by Amos Tutuola
“Certainly, you are my dead father who will set me free from poverty this midnight!” Ajaiyi roared greatly.
“But Ajaiyi, I am not a dead man! I am the witch doctor of this village!” the witch doctor murmured with fear, especially when he looked around and saw that all of his servants had escaped outside for their lives.
“If you are dead or not, I don’t care, but show me where you keep all your money!” Ajaiyi shouted and was pushing him with the machete.
Willing or not, the witch doctor walked with trembling body to the spot where he kept his money: in a big pot buried before his gods. He pointed his finger to it without hesitation.
Ajaiyi dug the pot out. He put the whole of it on his head and then carried it to his house that night. When he and his wife counted the money, it was more than six hundred pounds. So, Ajaiyi and his wife were freed from their poverty that night.
THE ELEPHANT WOMAN
There was a man who was a hunter of lion, tiger, elephant, etc., so he was always going to the far bush to hunt. Sometimes it would be about four or more days before he would return to town.
He had a wife who had not yet had a child since he had married her.
One day he went to a very far bush to hunt, and there he climbed a tree to look at every part of that place for the elephant. Then he got ready to shoot her, but before he could get a good chance to shoot the gun at the right part of her body, she traveled to a big tree which had many buttresses, and she stopped between two buttresses while this hunter was looking at her.
After a little while she took her skin away from her body and folded it; then she put it inside a hole at the bottom of the tree and covered the hole with dried leaves. Then, she dressed herself with real clothes, which made her a beautiful woman, and then she put some provisions inside a flat tray. These provisions were sugar, matches, milk, tobacco, etc. Having put the tray on her head, she set off at once to the market, which was in the town in which this hunter was living.
After she had gone very far, the hunter came down from the tree and went to the big tree and took out the skin from the hole in which she had put it away safely. But as this was very strange to him, he took the skin and folded it securely and then used his supernatural power so that he reached his house at the same moment. There, without hesitation, he climbed the ceiling of the house and hid this skin there.
His aim was that when she returned from the market to that big tree to take the skin, she would not find it to wear as usual, because he wanted her to remain as a woman, since she was a very beautiful woman, though she was an elephant.
Immediately after he hung the skin on the ceiling of his house, he used his power again and came back to the same bush. Then he climbed the same tree, where he waited for her to return from the market. When it was about five o’clock in the evening, she returned from the market with plenty of new provisions, which she had just bought from the market, having sold the old ones.
He looked at her from the top of that tree where he had hid himself. When she came to this big tree, she looked inside the hole in which she had hid the skin but found nothing there. After that she looked around the tree again, but that was also in vain. When she believed that her skin could not be found, she sat down near this tree and started to weep bitterly because she could not change to an elephant again and could not return to her family.
Then the hunter came down from the top of the tree and went to her. He asked her, as if he did not know what had happened to her, “By the way, how did you manage to come to a far and dreadful bush such as this from your town, being a woman and not a man?”
But this woman replied that she was searching for something. Then the hunter asked for the name of the thing she was searching for.
She replied that it was a secret thing which could not be mentioned out loud.
After both of them had argued for some hours, he told her that he would marry her. Willing or not, she agreed, because she could not remain in this bush in the form of a woman.
Of course, before she agreed to marry him, she warned him seriously that she was an elephant who was a trader and that he must not tell her secret to his first wife, and he said, “I would not.” After that she followed him to his town. When they reached his home, he told his first wife, “This is my new wife that I married today.” He showed her to his mother as well.
After some months had passed, this first wife was asking him secretly what town did he bring this beautiful woman from, but he did not answer this question at all.
Luckily, within six months from when he had brought this elephant woman to the house, she conceived, and when it was time she delivered twin babies, but the first wife had none. For this reason, she was then playing her best part of love to their husband in such a way that, one day, when he laid down in the parlor after he had drunk too much, she asked, “Please tell me how you managed before you married this new wife?”
And as he had over-drunk, he told this first wife, “She is an elephant and her skin is hidden on the ceiling.” Here he disclosed the secret of this elephant woman to his first wife.
But as women cannot keep such a terrible secret in mind for a long time, within a few days, whenever their husband was away from the town, she was telling this elephant woman in a proverb that “Eat, drink and be merry, your skin is on the ceiling.” After she had been repeating this proverb for two months, this elephant woman understood what she was saying.
One day when there was nobody at home, the elephant woman climbed the ceiling just to make sure whether it was the truth that her skin was there. After that she came down, and she did not show in her attitude that she had discovered her skin. A few days later, when the former wife repeated this proverb as usual, without hesitation she climbed the ceiling; she wore the skin and became an elephant at once. Then she jumped down. Immediately all the people in that house saw her as an elephant. They were greatly frightened, and, before they could escape for their life, she crushed the former wife to death, although she did not harm the rest.
