A Lisu legend (thanks to the Virtual hilltribes museum

Title: The cicada (Bay-Joo)
         Long, long ago, in an era when plants and animals could still talk, there was a deer eating grass in the forest, completely absorbed in the moment. All of a sudden, a cicada burst into vibrant song, startling the deer who bolted off in fright. In her panicked flight, the deer stumbled over a rat's hole. The rat raced out of it's hole and bit into a pumpkin vine, freeing the round squash from the vine. The pumpkin then tumbled down a hill and knocked over a banana tree, which had been serving as home to a little bat. The bat flew off in a start and right into the trunk of an elephant, upsetting the giant creature and causing it to trample the palace of the local king. The king, distressed by the disaster before him, asked the elephant why it had trampled his home. The elephant told the king how the bat had flown into his trunk, stirring him into a frenzy. The king then went to the bat and asked it why it had flown into the elephant's trunk. The bat responded that the pumpkin had crashed into his home--the banana tree. The king, continuing down the chain of events, asked the pumpkin why it had rolled down the hill and crushed the banana tree. The pumpkin turned around and asked the king why it was the rat had bit the vine, severing it from its home. The king, unable to answer, went and inquired as to why the rat had decided to bite the pumpkin's vine. The rat protested that it's house (hole) had been trampled by a careless deer. The king went off to speak to the deer and finding it asked why it had done such a thing. The deer told of how the cicada had startled it with its shrill morning call. The king turned to the cicada and asked it why it had to sing so loudly. The cicada answered that it enjoyed singing loudly and if the king was not happy with him, then the king should slit him open, take out his liver, kidneys, intestines, and stomach and eat them. Ever since then and to this day, the cicada has somehow lived without any of these essential internal organs.

The moral of this story is: Before you decide to do anything, think good and hard before you do it.