So Acho Tsagye cut off the ears too.
Dangbo thik naki wenda, Dingbo thik naki wenda, there were two brothers. Neither of them could remember their parents for they had both died when the two boys were very young. The older brother was rather simple minded but the younger brother was clever and hard working. They loved and cared for each other dearly. The younger brother called his older brother Acho Tsagye or Elder Brother Slow Wit in affection and he came to be known by that name in the village. He was everybody’s Acho Tsagye. He was a strong young man who was often called upon by the villagers to do jobs where physical strength was required.
One day the younger brother went out to plow his fields and he told his brother to make lunch and bring it to the field at midday. “Acho, please make sure that the food is very clean.”
Acho prepared some rice. To go with the rice he cooked some meat and chili, together with circular slices of radish. Then he packed the rice in a bangchung and placed the meat, chili, and radish on the rice. Carrying the bangchung in one hand and a container of singchang in the other, he made his way to the fields. On the way he happened to come across a large pile of cow dung right in the middle of the road. Acho very politely asked the cow dung to move away saying that his brother had asked him to bring his lunch clean. The cow dung of course could not move. Acho Tsagye warned it saying, “If you don’t move I’ll have to move you.”
Still the cow dung would not budge. So the elder brother laid down the food near the dung and picked up a large stone and threw it on the dung with force. The dung being quite fresh splattered and now the open bangchung was full of cow dung. Acho Tsagye wondered what he should to do next. Then suddenly he had an idea. He went to the nearest stream and began to wash the rice grains one by one.
It was now long past midday and the younger brother was hungry and worried. He waited, but Acho Tsagye did not come. So he decided to go and see what the matter was. When he found his brother leaning over the banks of a stream washing the rice grains one by one he was baffled and asked: “Why are you doing that, Acho?”
Acho Tsagye explained what had happened. The younger brother shook his head sadly in disbelief and said, “Aye wa, Acho, listen carefully. I will now go home and eat something. You go to the field and watch the oxen. Don’t let them move away.”
Acho Tsagye made himself comfortable under the shade of a tree.
Lying deep in the soft grass he watched the oxen which were grazing nearby. Then he noticed that they were swishing their tails constantly. He thought, “Ya, I better tell them to stop moving their tails. My brother told me not to let them move.”
So he went to the oxen and he told them to stop moving their tails. But the oxen continued swishing their tails as oxen do to keep away the flies. Acho Tsagye thought he had to stop them. After long and deep consideration he decided that he would cut off the tails so that they would not be able to move. When he cut off the tails the oxen began to flip their ears as oxen do. So Acho Tsagye cut off the ears too. Now the oxen began to run away in pain so he cut off their limbs too. When the younger brother came back to the field he witnessed the most gruesome scene and he was horrified. Acho Tsagye explained proudly how he had stopped the oxen from moving.
The younger brother was helpless and in a moment of extreme frustration decided to leave his brother and run away. Secretly he began to prepare for his escape. He got a large tseseb and every day he filled it up with provisions. Just on the day he was to go Acho Tsagye found the tseseb. He thought, “It looks like my brother is preparing for a journey. I would like to go with him,” so he removed all the provisions from the tseseb and got into it himself. The younger brother saw that Acho Tsagye was not around so he thought this to be a good opportunity. He put his tseseb on his back and ran away. The younger brother walked for a long time. Then he rested his basket on his T-stick and thought aloud, “Here I am, I wonder where my Acho Tsagye is.” Acho Tsagye heard this and he whispered, “I am right behind you.”
The younger brother walked across valleys and climbed mountains. Now he was very tired. So he took the tseseb from his back and started to prepare a fire and clear the area a little so that he could camp there for the night. When he opened the tseseb to take out some food he was shocked, for it was Acho Tsagye who struggled out of the tseseb. He crawled out of the basket with a big grin on his face and stretched out his limbs luxuriously for he had sat cramped in the basket for the whole day. Nothing of the provisions the younger brother had so carefully packed for many days was in it. He was utterly exasperated.
“Don’t worry, we’ll spend the night in that house. I am sure we will also get some food there” said Acho Tsagye as he pointed to a huge house which was not very far from where they were.