Without more ado she ran hastily to their husband in the bush where he went to hunt.
Immediately he saw her in the form of an elephant. He got ready to shoot her, for he thought that she was not his wife. Of course, before he could do that, she spoke out as a person: “I warned you seriously not to tell my secret to your former wife before I followed you from bush to the town. But now, as you have failed to keep the secret, so today, as I have discovered my skin and worn it, I am going back to my own town which belongs only to elephants. Please try your best to keep safe my son and daughter. Goodbye.”
But when the hunter heard this from her, he started to beg her not to leave him. Then she replied, “Can I follow you back to the town in my present form? No, that cannot be done at all at this stage, for you have failed to comply with my warning.”
Immediately as she had uttered these words, she went away hastily, singing the joyful song along in the bush to her town. As this song was so joyful, he sang it with her and followed her until they had traveled about fifty miles in that bush, before she reached her town, which was in the form of a round hill. Then she blew a kind of alarm to the rest of the elephants, which meant, “Open the door, I return today.” At the same time that the rest heard this alarm, a million elephants rushed out from that hill, which opened like a gate of a big town. They gripped her with joy and took her to the inside of the hill.
This was the end of the elephant that he had married as his wife. Then he returned from there to his town with sorrow, because his first wife had been crushed to death by the elephant.
THE TOWN OF FAMINE
(Feather Woman of the Jungle)
On the fourth night, when the people gathered in the front of my house and drinks were served as they were dancing and singing with great joy, I stopped them and I addressed them first as follows: “I am very happy indeed to see all of you again in front of me, and I thank every one of you for the true affection you have for me, although I am t
he head of the village. And I wonder greatly, too, to see that your number is increased again this night by more than 90 percent.”
“But,” I said (as all sat quietly and paid great attention to me), “when I first saw the whole of you, I was afraid, but after I thought within myself about where to get sufficient planks to make coffins for every one of you when you die, because you are too many. But when I thought it over again, I remembered that not all of you would need coffins to bury you when you die. Because many of you would be killed and eaten up by the wild animals. Many would die in the rivers, many would be burnt into ashes by the fire, many would be kidnapped, and so many of you would have fallen into the wells. So therefore, coffins would not be required for those who died such deaths, and so many would not die in their homes, but instead where their people would not see their bodies to bury with coffins.”
But the people were greatly annoyed when they heard the likes of that from me. All were snapping their fingers above their heads and saying that they would not die in the rivers or in the fire or in the wells or eaten up by the wild animals, but they would die in their homes, villages, etc., and they would be buried with coffins. But after a while, when their noises went down, I explained to them that they must not misunderstand me, because there was nobody on earth who could know the real place and real time he or she is going to die, or if anyone knew, let him or her tell me. And, if anyone knew, it meant I was guilty of what I had said. Having said so, I hesitated to hear their reply, but none of the people could reply, they admitted at last.
After they danced and drank some of their palm wine, I started to tell them the story as follows,
One fine morning, six months after I had returned from my third journey, I took my usual gun, hunting-bag and machete. I bade good-bye to my father, mother, sister and brother and all my friends and my neighbours. Some of the people cautioned me very seriously not to go for any treasure again. They said that all I had brought was enough, but I told them that I must try more, for we knew of today but we did not know of tomorrow.
Then I left my village that bright day, and I was going to the north this time. Having travelled for several days, I came to a town. This town was very big and famous. It was near a very wide and deep river. When I entered the town I was greatly shocked with fear when I saw the terrible appearances of the inhabitants. Every one of them was so lean that he had no more muscle on his body. Every one of them was as thin as a dried stick. The legs and arms were just like sticks. The eyes were seen faintly in the skull, but the head was so big that the thin neck could not even carry it. Both upper and lower jaws had already dried up like a roasted meat. The stomach was no more to be seen, unlike the breast and exposed ribs.
When I first saw them in that appearances, I thought within myself and cried out unnoticed: “Ah, how were people created so terribly like this?” Because in the first instance I did not know that they were in famine and that they were starved until they had reached that lean state. And they were so starved that the breasts of the women had dried up. The king, too, was so bitterly starved that he was unable to put on his crown whenever he went out. It was a great pity that the hunger had forced the people of the town not to respect the king or chiefs again, except one who brought food to them.
According to the custom of that town, I was first taken to the king, and when he approved of my staying there, then I lodged in the house of the paramount chief, which was almost next to the palace of the king. When it was night I tried to sleep, but I was unable to fall asleep because of hunger. So in the morning I went to the king and told him: “Please, King, I am badly hungry, will you give me something to eat now?”
But he said at the same time, “Is that so? Sorry, we have been in great famine these past few years, and therefore I have no food to give you except cold water, which is our main food in this town at present!”
