Hmong Folklore – The Grasshopper and The Mother-In-Law Humming Bird
The Grasshopper and the Mother-in-Law Humming Bird
This story was told by Yang Vang Lo and translated by Houa Vang and Ka Youa Lo. This story teaches us about the cruelty of blaming other people for what we know is our fault. This story leaves the reader or listener hanging. Who gets blamed for hurting the baby bird? Will we ever know? This is a good lesson for younger children who do not yet know right from wrong. It teaches us that if we blame someone else for our mistake, no one will ever know the truth and the person that we blamed might get into serious trouble. In the Hmong culture this story is a popular bedtime story, to get the little ones to sleep. | www.wipps.org
A long, long time ago there was a mother-in-law humming bird and a grasshopper. It was getting dark soon and the grasshopper asked the mother-in-law humming bird if he could sleep in her nest for one night. The mother-in-law humming bird said to the grasshopper that she had just hatched her little eggs, and that he could sleep over if his long legs would not hit her babies. The grasshopper said that he wouldn’t touch her babies, and the mother-in-law humming bird agreed to let him sleep with them for just one night. During the night the grasshopper was spooked by a cry of a deer. Without thinking he kicked a baby humming bird in the head because the cry had scared him. As he did the mother in-law humming bird woke up and asked why he had kicked her baby in the head, when he promised he wouldn’t do so. The mother-in-law humming bird had a feeling he would kick one of her babies. The grasshopper tried to explain that he did not do it on purpose.
He kicked the baby in the head because he heard the deer cry, and it spooked him. He had kicked the baby on accident. He said that it wasn’t his fault that he kicked the baby humming bird in the head it was the deer’s fault. The mother-in-law humming bird and the grasshopper both went to the deer’s place to ask why he had cried out. When they asked him why he cried out, he said that it was because of a tree. It had fallen, and it scared him. That is why he cried out. The deer said it was not his fault he cried out, it was the tree’s fault for falling and scaring him. The mother-in-law and the grasshopper both went to ask the tree why he had fallen. The tree said it had not been his fault for falling; it was the ants, which were chewing at his trunk that made him fall. The tree said it was the ants’ fault that he had fallen and scared the deer, which scared the grasshopper, that kicked one of the mother-in-laws babies in the head.
Then the mother-in-law and the grasshopper went to ask the ants why they were chewing on the tree’s trunk. The ant said that they were chewing on his trunk because the chickens were eating them. It was the chicken’s faults because they were eating the ants. The mother-in-law humming bird and the grasshopper went to ask the chickens why they ate the ants, that made the tree fall, that scared the deer, that scared the grasshopper who kicked the baby humming bird in the head. The chickens said that it wasn’t their fault that they ate the ants. They said it was the people’s fault because the people were killing them. The mother-in-law humming bird and the grasshopper went to ask the people why they were killing the chickens. The people said that they raised the chicken so they could kill them and eat them. They also asked the humming bird and the grasshopper if it was okay to kill their chickens. They asked,” do we not have the right to kill our chickens?”
When the matter was all settled, the humming bird and the grasshopper went back to the way life was before this whole thing happened.
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