Tso-o was a very handsome and smart man from Secuma and he was admired by all.

Terhuopudü was a very beautiful woman from Meriema, and both were the pride of their respective villages.Tso-o and Terhuopudü met one day while they were out grazing with their cattle, and on their first meeting they fell deeply in love and promised to marry.

Later in the day the two returned to their villages to  ask their parents for their permission, but they were refused and forbidden from ever meeting again, as the two villages were sworn enemies.But Tso-o and Terhuopudü could not help meeting each other under the big rock where they had met first.  Their love for each other was so great that they could not stay apart.  They continued to meet and share their food, resting under the rock while their cattle grazed despite all the warnings.  One day they decided to meet under the rock at a particular time.  Terhuopudü waited and waited but Tso-o was detained by his parents and admirers and he did not turn up. Terhuopudü felt so betrayed that she started crying and as she cried, her tears dropped onto a large leaf.  When evening came, she returned to her village.  Just then Tso-o came to look for her and seeing her tears on the leaf, he followed her.He ran to her village as fast as he could and he called out to her, but Terhuopudü did not respond.  He called repeatedly and finally she turned up in anger.  As she did, she happened to see Tso-o  drinking her tears that had collected on the leaf, but she still felt betrayed.One of Tso-o’s cows had followed her back to her village and Tso-o came looking for her the next morning.

Terhuopudü was grinding rice with her mother, and she refused to talk with him, though she directed him to the shed where she had locked his cow the previous night.  Tso-o jumped into the shed and retrieved his prized bull.On seeing his agility and good looks, Terhuopudü’s mother was impressed, and she enquired as to his identity and that was when Terhuopudü told her that it was Tso-o, the man she had loved.Tso-o and Terhuopudü never met again after that incident.   They both got married and had children. But as fate would have it, their fields were near each other, and one day Tso-o’s son came to Terhuopudü’s hut asking for hot coals to start a fire.  On seeing the boy, she enquired as to whose son he was and the boy replied that his father was Tso-o.  Terhuopudü then gave him her necklace and said “You are as handsome as your father but unlike him, never break your word!”

When Tso-o heard of this from his son, he was saddened and he regretted that he had not kept his word that fateful day.