by Amos Tutuola
The witch doctor cried out in fear, closing his eyes tightly, ‘Ajaiyi, you look at me with angry eyes that frighten me even more than your long machete. Please look at me with cheerful eyes!’
‘I shall never look at you with cheerful eyes because one should look at a bad thing with bad eyes,’ Ajaiyi shouted. ‘A corpse is not looked at with cheerful eyes! You know that!’
‘But I am not dead or a corpse!’ the witch doctor cried, soaked with the sweat of fear.
‘Ah, you cannot say whether my machete will turn you into a corpse this midnight!’ Ajaiyi answered. ‘Just tell me the truth! Will you set me free of my poverty this midnight?’
‘No! Only your dead father has the power to set you free from your poverty,’ the witch doctor said, opening his eyes just as all his servants rushed against Ajaiyi suddenly. Now a fight started as the witch doctor and his servants tried to wrestle the machete from Ajaiyi’s hand. After a few minutes’ struggle all over the shrine, Ajaiyi overpowered them, striking them mercilessly with his machete.
Now Ajaiyi again grasped the right hand of the witch doctor, and began to drag him here and there in the shrine. When he began to shout for help, Ajaiyi closed his mouth with the flat part of the machete. All the servants kept quiet and stretched up their hands in fear. ‘Surely,’ Ajaiyi said, ‘you are my dead father who will set me free from my poverty this midnight. You are joking by telling me you are not a dead man!’
‘Joking? Joking on the point of death like this? Not at all!’
Ajaiyi swung his machete as if to cut off the witch doctor’s head. ‘Whether you are a dead man or not, show me where you keep your money!’
Willingly or not, the trembling witch doctor walked to the place in front of the gods where he had buried the two large water pots of money which he stole from the bush years ago, after he and Ajaiyi’s grandfather buried them under the Iroko tree. The money belonged to Ajaiyi’s grandfather.
As soon as the witch doctor pointed out the spot where he buried the two pitchers, Ajaiyu dug them out and swiftly carried them to his house that midnight.
When he and his wife counted the money, it was more than four thousand naira. So Ajaiyi and his wife were free from their poverty and other burdens, as soon as Ajaiyi refunded the money to the three pawnbrokers.
A Short Biography of Tortoise
A long, long time ago, when the eyes of people were dark, there lived in a big town a young man called Ajapa, or Tortoise, and his nickname was Alabahun.
In his early days, Tortoise was a hefty, handsome, and very promising young man. Ajapa the Tortoise was cheerful and playful at all times. Tortoise had wealthy parents. Because of this, he was badly indulged with everything from childhood.
Almost all the people of the town loved and trusted him because of all those enticing qualities which he possessed. The king especially was not happy any day that Tortoise failed to come and amuse him in the palace.
But Ajapa the Tortoise had hardly attained the age of thirty when he became suddenly cunning, cruel, selfish, audacious and treacherous. Worse still, as time went on, he also became the greatest liar, villain, thief and traitor who was ever born in the land.
Now, as Tortoise had changed suddenly from good young man to bad young man, the people began to hate him for his bad behaviour. And as he became more and more corrupt, the king expelled him from the town. So he went and settled in a town called Olomu. Being a thief, he joined a gang of robbers there.
Very soon Ajapa the Tortoise conspired with his gang so that they came to his former town, Mosan, and robbed many people of their personal property. And within a few months, they had, in the midnights, robbed almost all the property and also the domestic animals of the people.
Now the people of the town were confused as to who were the culprits. They did not know who were the thieves among them. For this reason they had no rest of mind each night. They did not know it was Tortoise, who had been expelled, and his gang, who were the robbers who robbed them of their property.
After a while, Tortoise and his gang stopped robbing them, as the people had been relieved of their property.
One midnight, Ajapa the Tortoise entered inside a specially made huge water pot. He told his gang to carry the strange water pot to the front of the palace of the king of Mosan town. As soon as his gang had put it down there, he whispered to them, ‘All of you go and hide yourselves somewhere, but near me.’ They all went to a corner and hid themselves there in the darkness.
