The Jackal and the Guana
Source-cited. This telling is linked to a published collection.
A jackal once made itself a throne of bones near the river-side, and levied toll on all the animals that came there to drink water, making each say in turn these words:
"Golden is your throne, Silver is its plaster, In your ears are golden earrings, And you sit like a Rajah."
This praise pleased the jackal, and he was puffed up with his own importance.
One day a guana, or iguana, a very large lizard, called by the natives "Go," came to the river, but when the jackal asked it to repeat the words, it said: "Let me drink first, for I am dying of thirst;" so he let it drink, and when it had finished, it said:
"Bones are your throne, With cow dung are they plastered, In your ears are shoes, And you sit like a jackal."
This made the jackal wild with anger, so he ran after the Go to kill it, and caught its tail in his teeth, just as the Go was getting into a hole. "Hoo hoo," said the jackal.
"Don't say Hoo, say Ha," called the Go; so the jackal said "Ha!" and in order to say it, had to open his mouth, so the Go escaped!
This came out of a book, not out of a memory. A collector wrote it down and printed it in 1906 — in English, from a telling in Mahasu Pahari. It is here so the archive has something to read, and because a printed version is a useful thing to argue with.
If you know this story, yours is the more valuable record. Say you have heard it too, or add your own telling — in the language you heard it in, with the ending you were told.