The house was very big and very rich but there was nobody inside. So the brothers decided to hide in the ground floor of the house where the domestic animals are usually housed and see who came to occupy the house. The room was huge. The brothers soon noticed that there were different-sized holes in the ceiling of the room and wondered what they were for. They had not been in their hiding place very long when there was a tremendous thumping of feet on the ground so that it shook, and scores of voices roared and rumbled. Then through each of the holes in the ceiling a huge black furry tail hung down. The sinpos had sat down to their evening meal. There were tails of every size. But the biggest tail hung in the middle of all the tails. Acho Tsagye had a great urge to pull on the tails so he said, “Can I pull on one of the tails.”
The younger brother, who was trembling with fear and scarcely daring to breathe, whispered: “No, no, don’t you realize what tails these are? They are the tails of the sinpos. If you touch the tail we will surely be eaten.”
But Acho Tsagye kept on persisting until the younger brother agreed, saying, “If it makes you happy, just touch one very gently.”
Acho Tsagye rolled up his sleeves, spat into his palms, rubbed them together and seizing the largest tail, he began to pull it with all his might. The sinpo jumped up, Acho Tsagye banged his head on the ceiling, “dang”. Then Acho Tsagye pulled with all his strength and the sinpo landed on the floor with a “byaak.” This dang, byaak, dang, byaak continued for a long time. The other sinpos were so shocked and frightened that they all ran off with a tremendous thumping of their feet and the excited rumbling and roaring of their voices. The sinpo and Acho Tsagye were of equal strength and neither would give in. Finally the skin from the sinpo’s tail came off. The sinpo howled in pain and ran off.
Complete silence reigned. Only the sound of the crickets and the occasional screech of an owl could be heard. The brothers waited anxiously but nothing came. Finally they crept out of their hiding place and ventured forth very quietly on tiptoe, but there was no cause for fear as there was not a single sinpo in the house. The two of them sat down and had the sumptuous meal that the sinpos had laid out but had only started to eat.
The next day the brothers knew that the sinpos would come back. So as dusk fell they hid in the roof truss. Soon there was the thundering of voices and the thumping of the feet as the sinpos came back to reclaim their house. The two brothers could watch the sinpos unseen from the roof truss. They were all huge heinous-looking ape-like human beings with lethal-looking fangs. One had a fang that grew upwards so that it touched the ceiling while the other fang grew downwards till it scratched the ground. They all had long tails. The biggest sinpo who was the leader had a raw skinless tail which he carefully nursed every now and then. Soon they made a big fire, on top of which they put an enormous pan of oil. As the oil was being heated Acho Tsagye had the urgent need to relieve himself.
“I need to urinate. Can I urinate into the pan?” The younger brother who was trying to hold his rattling teeth begged him not to. Acho Tsagye kept on insisting. Finally the younger brother said, “If it will make you happy, but just one drop. Please only one drop.” A huge smile of relief spread over his entire face as he began to relieve himself right into the hot pan of oil. The whole pan became a ball of fire and the sparks soon caught on to the fur of the sinpos and they began to shriek and holler in panic. They got up and started to runaway, roaring and screeching with pain.
The two brothers got out of their hiding place and made a meal for themselves and slept peacefully that night. The sinpos did not come back and so the brothers took over the house. There was enough food and clothes to last them for many lifetimes and they were very happy.
One evening, many days after the sinpos had run away, they were eating leab, a thick soup prepared from buckwheat flour with tender buckwheat leaves and juicy bones flavored with pungent acorn peppers. Suddenly they heard the same roaring of voices and the thumping of feet and the sinpos came into the house, shouting, “We’ll tear them apart. We’ll eat their hot flesh and drink up their hot blood.” At once the younger brother got up and began to wrestle with one of the sinpos. But Acho Tsagye continued eating his soup, warning them, “Ya, ya, be careful. You can wrestle as much as you like but don’t spill my soup.”
The younger brother was soon tired and worn out and he knew he was losing the fight. He had to think of something quickly to save himself. He saw his brother sitting in the middle of the room slurping up his soup quite oblivious of what was happening. So he began to edge towards where his brother was sitting. Finally when he could reach the soup bowl with his toes, he kicked it over. At this Acho Tsagye became uncontrollably violent and got up, saying, “Well, if you can’t wrestle without spilling my soup I’ll have to join in too.” He then began systematically to pick up the sinpos one by one and swung them over his head like slings and threw them across the hills and over the mountains. The whole area was filled with the wailing of the defeated sinpos. The moans grew fainter and more distant and finally nothing could be heard. The sinpos would never come back now and the two brothers lived happily and comfortably for the rest of their lives.