Then Tortoise, with a fearful and strange voice, shouted, ‘Ho-o-o! Ro-Ro-o, Ro-o-o! Let you king of Mosan and your counsellors and bearers, come out now and worship me! I am your ancestor who came from heaven this midnight! Come out now; otherwise, you the king will join me in heaven this midnight!’
Without hesitation, the king, his counsellors and bearers rushed to the outside and went to the strange water pot with great fear. At the same time, the king and his people knelt down in front of the water pot. With fear and with trembling body, they began to rub their palms as they were saying, ‘Ah, our ancestor, here we are in front of you. We thank you so much that you are so kind, and love us so that you pay us a visit this midnight. Ah, we thank you heartily and with great happiness!’
‘Ho-o-o! Ro-Ro-o, Ro-o-o! I am your ancestor who left the crown and royal staff, the coral beads and the money, all of which you, the king, have inherited after me! Ho-o-o! Ro-Ro-Ro-o, Ro-o-o! Let the king and his bearers go and bring all here now! I am going to renew all for you! They are too old! Ho-o-o! Ro-Ro-o, Ro-o-ol!’ Tortoise frightened the king and his people with a horrible voice.
The eyes of the people of those days were dark, and they had no strong second thoughts. The king, his counsellors and his hefty bearers believed at once that it was the king’s ancestor who was inside the strange huge water pot and was talking to them from it. So they ran impatiently into the palace. As they were so impatient with fear, they could not take time to find the key of the room in which the crown, the staff of office, the money, the coral beads, the clothing and the other royal property were kept. But they hastily broke open the door of the room with an axe.
Without hesitation, the king and his people brought all the things out and put them in front of the water pot.
‘Here is all of the royal property! Please, accept all these things,’ the king pleaded carefully as he was rubbing his palms with respect, ‘and let me live longer on the throne. Please send peace in return to the town!’
‘Ho-o-o! Ro-Ro-o, Ro-o-o! Leave them there and go back peacefully to the palace,’ Tortoise commanded with a horrible voice.
The king and his people had hardly entered the palace when Tortoise jumped out from the strange water pot, and his gang came out of their hiding place. Without wasting one second, one of them put the empty pot on his head, while Tortoise and the others carried all the property, and then they all disappeared into the darkness in a moment. Thus Tortoise, with his cunning, duped the king, who had expelled him, out of the royal property.
Having carried the property to Olomu town, Tortoise and his gang sold the crown to the king of Olomu town and the other property to the people of the same Olomu town for a large sum of money. Then Tortoise and his gang lavishly wasted all the money within a few days.
As time went on, one day some of the people of Mosan town saw their king’s crown on the head of the king of Olomu town, the day that he was celebrating the day of his ancestors.
Very soon, the people brought news to their king. And the following day, the king of Mosan town sent a messenger to the king of Olomu town asking him to surrender the crown immediately. But he sent the messenger back, saying he would not surrender it because he had bought it from someone.
After several exchanges of hot words, the king still would not release the crown. So the king of Mosan town started to prepare to fight him in order to get his crown back by any means.
As the king of Mosan town was preparing for the fight secretly, Ajapa the Tortoise and traitor hinte
d to the king of Olomu that the king of Mosan town was preparing for war against him. So as soon as Tortoise had so hinted, the king of Olomu too started to prepare his soldiers for the fight or war.
One month later, the soldiers of the king of Olomu town first besieged Mosan town. But the soldiers of Mosan town did not waste time. They retaliated at once. They fought their enemies so gallantly that their winning was soon imminent.
Now Tortoise, having seen that the soldiers of his former town Mosan would conquer the soldiers of Olomu town, joined the battle and started to help fight his people, for he was a very great traitor.
The soldiers of Mosan town fought so bravely that they got the crown of their king back, but later Tortoise, the traitor, told the enemies the place where the soldiers kept their fighting weapons. Now the soldiers of Olomu town stole the weapons easily with the hope that the victory would soon be to their side. But to their horror, the soldiers of Mosan town were not affected at all. Instead, it was when their weapons were stolen that they fought more fiercely.
