How The Kadambawa Men Counted Themselves

Twelve Kadambawa men having gone to cut fence sticks, and having cut and tied up twelve bundles of them, set them on end leaning against each other [before carrying them home]. Then a man said, "Are our men all right? Have all come? We must count and see."

Afterwards a man counted them. When he was counting he only counted the other men, omitting himself. "There are only eleven men; there are twelve bundles of fence sticks," he said.

Then another man saying, "Maybe you made a mistake," counted them again in the same way. He said, "This time also there are eleven men; there are indeed twelve bundles of fence sticks."

Thus, in that manner each one of the twelve men counted in the same way as at first. "There are eleven men and twelve bundles of fence-sticks. There is a man short," they said, and they went into the jungle to look for him.

While they were in the chena jungle seeking and seeking, a man of another village, hearing a loud noise of shouting while he was going along the road, having come there to see what it was, found these twelve men quarrelling over it. Then this man asked, "What are you saying?"

The men said, "Twelve of our men came to cut fence sticks. There are now twelve bundles of sticks; there are only eleven men. A man is short yet."

When this man looked there were twelve men. So he said, "All of you take each one his own bundle of fence sticks." Then the twelve men having taken the twelve bundles of sticks came to their village.