Then I went back to my room. I sat and I was expecting that the paramount chief would soon send food to me as the king had failed to give it to me. I waited for many hours and yet he did not send anything to me. Then I went to him. Without shame, I told him that I wanted to eat, but he said that their main food was cold water. He said furthermore that the famine was so serious that they had money, but it was useless. They had plenty of costly clothes, but the hunger did not let them wear them, and even the clothes were oversized on them because they had become too lean. And again, this paramount chief advised me that I should be drinking the cold water.
Then, having now heard the same from him, without hesitation I started to drink the cold water. It was not yet daybreak when I was woken by hunger in the following morning I had hardly got up when I went to the king’s attendants. I complained to them again that since I had come to the town I had nothing to eat except cold water, which I was drinking. I complained to them perhaps they might help me, but I was very surprised that they did not allow me to tell them all of my complaints, for they interrupted immediately after they heard the word “hunger” from me. They stripped themselves naked and told me to look how every one of them had become lean. They told me further that I, too, would soon become bones if I kept longer in that town.
Having failed again to get food from the attendants, I shook my head with surprise before I left them. When I returned to my room, I sat down quietly and I began to think how to get food by all means. I first thought to go back to my village, to bring foodstuffs to this town for sale. But I remembered that my village was too far away from there, and again, there was no real road on which to travel anyway.
As I was still suggesting within myself of what to do, it came to my mind to go to the big river which was near this town; perhaps I might get fishes from there. Without hesitation, I went to that river. Luckily, I found many canoes tied up to the trees on the bank and I loosened one. I put my machete in it and then I pushed it on the river. I started to find fishes about to kill, but there was none to be found. Of course, as I was still paddling along, I came to the swampy bush at about twelve o’clock noon. In that swampy bush there were many palm trees. When I stopped the canoe I climbed one palm tree, but unfortunately there was no fruits on it. But, when I climbed the third one, I found two ripened bunches of palm fruits on top of it. So, I drove all the birds which were eating them away first, and then I cut both bunches down.
After I had put them in the canoe, I first ate of them to my satisfaction and then I took the rest to the town. I was nearly torn into pieces by the hungry people as I was carrying them along in the town to the king. However, I carried them to the king at last. With great wonder and admiration, he took them from me and thanked me greatly. Having eaten as many fruits as he could, he then distributed the rest to his people.
After the people had gone back to their houses, the king invited me to one of his property rooms. He showed me all his money and many other treasures as gold, silver, costly beads and diamonds. He promised me that if I could get such palm fruits for him and his people until when the famine was finished, he would give me a lot of money, gold, silver, diamond and beads as rewards. Having promised me like that, I replied with a smile that I would try my best to supply him with fruits until when the famine was finished, and then I went back to my room in the paramount chief’s house.
In the following morning I went to the river again. I tried all my efforts in climbing so many palm trees. Luckily, after a while, I got one bunch of palm fruits and I brought it to the king. After he had eaten of the fruits to his satisfaction, he distributed the rest to his people. It was so I brought the fruits to the king and his people for a period of five months. But unfortunately, as the famine was not stopped in time and the season of the palm fruits came to an end, I could not get anything for the king anymore. I tried all my best to get the fruit, but it was in vain.
When it was the third day that I had not eaten, except to drink the cold water from morning till night, I was so weak that I thought that I would die soon. I thought of going back to my village that time, but I could not trek the dis
tance of about one mile without falling down. This, my fourth journey, was so bad and hopeless that I said within myself that if I returned to my village this time, I would never attempt to go for any treasure again.
Having failed in all my efforts to get food, then I went back to the palm trees, thinking perhaps I might get some fruits which probably had fallen to the bottom of the palm trees during the season. So I started to search the bottom of every palm tree and I found only one over-ripened fruit when it was about three o’clock in the afternoon. I hastily picked it up. But, as I held it, I said to myself sorrowfully, “What could a single palm fruit do for me?” It could not satisfy my hunger.
Anyhow, I went back to the canoe. As I was paddling it along on the river I came to the deepest part of it, when this palm fruit mistakenly fell into the water. This affected me so badly that I threw the paddle into the canoe and then jumped in the water without hesitation. But as I was swimming here and there just to pick up the fruit, someone held both my feet and was pulling me down into the bottom of the river. Having tried all my best to take my feet from him and failed, I left myself to him. After a while he pulled me into the water, and it was then I saw who was pulling me. He held one coffin with his left hand. The lid of that coffin was glass, and he had hardly pushed that lid to one side when he pushed me in it, and he entered it as well and then covered it with that glass lid at the same time. As I was inside the coffin with him, I was breathing in and out quite easily, and I saw plainly that this man had covered his body from the knee to the waist with the leather of a big fish. He had no hair on his head but small scales instead. His arms were very short and were as strong as iron, but there were fingers on each arm and they were resembled those of a human being. Although he had two eyes like myself, each was as round as the full moon.
