Once upon a time, among a people who depended on farming for their food and prosperity, there lived a spider named Gizzo. He was married to Koki, a grasshopper, and the two lived together in a small house near their farm. Like everyone else in the community, they depended on the harvest season to provide enough food for their household, but Gizzo had little interest in the work required to produce it. He preferred an easy life and had become very good at making Koki believe that he was working when he was doing nothing at all.
Every morning, Koki prepared breakfast for him before he left the house. Gizzo would eat, pick up his farming tools and set off as though he were heading straight to the farm. Koki watched him leave and assumed that he was going to spend the day working. Instead, Gizzo would find a quiet place away from the farm, settle down and rest while the hours passed. Sometimes he slept through much of the day; on other days, he simply wandered around until he thought it was late enough to return home.
By the time Gizzo arrived home in the evening, he had already prepared his story. If Koki asked about the farm, he complained about how difficult the work had been and how much effort he had put into preparing the land. He spoke as though he had spent the entire day under the sun, and because Koki had no reason to suspect that he was lying, she believed him. After he had eaten, Gizzo would tell her how tired he was and ask her to fetch water for him. Koki did as he asked, thinking that her husband had spent the day working on their farm.
This went on throughout the planting season. While other farmers were clearing their fields, planting their crops and tending to them as they grew, Gizzo continued with his pretence. He never planted anything in his own field, but each evening he returned home and behaved as though his farm was progressing just like everyone else’s.
Then the harvest season came.
The groundnuts in the village were ready, and farmers began going to their farms to pull them from the soil. Koki knew that their own groundnuts should also have matured by then, so one evening she told Gizzo that they should go to their farm and begin harvesting.
Gizzo immediately became worried. He had known for months that this moment would come, but he had managed to avoid thinking about it. Now there was no longer any way to postpone the truth. If Koki followed him to their farm, she would see that he had planted nothing and that all his stories about working had been lies.
That night, Gizzo began thinking about how he could get groundnuts without having to grow them. He eventually remembered Half-Man, a man in the community who was known for his unusual appearance and who was both feared and respected by the people. Half-Man had a large groundnut farm, and Gizzo knew that there would be plenty to harvest there.
Gizzo decided to steal from him.
The following day, he waited until he was certain that no one was watching and made his way to Half-Man’s farm with a basket. When he arrived, he looked around carefully before entering the field. He began pulling groundnut plants from the soil, shaking away the dirt and placing the nuts into his basket. He worked quickly because he did not want anyone to discover him there.
What Gizzo did not know was that Half-Man had already seen him.
Instead of confronting him immediately, Half-Man watched from a distance and began thinking about how to catch the thief. Nearby, he found a piece of rubber and shaped it into the form of a beautiful young girl. He placed it in the farm where Gizzo would be sure to notice it, then waited to see what would happen.
Gizzo returned to the farm the following day, expecting to collect another basket of groundnuts. As he approached the field, he noticed the figure standing among the crops. From a distance, it looked like a beautiful young woman, and Gizzo stopped to look at her. He had never seen her in the community before and wondered who she was and what she was doing on the farm.
His curiosity drew him closer.
Gizzo walked towards the figure and reached out to touch her shoulder. The moment his hand made contact with the rubber, it stuck firmly to it. He tried to pull his hand away, but it would not move. Thinking that he could free himself with the other hand, he reached across to pull it loose, only for that hand to become stuck as well.
Gizzo began to struggle.
He tried to step backwards, but his feet became stuck to the rubber too. He pulled and twisted his body, trying every way he could think of to free himself, but each attempt left him more firmly trapped. Before long, his hands and feet were fixed to the figure, leaving him unable to move.
It was then that Half-Man came out of hiding.
He walked towards Gizzo carrying a tamarind switch. When Gizzo saw him, he immediately understood that he had been caught and began pleading with him. He promised that he would never return to the farm and begged Half-Man to release him.
Half-Man did not accept his pleas. He heated the tamarind switch over a fire and rubbed it with butter before returning to the trapped Gizzo. He beat him repeatedly across the back until the skin became raw and began to peel. Gizzo cried and pleaded with him to stop, but Half-Man continued until he was satisfied that Gizzo had learned not to return to his farm.
When Half-Man finally released him, Gizzo ran home.
Koki was shocked when she saw the condition of his back and immediately asked what had happened. Gizzo could not give her a convincing explanation because telling the truth would mean admitting that he had been stealing from Half-Man’s farm. For a while, he tried to keep the matter to himself, but the story had already begun spreading through the community.
People had seen Gizzo going towards Half-Man’s farm, and those who heard what had happened told others. Before long, everyone knew that Gizzo had been caught stealing groundnuts. Koki also learned that the farm Gizzo had claimed to be working on throughout the planting season contained nothing because he had never planted anything there.
The story of Gizzo and Half-Man was soon known throughout the community, along with the sight of Gizzo walking around with the scars left on his back from the tamarind switch.
