The Unlucky Monkey

  • I Wayan Taweng, Batuan 1922-2004
  • 51 x 33 cm
  • Acrylic on Paper
  • 2016
Category: SKU: TAS010

Description

This painting was taken from a Tantri story, about a monkey and a goat that entered into an agreement to plant peanuts. The peanuts were intended for the monkey and leaves for the goat. But when it was time for the planting, the monkey did not want to work and just told the goat and its kid to labor by themselves. Therefore, every time the peanut started to sprout leaves, the goat and its kid would eat them. So the peanut plants slowly died.

The monkey became angry and got a nasty idea. He told a tiger to eat the goat and its kid. Knowing the trick of the monkey, the goat came to look for a way out. The goat ate a kind of red flower and waited for the arrival of the tiger and the monkey on the edge of a lake. The Tiger arrived with the monkey riding on his back. Because the tiger had  been cheated by the monkey before, the tiger tied it’s own tail to the tail of the monkey to keep him close by. When the tiger arrived, the goat (whose mouth was red from eating the flower) thanked the monkey for keeping his promise to bring one more tiger. The goat said that he and his kid were still hungry after eating a tiger earlier in the day and throwing his head into the lake. The tiger did not believe the goat’s story, so the goat told the tiger to look into the lake. The tiger saw the reflection of his own head and ran, afraid to be eaten by the goat. The monkey, who was on the back of the tiger, fell and was dragged to death (as both of their tails were tied together).