In ancient times, there lived a man named Dagi. His left hand was ordinary, but his right hand was very long. Dagi himself never left the hut, but at night he stuck his long arm out the window, and it crawled along the ground like a snake and stole food for him from other people's houses and gardens. Having felt the tree, the hand climbed up the trunk and found fruits, and if there were no fruits on the tree, it went down and climbed another, and so searched the trees until it returned home with fruits. Daga's hut was not on stilts, but on the ground, and he slept inside a large drum. Dougie's face and body were covered with hair, so he looked like an animal. Every evening before going to bed he shouted:
- I'm Dougie, I'm here! Is there anyone else here? When Dagi wanted to kill a wild pig or other animal, his long arm would wrap around the animal and break its bones, and the same arm would bring him firewood and water. Dagi only broke dry trees for firewood; he did not touch green ones.
Two sisters lived not far from Daga, and he often stole fruits from their trees and vegetables from their gardens. His nails were sharp, like hooks, and his long hand immediately brought him: a kangaroo on the nail of the little finger, a cassowary on the nail of the ring finger, a wild pig on the nail of the middle finger, fruits on the nail of the index finger, and vegetables on the nail of the big finger.
One day the sisters noticed that someone was stealing from their gardens. They thought it was the work of flying foxes or other animals. In the evening, Dougie prepared food for himself from the stolen goods, shouted his usual words and added:
“Soon my hand will go hunting, and one finger will bring a kangaroo, another a cassowary, a third a wild pig, a fourth fruit, and a fifth vegetable.”
At night, Daga's hand crawled out of his hut, feeling everything around, and came across the huts of two sisters. The sisters were sleeping and did not hear Daga’s hand feeling their huts. The hand climbed into the elder's hut and stole from it a bunch of bananas and a pot of mash that the woman had prepared from taro, fish and coconut milk for her pig. The hand brought the stolen goods home. Dougie started eating the chatterbox and thought: “Oh, how delicious! People probably prepared it. I will no longer catch kangaroos and wild pigs, but I will rather take only such food.”
The next night his hand immediately found the same hut and again stole a pot of mash for the pig. When the hand carried the pot into his hut, Dougie sniffed the chatterbox and said, pleased:
“That time I had to work hard to get this food, but now I found it quite easily.”
The older sister noticed that the chatterbox she was preparing for the pig began to disappear, and said to the younger one:
- You're the one stealing my chatterbox!
- Why should I steal it? - answered the younger one. “You have your own farm, I have mine, you make your own chatterbox, I make mine.”
But near the place where the stolen pot of mash stood, traces of someone’s fingers were visible, so the older sister did not believe the younger one, and they quarreled.
The next night, the elder sister went to bed, but did not sleep - she decided to waylay the thief. And in the middle of the night she heard something crawling on the ground and patting it quietly. The sound was getting closer and she thought it was a frog jumping. Soon the hand found the hut, crawled inside, rummaged along the floor and grabbed a pot of mash. The woman quickly lit a fire and saw a hand pulling a pot out of the hut.
- So this is not a person, this is a hand! - she exclaimed. In the morning she called her younger sister and told her:
“We shouldn’t have quarreled—I saw the chatterbox being carried away by someone’s hand, not your hand, but someone else’s.” Spend the night with me tonight, and you, too, will see how a hand drags away the chatterbox.
During the day, the sisters prepared two long vines, and in the evening the younger sister closed her hut and went to spend the night with the eldest. She told her:
- Make a loop at the end of the vine, and when your hand appears, throw it over it and tighten it.
In the middle of the night, the hand, slapping the ground with its palm, crawled back again, and the older sister whispered to the younger:
- Do you hear? It's her!
The hand climbed into the hut and was about to grab the pot of chatterbox, but then the younger sister threw a loop around her wrist and tightened it. The sisters tied the other end of the vine to a pole. Dougie pulled his hand towards himself, but could not pull it out and thought: “Oh, someone is holding me! Who tied me up? Meanwhile, the women lit a fire, began to examine the hand and said:
- How hairy she is!
On the lower side, the one with which the hand rubbed the ground, there was less hair on it. The women wanted to know whose hand it was, and they followed it, but it was dark, and they, deciding to wait for dawn, returned to the hut. Dougie kept tugging at his hand, but couldn’t free it.
In the morning the sisters untied the end of the vine from the post, and the eldest said:
- Hold the end of the vine, and I’ll take your hand; we will follow her, and if she starts to break free, immediately tie the vine to the tree.
But when the hand felt that it could move, it did not pull away, but gently pulled them along. The younger sister said:
- Look, she doesn’t break out - probably the one whose hand it is is calling us to him.
