“Tikgi, tikgi, tikgi, we will come to work for you. Let us cut your rice.”
 
Ligi65 had gone to the field to look at his growing rice, but when he heard this sound he looked up and was surprised to see some birds circling above and calling to him.
 
“Why, you cannot cut rice,” said Ligi. “You are birds and know only how to fly.”
 
But the birds insisted that they knew how to cut rice; so finally he told them to come again when the grain was ripe, and they flew away.
 
No sooner had the birds gone than Ligi was filled with a great desire to see them again. As he went home he wished over and over that his rice were ready to cut. As soon as Ligi left the field the tikgi birds began using magic so that the rice grew rapidly, and five days later when he returned he found the birds there ready to cut the ripened grain. Ligi showed them where to begin cutting, and then he left them.
 
When he was out of sight, the tikgi said to the rice cutters:
 
“Rice cutters, you cut the rice alone.” And to the [57]bands which were lying nearby they said: “Bands, you tie into bundles the rice which the cutters cut”
 
The talking jars
The talking jars
 
Playing the nose flute
Playing the nose flute
 
And the rice cutters and the bands worked alone, doing as they were told.
 
When Ligi went again to the field in the afternoon, the tikgi said:
 
“Come, Ligi, and see what we have done, for we want to go home now.”
 
Ligi was amazed, for he saw five hundred bundles of rice cut. And he said:
 
“Oh, Tikgi, take all the rice you wish in payment, for I am very grateful to you.”
 
Then the tikgi each took one head of rice, saying it was all they could carry, and they flew away.
 
The next morning when Ligi reached the field, he found the birds already there and he said:
 
“Now, Tikgi, cut the rice as fast as you can, for when it is finished I will make a ceremony for the spirits, and you must come.”
 
“Yes,” replied the tikgi, “and now we shall begin the work, but you do not need to stay here.”
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