Within four months the soldiers of Olomu town were nearly all killed. Many of them were captured, and Tortoise was captured as well. When he was brought to the king of Mosan town with the other captives, he was taken to the shrine of the gods. There, they bound him with a strong rope, and then they laid him flat in front of the gods.
As soon as the war was over the king of Mosan town wanted to know who had told their enemies the place where they kept their weapons, because there was no time in history when their enemies had known the place of the weapons and stolen them. The king invited all the people to the assembly ground and told them about their stolen weapons with wonder. ‘As all of you know well, our weapons were never stolen by our enemies before!’
‘We were surprised!’ the people shouted.
The king pointed his hand to Tortoise and showed him to the people. ‘Look at this handsome man, Tortoise. He is the traitor who betrayed us to our enemies!’
‘Ah, you Tortoise,’ the crowd shouted as they fastened their eyes on him. ‘Woe unto you! You traitor! Let us behead him now!’ they added as the king’s bearers laid him flat in front of the gods.
‘No! we shall not behead him,’ the king answered. Then he explained, ‘His offence is too severe for beheading; A curse has more weight than beheading!’
‘We are agreed, your majesty! Please curse him now!’ the people shouted with the voice of approval.
‘Please, king,’ Ajapa the Tortoise begged with tears. ‘I have become your slave as from today! Please, I beg you!’
The king answered, ‘You, Tortoise, whose nickname is Alabahun, the son of the soil, have betrayed the people of your town to their enemies. And that is the offence for which you will be punished now!’ Then the king turned to the gods in front of which Tortoise lay, and the king gave a number of roars of anger: ‘Oh, gods of our land and our ancestors, let you all turn Tortoise from a handsome man into the Shell-man, and let his clothes be shell as from today and let him crawl in the forest now!’
To the fear and surprise of the crowd of people, the king hardly had cursed Tortoise when he shrank to a very small shell-creature. And as a Shell-man he crawled into the forest, while the people shouted at him, ‘Go into the forest, you Shell-man, the traitor!’ It was that day that Ajapa the Tortoise became one of the beast race. Then the crowd of people returned to their houses.
Tortoise or Shell-man wandered about from one forest to another for several years. One morning he wandered to an umbrella tree. He stopped under the tree and waited for fruit that he could eat to fall down.
But as he was waiting there, he saw a Beetle-lady who was aloof, coming to the same umbrella tree. ‘Who is this beautiful Beetle-lady?’ the Shell-man wondered confusedly as he fastened his eyes on the Beetle-lady. A few minutes later, the Beetle-lady crawled to the tree just to eat the fruit. When she came there, the Shell-man greeted her: ‘Hello, Beetle-lady! How are you?’
‘I’m all right,’ replied the Beetle-lady.
‘But you seem as if you have once been a human being,’ the Shell-man said with confusion.
‘Of course, you are right. I was once a human being, but it was my beauty which changed me into a Beetle-lady as you see me now,’ she explained with sadness.
‘Though you still retain your beauty. How did your beauty change you into a Beetle-lady?’ he asked with wonder.
‘You see, several years ago I was Yanribo, the most beautiful lady in the city. The king of the city forced me to carry a sacrifice to the camp of the soldiers. But because I was afraid of being killed or taken as a slave by those soldiers, I threw the sacrifice into the forest when I had trekked half-way. But the sacrifice had hardly touched the ground when I was turned into a Beetle-lady. And it is since that day that I have been wandering about from one forest to another.’ The Beetle-lady told her story sadly, and the Shell-man shook his head sadly too.
‘Hmm. But your beauty, which was the cause of your changing to Beetle-lady, is good. As you see me, I was the greatest villain, liar, cunning man, thief and traitor alive when I was in my town. I was cursed by the king of my town because of my bad behaviour. And the curse of the king turned me into a Shell-man suddenly, and then I crawled into the forest immediately.’ Thus Tortoise explained himself to the Beetle-lady, and she shook her head sadly.