And Dougie pulled his hand towards himself and thought: “How heavy! Someone is holding on to it and coming towards me.” His hand began to curl up like a snake in the corner of the hut, and when there was no room left in this corner, it began to curl further in another.
- Look, she's crawling into the hut! - exclaimed the older sister.
At first they were scared, and then, when they looked into the hut and saw Dougie, they said:
- What is it? It's full of thick, coiled ropes! Who are you? Are you human?
- Yes, I'm human, I'm Dougie. Where are you from?
- From the forest - we live there alone, we don’t have men. You stole food from us, that's why we came to you.
“I have my own vegetable garden and fruit trees, but I’ve never seen them - my hand does everything there itself.” Go there and get yourself as much as you want,” Dougie said.
The overjoyed sisters went and picked a lot of fruits and vegetables. They saw that Dougie’s garden was planted haphazardly, sometimes often, sometimes rarely - after all, Dougie didn’t see what his hand was doing.
The sisters moved their things to Dagi’s hut, became his wives and stayed with him. At night, when the women were already asleep, Dougie sent his long arm to hunt. The hand caught several wild pigs, kangaroos and cassowaries, dragged them into the hut and laid them near the women. Waking up, the sisters cut up the carcasses and prepared food. Dagi ate with them, and then the sisters left the hut and began to whisper:
- Poor thing, how bad he feels with this arm, it’s so long and heavy! Let's wait until he falls asleep and cut it off.
In the evening Dougie shouted as usual:
- Hey, is anyone else here? Who wants pork, cassowary meat, kangaroo meat? Today I’m not going hunting, but tomorrow I’ll go again!
Having shouted this, he fell asleep, and then the women said:
- Well, now we have a lot of time, he will sleep until the morning.
The sisters decided to check if Dougie was sleeping soundly and began shouting right in his ear:
- Wake up, the house is on fire!
But Dougie didn’t wake up, and then the sisters cut off his arm above the wrist, then again, below the shoulder, threw out the middle and glued the lower part to the upper. The result was a new arm, exactly the same length as the other. They cut the muscles with a bamboo knife, and sawed through the bones with a shell. Dougie slept like the dead the entire time they did this. Then the sisters shaved Dagi, leaving only eyebrows, a mustache (they adorn a man and contain his fighting spirit, which is why women don’t have them), a small beard, a little hair on his chest and a little on his lower abdomen. After that, they painted Dagi black with water and coal, and white with clay, and put many different decorations on him. They placed a dish of water nearby so that when he woke up, he would see his reflection in it. The cut-out part of the sister’s hand was buried in the ground, and then they cleaned the house and went to bed.
Finally Dougie stirred and began to wake up. The wives pretended to be asleep and watched him. Dougie raised his hand, the middle part of which they had cut out, and exclaimed:
- Hello!
He thought it was his short arm and raised the second one, but it turned out to be exactly the same.
- What a miracle, both are the same! - he exclaimed. Both hands were now equally light. Dougie ran his hand over his body - there was no hair. Then he rose to his feet and began shouting:
- Dougie, Dougie, Dougie!
The wives quietly looked at him and rejoiced. Dougie saw his reflection in the water and exclaimed:
- It’s me, Dougie! All painted and in such decorations! It’s good that now I’m a person like everyone else!
And he jumped up and danced around the hut, shouting:
- How good, how good!
And then Dagi, thinking that the wives were sleeping, began to wake them up:
- Why do you sleep for so long? Look what I've become! Last night I made myself a short one instead of a long one, and how good I feel now!
But the women knew how it really was, and they said:
“You’re telling a lie, it wasn’t you who did it, it was us.” And now we will return to our home and begin to prepare everything for the holiday. You will come to us later.
The sisters went home, and along the way they went into villages and invited people to come to them for a holiday.
Arriving home, the women began to prepare for the holiday, and then, on the appointed day, everyone they called came. Dougie came along with the others. He pulled the string of his bow and shouted:
- It's me, Dougie!
Nobody knew him, and the sisters organized a holiday to show him to everyone. They told the guests:
- Look, everyone, this is Dougie.
Everyone sat down to feast near their fellow villagers, there was a lot of food, and when it got dark, people began to dance and sing. They danced all night, and when the sun rose, the sisters slaughtered two pigs and distributed the meat to the guests to take with them. Everyone went to their villages, and Dagi and his two wives also went to their place, and there they remained to live.
Some time passed, and the older sister gave birth to a boy, and the younger sister to a girl. The boy was named Nue. One day, when the children were already grown up, Dougie said:
- No one lives here except us, let the boy and girl get married and have more children.
They did just that.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru