How men learned to lick frogs

See… it went like this…..
Ingudo was very tired after the harvest moon celebration his tribe held every year the night before the last gleaning of food in preparation for the monsoon months when food would be scarce. Having drunk much more of the bark beer than was good for him; he fell into a deep sleep, missing the entire harvest. Sheepishly, he returned to his hut whereupon his wife promptly tossed him back out the door, this not being the first time he had drunk too much bark beer. With nowhere else to go, Ingudo trudged mournfully to his mothers hut, who lived alone because she had brained Ingudo’s dad with a grinding stone for Ingudo’s very same infraction. Ingudo promptly found himself out of her hut as well. Too proud to ask for help from anyone else Ingudo trudged, without supplies of any kind, into the forest.

Early in the morning, two days later, being hungry, because the tribe had been very thorough in their gleaning, leaving nothing for Ingudo to eat, and tormented by thirst, with his tongue feeling like a dried stick, because the river was empty before the rain, Ingudo spied a fat frog glistening wet with morning dew. “What luck!!” Ingudo thought. This was just what he needed to satisfy both of his pressing needs. With a swift move, he deftly grabbed the frog out of the air in mid jump. Instantly bringing the frog to his parched lips, he licked all the precious moisture from the frogs back. Immediately he was infused with a wonderful sense of satisfaction and tranquility. So much so that he wasn’t even surprised when the frog turned into a beautiful woman. The woman, who only moments before had been a frog, struggled briefly, without success, to escape Ingudo’s grasp. Ingudo felt so good that he didn’t even notice her struggling and continued to hold her in a firm yet gentle grasp. Sensing that Ingudo was not altogether aware of everything that was happening, she leaned close to his face and whispered, “If you let me go I promise I will tell you the greatest secret man has ever known. I’ll tell you how to keep any woman from ever being mad at you again.” Well, this was just what Ingudo wanted to hear! Why, he would be famous! He would be pampered by every woman in the tribe. They would make him chief for his wisdom. Every man would come to him for advice. They would pay him anything to know how to keep the women happy!! He would be rich beyond his wildest dreams. Ingudo, being befuddled with wild imaginations, loosened his hold whereupon the woman, who was really a frog, instantly hopped away. With a loud cry, Ingudo searched and searched for the magic frog. He asked all the talking rocks and rainbow colored trees where the frog had gone. After many hours of searching, learning nothing from the talking rocks and trees, the rocks stopped talking and the trees returned to their leaves and bark, only whispering incomprehensibly as the breeze moved among them.

Ingudo decided he had to return to the village and tell his uncle, Namdan the Shaman, what had happened. After hearing Ingudo’s story, and knowing an opportunity when he heard it, Namdan told Ingudo that he must not tell anyone what had happened. In return the Shaman promised to fix Ingudo’s problems with his wife and mother. After making good on his, not so insignificant, promise, Namdan sent Ingudo home.

As soon as Ingudo walked out of sight on his way back to his, still not real happy, wife, Namdan rushed to the forest in search of the frog. It didn’t take long for him to spot one, glistening with moisture. “Strange”, thought Namdan, it’s the middle of the day. “Oh well”, he thought, “must be some of that magic Ingudo was talking about.” Moving ever so slowly, Namden reached out gently and caught up the frog. He brought the frog to his lips and lapped up all the glistening moisture. Before Namden could even close his mouth the frog turned into a beautiful woman. Shaking with excitement and almost overwhelmed with feelings of well being and satisfaction, but determined not to let her go like his idiot nephew had done, he placed both hands firmly on her shoulders and pulled her face close to his. He asked her loudly, “If I let you go, will you tell me the secret of how I can keep every woman happy, so none of them will ever be mad at me again?” She looked him right in the eye and said, “Come closer so I can whisper the secret in your ear.” Namdan turned his head and drew her even closer. As soon as he could feel her breath on his ear and he knew he was about to hear the most profound secret ever known to men, she stuck her frog tongue right into his ear, wiggled it around and then stuck her frog finger right up his left nostril. Naturally, Namdan let go of her shoulders in a mad attempt to dislodge himself from this most surprising and offensive attack. Immediately, the frog escaped. Never to be seen again by the frantically searching Namdan, though he searched for hours talking to every rock and tree along his way.

Unknown to either Namdan the Shaman, or his idiot nephew Ingudo, both of them had come to the attention of a group of women foraging for dried grasses to make baskets. Having heard the Shamans question to the wriggling frog, and observing both men’s hysterically funny bumbling and mumblings through the forest, talking to rocks and trees as though these things were alive and could answer back, the women gathered themselves together to discuss these strange, but amusing, observations. After talking about it for some time they decided there must be something about the frogs that turned men who licked them into the amusing creatures they had observed. “Why they act just like they had drunk so much bark beer that they saw things that weren’t there.” Said one of the women. “You know, I bet it would be much easier to catch those frogs than it is to make that beer.” Said another. “You know, you’re right. It takes us weeks to make that stupid beer, what with trudging around and finding the bark, stripping out the inner bark, chewing it up for hours and spitting it in that pot to ferment.” said still another. One of the younger women turned to her sister and said, “I wonder if those frogs taste better than that bark?” To which her sister exclaimed, “EWWW…. YUCK!!! There is no way I’m going to lick one of those slimy frogs!!” Well this got the attention of the whole group. After some more animated discussion, they all decided that there was no way they were going to lick a frog and become objects of amusement for the men. Every one of them had had just about enough of being objects of amusement. Being smart women, and knowing a good thing when they saw it, they decided they would return to the village with a story to tell their men. A story that, they just knew, would give them hours and hours of leisurely amusement.

So that is what they did. They spent a little while gathering up frogs, went back to the village and told their men that if they would lick the frogs, the women wouldn’t be mad at them anymore. Naturally, they left out the part about, “ever again”. Men have been licking frogs ever since.

Which only goes to show, gentlemen, that if women ask you to do odd things, with a promise that life will be much more pleasant if you do, no matter how good it ends up making you feel, the result will be making their life easier, and much more amusing, at your expense.

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