| Description |
A comic folktale about four friends, each with a distinctive physical feature, who have a comic misadventure. The storyteller has left out some parts of the story, and starts over partway through. The story transitions into a ‘stupid person’ story that culminates as a manusiha (sphinx) origin tale. The story involves four friends: the titular Big Hands, along with Big Ears, Big Boogers, and Sharp Bottom. They are going to sell dried fermented fished (in a boat on the river), and they get angry with Big Hands because they sell their wares by the scoop and his big hands means they run out of fish right away. Being angry, Sharp Bottom sits down in a huff, and pierces a hole in the bottom of the boat. Then Big Boogers blows a big booger onto the hole to patch it. And then something about Big Ears, who can make his ears grow in size, uses his ears as a sail for their boat. And so forth. |