‘But as you are a Beetle-lady, and I am a Shell-man, I wish that we should marry each other,’ suggested the Shell-man.
‘But who will be our match-maker?’ the Beetle-lady asked.
‘Hmm. You know, you are the first generation of the Beetle-lady, and I am the first generation of the Shell-man. So we cannot get a match-maker. But as we stand under this tree now, we shall soon get something which will substitute for a match-maker.’ The Shell-man, Tortoise, with his usual tricks, hardly said so when one ripe fruit fell down. He picked the fruit up, he twitched a bit of it, and then he gave it to the Beetle-lady to twitch as well. When she twitched a bit of it, then he said, ‘Yes, this fruit is our match-maker. Because you have twitched it and I did the same thing. It has given my love to you and yours to me, and the work of a match-maker is no more than that.’ The Shell-man, with his cunning, persuaded the Beetle-lady and she was satisfied.
‘OK. That is that. But who will pray for us like father and mother?’ the Beetle-lady asked.
‘Hmm. Let us wait here for some minutes more and you will see who will pray for us,’ the Shell-man said with smiles, and he flirted with her, but he was serious about marrying her.
Very soon, a big bird perched on the tree, and as it was struggling to eat the fruit, about fifty fell down. These the Shell-man gathered all on one spot. He hardly had done so when about twenty monkeys arrived. They came to eat the fruit. Two of them were very old apes, a male and a female.
The Shell-man, with his cunning, received them as his guests. He told them to sit round the fruit which he had gathered into one place. He and his Beetle-lady sat side by side in the circle. Then he begged the two old apes to pray for the Beetle-lady and himself. Then both prayed for them as if they were their father and mother. Afterwards, all of them started to sing and they ate the fruit.
After a while, they stood up and danced merrily for some minutes, and that meant that the Shell-man, Tortoise, and the Beetle-lady, Yanribo, had married each other. Then the Beetle-lady became the Beetle-woman as from that day.
Then the Beetle-woman carried the rest of the fruit, and they all danced away.
A Short Biography of Yanribo, Tortoise’s Wife
Some hundred years ago, there lived in a city a lady who was called Yanribo. Yanribo’s father was very rich in money and domestic animals, and so also was her mother. Yanribo’s beauty had started when she was a baby in the cradle. In her babyhood, her father and mother’s neighbours were scrambling just to enjoy her beauty for some minutes before returning her to her mother.
In her city, she was the most beautiful of all babies. And the older she grew, the greater was her be
auty. She became the best singer as well, with her golden voice to which people danced until they were entirely exhausted. Yanribo was also the best dancer ever produced in the land.
Yanribo’s beauty was a strong magnet which attracted every bachelor who opened his eyes and saw her. The more Yanribo dressed in rags or even leaves, the more she became more beautiful. It was her beauty which gave great fame and respect to her city. The people of the city even often remarked, ‘Yanribo’s beauty is indeed the pride of the city.’ Yanribo was cheerful and her face was always full of smiles. Though Yanribo was created with extra beauty, she still gave due respect to both rich and poor people.
But there was one thing which spoiled Yanribo. She was the greatest coward in the city.
As time went on, and Yanribo was just into her eighteenth year, it happened that a strong war was about to break out between Yanribo’s city and another town. This town, Abatan, was not so far from Yanribo’s city or land.
The king of Abatan had a large number of soldiers while the king of Yanribo’s city had few. Now as the war was nearer, the soldiers of Abatan moved from their town and camped at a distance of about two kilometres from Yanribo’s city. The king of the city was sure that his soldiers were so few that he could not conquer the soldiers of Abatan except by some other means than force. So in order to conquer his enemies without losing too many souls, he and his counsellors consulted their gods. The gods told them the right kind of sacrifice which they could prepare and take to the camp of their enemies. The sacrifice would scare away the enemies.
Their gods assured them that if the ingredients of the sacrifice were complete, and that if it was placed in the circle of the enemies, they would flee back to their town Abatan immediately.
Though the sacrifice consisted of many different kinds of scarce ingredients, the king and his counsellors tried hard and got all of them within a few days.
