Honest Tan

Tân went fishing with just one grasshopper for bait. A few days later, late in the afternoon, he came back into the yard, and on his shoulder was a set of precious gongs. Stranger still, the next morning he carried those same gongs out of the house again, to give them back.

This is an old tale of the Ê Đê people of the Central Highlands, told in their villages for ages. Tân was an orphan. He lived with his grandmother in a longhouse. The Ê Đê build these houses long, like an upturned boat in the middle of the village.

In an Ê Đê longhouse, the grandmother decides everything. As for Tân, he was so hardworking and so honest that the whole village knew it.

One morning, Tân took his fishing rod and went down the steps. He was poor, with no bait but a grasshopper caught by the fence. He wrapped the grasshopper in a leaf, folded it up carefully, and followed the dirt path down toward the stream.

He passed a house, and the owner saw him and called him in to rest. Tân set the leaf down on the floor and drank a sip of water. When he stood up to go, he opened the leaf, and the grasshopper was no longer inside.

Tân said nothing. No bait meant no fishing, he thought, and that was that. But when the family heard, they would not have it. "It was lost in my house, so it is mine to make good." With that, they caught a chicken, tied its legs, and put it in his hands. Tân turned red. "Mine was much smaller. I will not take it." The host only smiled, pushed the chicken toward him, and turned back to the kitchen.

At midday, Tân stopped at another house to rest. He tied the chicken to the foot of a post, very carefully. Yet when it was time to leave, the cord was still there and the chicken was gone. The family heard his story and said, "It was lost in my house, so it is mine to make good." They led out a dog with yellow fur, pricked ears and a wet nose. "Mine was much smaller. I will not take it," Tân said. The family simply put the leash in his hand, then stood at the top of the steps and watched him go.

The third house stood beside a banana grove. That night the dog slipped between two rails of the fence and vanished into the grove. In the morning there were only a few small paw prints in the wet earth. The people of the house said those very words. "It was lost in my house, so it is mine to make good." They gave him a round, fat pig that grunted wherever it went. "Mine was much smaller. I will not take it," Tân said. The host tied the legs of the pig, put it in his arms, and closed the door.

At the fourth house, the pig slept in a corner of the yard. By afternoon only the hollow where it had lain was left. The pig was gone. "It was lost in my house, so it is mine to make good." This time they led out a cow with short horns and a back as golden as the late afternoon sun. "Mine was much smaller. I will not take it," Tân said. Still the host put the end of the rope in his hand.

At the fifth house, the cow slipped its rope in the night. In the morning the rope was still knotted around the post, but the cow was gone. "It was lost in my house, so it is mine to make good." They gave him a water buffalo, many times bigger than the cow, its black hide shining and still caked with mud. "Mine was much smaller. I will not take it," Tân said. The family put the end of the rope in his hand without another word.

At the sixth house, the buffalo disappeared in the middle of the night. In the morning, the host said those very words. "It was lost in my house, so it is mine to make good." Then from behind the house they led up an elephant.

An elephant. It stood taller than the kitchen roof, its ears flapping like a pair of great fans, and the floor shook when it walked. Tân stood frozen. He looked back along the road he had come and counted out loud. "One grasshopper, one chicken, one dog, one pig, one cow, one buffalo, and now one elephant." Then he said, "Mine was much smaller. I will not take it." The host only smiled and put the lead rope in his hands.

The elephant followed him to the seventh house. It belonged to a rich family, with a wide floor and a big hearth. That night the elephant walked out of the yard. In the morning there was only a line of footprints, each one wider than two human feet set side by side. They crossed the yard and ended at the forest edge.

This time the host led out no animal. Instead the family brought out a set of gongs and laid it on the floor. "It was lost in my house, so it is mine to make good."

A set of gongs is no ordinary possession. This set had ten gongs, and each one stood for a member of the family. In the Central Highlands, the Ê Đê believe that a god dwells behind every gong, and the older the gong, the more powerful the god.

Tân knelt and touched the rim of the nearest gong. The bronze was cold. His face appeared in the hollow of the gong, warped and darkened. He tried to lift one, and his arm sagged under the weight. Then he set it down very gently, as if afraid to wake the god asleep inside. "Mine was much smaller. I will not take it," he said, his voice even quieter than before. Still the rich family tied up the gongs and set them on his shoulder.

Late in the afternoon, Tân reached the foot of the stairway to his own house, a wooden stairway of seven steps. At the top was carved a crescent moon, a sign that a woman was the head of this house. His grandmother sat inside the longhouse, spinning thread.

He told her everything from the start, adding nothing and leaving nothing out.

His grandmother heard him out. She did not scold, and she did not rejoice. She only asked, "Which house do these gongs belong to?" Tân named every house, one by one. She put the thread down on the floor and said, "Then they are not ours yet. Tomorrow morning, take them back."

The next morning, Tân tied up the gongs, slung them over his shoulder, and walked back the way he had come. The cord pressed a red line into his shoulder. With each step the ten gongs knocked softly against one another. Then they rang a thin note, like a song stopping halfway through a line.

He went to the rich house first and set the gongs down on the floor. "These gongs belong to this house. I have brought them back." The family listened, then shook their heads and pushed the gongs back toward him.

Tân went on to the house that had given him the elephant. Then came the house of the buffalo, where the owner only shook their head without leaving the seat by the hearth. After that came the houses of the cow, the pig and the dog. Last of all was the house that had given him the chicken, where the carefully folded leaf had opened with no grasshopper inside. In every house he set the gongs down on the floor, and in every house they pushed the gongs back toward him.

At the last house, the host sat him by the hearth and poured him a sip of water before speaking. "You are a good man, honest and not greedy. The gongs are yours. Take them home."

So the gongs went home with Tân to the longhouse a second time. His grandmother said nothing more. She cleared a space on the wall, the highest and cleanest spot, and hung the ten gongs there one by one. From then on, those gongs would sound for a new house, for the birth of a child, and for the farewell to someone gone forever.

Evening fell, and kitchen smoke rose all over the village. His grandmother reached out and struck one note to try it. The deep sound of the gong ran across the wooden floor and down the seven steps. Then it reached the house beside the path to the stream, where a grasshopper had vanished from a leaf. The sound rang on in the heart of the mountains for a long time before it finally faded.