palawan-monkey
Palawan Monkey

–We saw this little monkey on Christmas Day, as we drove through the Palawan countryside, and she reminded us of a pet monkey we had many years ago. —

We called her Monk. Her name was Daisy, but Daisy just didn’t fit someone so rambunctious and feisty. She was a little long-tailed macaque. She showed up at our house one day in the arms of a small Palawano boy. “Do you want a monkey?” he asked.

“Okay. Where did you get her?”

“I climbed up a tree.”

“What do you want to trade for her?”

“I’d like a pair of shorts.”

So we gave him a pair of shorts and threw in a pair of flip-flops to top off the deal. And Monk was ours. She was a young female.

Looking out the back window one morning I noticed a cloud of insects hovering around her branch. A little later, I went out to bring her a banana. Instead of greeting me with her excited squeaks, Monk just sat huddled on a branch with her arms wrapped around her legs and her head bent over. That was her sleeping position. In the daytime she was a busy, busy girl who never sat still. Something was wrong here. I noticed bloody diarrhea coming from her tail end. Obviously, she was sick. She let me pick her up. That’s when I noticed that she also had some blood seeping out from around her eyes. She was a limp little rag in my hands. And then I saw the stingers. Dozens and dozens of bee stingers. She was covered with them. From her eyelids, all over her stomach, under her arms, everywhere. The bees I had seen earlier had attacked her. And she was helpless to get away, tied to the tree. They had no mercy, no pity on her. The swarm swarmed her.

I got her down and started removing the stingers. I don’t know how many there were. I used tweezers to get them all out of her. We wrapped her up to keep her warm. We spooned liquids into her mouth. She let us take care of her. She was a sick little girl for a few days, but she recovered.

We found out later that monkeys and bees are natural enemies. The Palawanos tell a story. They say the loudest racket you will ever hear in the woods is when a troop of monkeys find a bee hive. The monkeys will surround the hive, and the first one will run up to it, grab a piece of honeycomb and run off. Meanwhile the next monkey runs in, grabs some honey and runs off in another direction. The monkeys all take turns running, grabbing honeycomb and hightailing it off in all directions. The poor bees can’t figure out how to defend their hive. They’ll swarm out after the first monkey, but as soon as they do, the next monkey runs up to the hive, grabs another handful of honeycomb and runs off in another direction. The bees just buzz backward and forward in confusion, and can’t figure out who to pursue. Each monkey gets maybe one or two stings, and a handful of honey out of the deal.

Several years before, when our daughters were little, we had another young monkey. That one was sweet and cuddly. She loved everyone, but especially the girls. She would cling to them with both hands and both feet. They could dress her in doll clothes and carry her around. Not so this monkey. She had BOUNDARIES. She decided right away where she fit into our family, and claimed her place. She decided she was our middle child. So she treated Bill with respect, me with affection, Older Daughter with tolerance, and Younger Daughter with hostility. She couldn’t stand Younger Daughter. As soon as Younger Daughter got near her tree, she would start grrr-ing and chattering and baring her teeth.

And Younger Daughter wasn’t the only one she didn’t like. She didn’t like Tirso, one of Bill’s language helpers. Tirso loved to tease Monk. In fact, all the Palawanos liked to talk to her. Palawanos have cats around the house, but don’t name them. They have dogs, and name them, but don’t interact with them. But they interact with pet monkeys. Monkeys are gregarious creatures. They interact. They have lots of vocalizations with associated meanings. Expressive faces. When Monk was feeling friendly, she would tip her head and raise her eyebrows and make a little cooing noise. But when she was mad, oh boy! She’d grrr and chatter and bite her wrist, as if to say, ‘Get close to me, and I’ll bite you!’

When Tirso came for his language sessions with Bill, he’d stop by Monk’s home on the well roof. Monk was perpetually in the process of destroying whatever home she had. She was in constant motion, and had dexterous hands. First she worked on the bamboo shingles. Each shingle is a section of bamboo that has been split and pounded flat. She picked and wiggled until she would loosen a piece of one. When she got a piece free, she chirped in triumph. Tirso loved to scold her. “Monk,” he’d shake his finger at her, “you are destroying your house.”

Oooo. That made Monk mad. She ran around to the closer edge of the well roof grrr-ing and chattering and biting her wrist at Tirso.

Tirso shook his finger at her again. “You shouldn’t do that.”

Monk screeched at Tirso. She couldn’t reach him, so she returned to her well roof and bit her wrist at him some more. Tirso laughed at her and she got even madder. We could almost hear her saying, “Come closer and I’ll bite you. How dare you correct me?!”

Palawan-Monkey-In-Tree
Palawan Monkey in Tree

After Monk was attacked by the bees, we moved her home right outside our front door. I could see her from the kitchen window. We didn’t want her to ever get swarmed like that again. And after that incident, Monk bonded herself to me. Somehow she knew that I had saved her. She could climb up the side of our house and just reach the kitchen window. Our house didn’t have screens on the windows, so Monk’s little head just could peak inside the kitchen. She loved to watch whatever anyone was doing and imitate it. You know that expression, ‘to ape?’ Well, that’s what she would do. She’d ape Iping hand-washing laundry in the tubs at the pump. She’s make little fists, and move her hands back and forth on top of each other as if scrubbing an item of clothing. She’d watch me in the kitchen baking, and move her hand around in a circle as if stirring cake batter.

Donna Amis DavisAnimals Wild & TameDonna Amis Davis,Palawan,Philippines,tourism,travel,Travel and Tourism--We saw this little monkey on Christmas Day, as we drove through the Palawan countryside, and she reminded us of a pet monkey we had many years ago. -- We called her Monk. Her name was Daisy, but Daisy just didn’t fit someone so rambunctious and feisty. She was a...Author of the '60s SURF SHOP MYSTERIES and DIVE SHACK MYSTERIES