunches, and do not damage the plants. Each time, we divide the harvest fairly.”

The monkeys chattered with delight.

From then on, the garden grew even better. The monkeys spotted ripe bunches high above the ground, cleared away dry leaves, and warned the woman when storms were coming. She always left them a generous share of bananas.

Years passed. The banana plants spread, and there were more and more monkeys. They told their young:

“Remember, bananas should not be grabbed. They are earned through help and a fair agreement.”

To be fair, the little monkeys often remembered only the simpler version:

“Bananas? Those are ours!”

Perhaps that is why, even today, a monkey looking at a ripe yellow bunch sometimes has the expression of someone who has discovered an old family inheritance.

And somewhere in an ancient garden, they say, a little wax figure still stands as a reminder that even the sweetest banana is not worth breaking your word.

May this story leave a little light in your heart ✨