A tale of two crabs

When walking through the knolls of NMC in As Terlaje, after workers were done cutting the grass, before the three horsemen of the apocalypse Soudelor, Goni and Atsani unloaded their tears, it was not unusual to run into land crabs, feisty with their extended and oversized claws and ready to hook a foe’s eyes or bite one’s heels swiftly. I lured a couple into a compartment in my backpack.

“Crab mentality” is a frequent term to describe Filipinos at home and in diaspora to explain why they allegedly do not advance as an ethnic group, unlike the Jews in Mesopotamia and Europe, and the Wenzhou entrepreneurs of Zhejiang known for pooling resources together. It is because they are said to pull each other down when someone tries to ascend to the top, out of envy or to equalize status. The mythology is so ingrained that the trait has become self-fulfilling!

We were curious if crabs really exhibited such behavior.

I had the two on a plastic water bucket but the space was too limited as they engaged in endless combat. I placed them on a wide laundry basin, cut grass from the lawn to serve as a canopy for each to separately sleep under, sprinkled chips of coconut meat for sustenance, and threw in a lump of cooked Vienna sausage for good measure, in case the clawed creatures were carnivorous. We thought they would be happy in confined quarters receiving the compassionate ministration from their captor.  Not so.

Though called hermit crabs, they were not the passive contemplative kind. They were popular with the kids on the floor as we kept the basin under the clothes dryer on the walkway. The kids were smart enough not to put their fingers where the claws could grab them.

The two crabs were not of the same size. The larger one that was caught later than the slimmer of the duo had the markings of a bully (humanly speaking) as the two established their imaginary bounds. The “dance” around the basin did not last long. Soon they were working together to see who-can-lift-who high enough to reach the rim. They took turns so the selfish “crab mentality” of one pulling down another did not apply in their case.

They lasted three changes of fresh grass, coconut meat, and Vienna sausage. It was the smaller one that got out first. Slightly over half a foot high, the crabs really stretched their claws to reach the rim of the basin. A neighbor said that he saw a black creature scurrying out of the third floor hall one night and assumed it was one of the crabs that got away. 

Two days later, after I already decided to set the last one free, it managed to do it on its own.  It had enough sense to gather the four seashells I added into the menagerie in the basin-scape as “stepping stone” to freedom. Smart crab!

So, the next time I run into a land crab on land or in one of our forested areas, we will just leave it alone, knowing that they do decide like humans, not always fitting the stereotype of “crab mentality” but showing like humans capability of compassion and solidarity after Mother Nature’s storms. 

There are no moral lessons here in case the reader is waiting for one. We note that the image of “crab mentality,” ingrained in popular metaphor, is more a mental image than a reality. How many of our images are sustained on paper or verbal account but wilt under actual wind, sun, clouds, and rain? Whatever.  Whichever.  But I do love crabs.  Will someone pass the cracker and the sauce, please!