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พือหม่อต่อ 
Phu Maw Taw

This story is about a man named Pue-moh-to. One day, when it was time to prepare the plot for rotational farming, the city governor and other villagers helped one another to clear the forest, but Pue-moh-to went to the forest by himself. He chose the area at the bottom of the cliff in the big forest, which was abundant with bamboo trees. When the preparation process was finished, wood and bamboo would be left to dry, and the villagers would burn these dry woods at the same time. The area that Pue-moh-to had chosen was located in the forest where woods were in better conditions and burned better. After the burning period, the villagers would help one another to sow rice seeds. However, Pue-moh-to would do it alone all by himself. He dug rows of small holes in the plot and dropped rice seeds neatly in each hole. When the rice sprouted, the rice plants were arranged in line beautifully. Also, his plot was burned better so there were no grasses or weeds. If he found any weeds, he would simply remove them from his plot. When it was time for rice plants to develop ears of paddy, he returned to the village because his hut at the field was too small for him to weave mats, which was needed for the paddy-threshing process. Weaving a mat normally takes a long time, beginning with thinning bamboo strips, drying them and weaving the dry bamboo strips into a mat. During this time, the rice in his plot started to become yellow and ripen, ready for harvesting. Once he finished weaving the mat, he traveled to his plot and found all his ripe rice had been eaten by a troop of monkeys. In shock, he looked around his plot, not sure what to do next. 

After spending all the time and energy on the rotational farm, but gaining nothing in return, Pue-moh-to was trying to figure out what to do. He decided to go to the village to visit the village's fortune teller, named Wee. When arriving at Wee's house, he told Wee that this year he had worked on his rotational farm and the crops had been almost ready for harvest, but all of them had been eaten by a big troop of monkeys. He asked her, "What do you advise me to do?" She told him to find two strings of gehtomou, one string dead and the other alive, and  was asked to return to his field, where lay down and pretend to be dead. Having heard that, he followed the advice and instruction given by Wee the fortuneteller. He went to his field, put one string of gehtomou inside his nostrils, lied down on the ground and pretended to be dead. Not long after that, a troop of monkeys came to the field. The first one that arrived was a small monkey who saw him lying on the ground and thought to itself that all the rice had been eaten, which caused him to die. More and more monkeys arrived in the fields, and the young monkey told all of them what it was thinking about. After a while, the monkey leader, who was the most senior one, arrived at the field and saw Pue-moh-to lying dead on the ground. He said, "Oh, we took advantage of Pue-moh-to so much that he died. What should we do?" Then the monkey leader told the other monkeys in the troop that they had taken advantage of Pue-moh-to, so they were supposed to cry for him. The small monkeys asked the leader how they were supposed to cry. The leader explained they could naturally cry, and instructed the youngest ones to cry first, saying, "We have eaten all of Pue-moh-to’s rice. And now he died and we are weeping for him." All of the monkeys, beginning with the youngest and ending with the oldest, including the monkey leader, cried and repeated this verse. Once the monkey leader finished crying, he told the rest of the troop that, "We use only one white thrilling drum and we must remove it from our village", which means "we have to take responsibility for the thing we have done." 

Following this, the monkeys carried Pue-moh-to’s body up the cliff where they resided. There, the monkey leader said they had to arrange the funeral for Pue-moh-to. Words were passed on to several kinds of animals, such as langurs, crabs, fish, shrimp, who attended the funeral and sang in the ceremony. This started with the monkeys who sang, "We are animals who are never still. We grab other people's things." This was followed by langurs who sang, "Our hands and legs never work, but when seeing other people's possessions, we ignore them." (Langurs do not eat rice.) The shrimps were next, singing "We move forward and we move backward. We store our feces in our heads." Then, the crabs sang, "We are animals with sticks and branches. Our feces are mixed with fermented rice." All the animals continued singing until dawn. When they finished singing their poems at Pue-moh-to’s funeral, they returned to their home, except the monkey leader. He then said to the other monkeys, "We have been taking advantage of Pue-moh-to. We must repay him with our valuable things." He instructed the monkeys to return to their home and bring a little bit of silver, gold and valuable things. The monkeys followed his instruction and came back with some valuable things. After the monkey leader laid one silver mat and one gold mat, the other monkeys placed silver objects on the silver mat and gold objects on the gold mat until both mats were filled with valuable silver and gold. They then apologized to Pue-moh-to’s dead body and migrated to a new habitat. 

After all the monkeys had left, Pue-moh-to opened his eyes, got up, and made a basket to be used for carrying all the silver and gold. He put all the valuable things, silver and gold, into the basket and walked to the village. When he got home, he thought to himself that not many people would have a chance to receive such valuable things the way he did. Then, he walked into the village and shared a little bit of valuable things with other villagers until there was only one person left, whose name was Mo-goh-lee. 

Pue-moh-to walked to Mo-goh-lee's house and told him that he wanted to give some valuable things to him. Mogohlee had heard the story of how Pue-moh-to had obtained these valuable things. He laughed out loud and said that he would get more valuable things than Pue-moh-to had been given. When hearing that Mogohlee did not want to receive his share, Pue-moh-to walked home. Meanwhile, Mogohlee planned to imitate Pue-moh-to 's action. 

When the field-clearing season arrived, Mogohlee searched for a fertile area and cleared it. He left sticks, branches, and leaves to dry, and burned them at the same time as other villagers. He then built a hut, collected wood chips, sowed rice seeds, eliminated weeds, and everything else. However, Mogohlee did one thing that was different from other villagers; he left the rice to become yellow and ripen, then he returned home and stayed there without returning to his field. He was actually waiting for the monkey troop to come eat his ripe rice. He did not even start weaving a mat for the paddy-threshing process. When the troop of monkeys came by and saw a lot of ripe rice, they ate all of his rice in the fields. Having seen that, Mogohlee visited the village fortune teller, Wee, and asked her what he was supposed to do. Wee gave him the same instruction she had given Pue-moh-to in the previous season, by looking for two strings of gehtomou, one string alive and the other dead. Wee said to him he might receive something in return. 

Mogohlee went to his field and followed Wee's instruction, but he made a mistake by making the two strings alive. He forgot to make one string dead. Then, he put the two strings into his nostrils, lay down and pretended to be dead. When the troop of moneys arrived his field, Mogohlee was feeling like sneezing because he had forgotten to make one string dead, but he tried to tolerate the urge to sneeze. When the monkeys saw him lying dead on the ground, they started to cry for him, beginning with the young monkeys to the old ones, and sang, "We have eaten all of Mogohlee's rice, and now he is dead." After all the monkeys cried and sang for him, they carried his body up the cliff where they resided. Then they performed a funeral exactly the same way they had done for Pue-moh-to . Each kind of wild animals attended his funeral, sang the poems for him, starting with lemurs, crabs, fish and shrimps. The monkeys sang, "We are active animals and take other people's belongings when we see them." The lemurs sang, "Our hands and legs do not work, when seeing other people's possessions, we ignore them." (Lemurs do not eat rice.) Then the shrimps sang, "We walk forward and we move backward. Our feces are stored on the top of our head." Next, the crabs sang, "We are animals with sticks and branches. Our feces are filled with fermented rice." All the animals continued singing until daybreak. When the funeral was finished, the animals left and returned home, except the monkey leader. He said to other monkeys that they had taken advantage of Mogohlee and caused him to die, so they had to compensate him with their valuable possessions. Before the monkeys left for their home to collect valuable possessions, Mogohlee sneezed out loud. This scared away all the monkeys who ran away and let go off his body. Unfortunately, Mogohlee fell off the cliff and died.

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