He was buried amid great sorrow; for none knew him but to love and respect him. The jealous woman who had caused Ohia’s death was seized and burnt as a witch. Her ashes were then scattered to the four winds of heaven, and it is because of this fact that jealousy and selfishness are so widespread throughout the world, where before they could scarcely be found.
It is better to be poor and live long than rich and die young.
A man may be born to wealth, but wisdom comes only with length of days.
Why Some Women Never Eat Mutton
Once upon a time there was a man named Kiwobe who had a sheep and an only son named Kakange. One day Kiwobe went out to visit a friend, and the sheep said to the boy Kakange, “Kiwobe said when you saw the sun shining you were to take me out to the pasture; what are you doing? Are you waiting until it is evening to take me out?”
When the man returned home, his son told him what the sheep had said.
Kiwobe said, “My child, why do you tell a falsehood? Can a sheep talk like a man?”
The boy said, “If you think I am telling you a falsehood, pretend you are going away, and after going a little distance, turn back and hide near the door and listen, and you will hear it speak.”
Kiwobe did as the boy had suggested; he hid near the house, and after a short time the sheep called to the boy and asked, “What did Kiwobe tell you?”
The boy replied, “He said, ‘When you see the sun shining untie the sheep, and take it out to the pasture.’”
The sheep said, “Well, what do you see now?”
When Kiwobe heard it, he went and told his companions, saying he did not know what to do because his sheep had spoken like a man to his son.
His companions told him to cut a palm pole, bring it, and drop it upon the sheep and kill it. Kiwobe brought the pole and dropped it by the sheep; the sheep, however, sprang aside and escaped, and said to Kiwobe, “Do you want to kill me? I will not blame you this time, because you are tired.”
When Kiwobe saw he had failed to kill the sheep he left the place secretly, and went to live elsewhere, leaving the sheep tied in the house; he had also forgotten to take with him his ax-handle. The sheep took the ax-handle and followed the man along the road and found him at a dance.
The sheep said to the people dancing, “What kind of a dance is this?” and at once began to dance and sing: “This is coming, yes, but not arrived; this is coming, yes, but not arrived.”
As the sheep was dancing it saw its master Kiwobe, and went to him and said, “My brother, why did you leave me in the house? You also left your ax-handle which I have brought.”
All the people at the dance were greatly surprised to hear the sheep speak, but Kiwobe fled away and the sheep ran after him, and they both arrived together at the house. Kiwobe then agreed with his wife that she should kill the sheep when he went away for a walk.
The sheep, however, heard the man tell his wife to kill it, and when Kiwobe had gone the sheep caught the woman and killed her. It then cut the woman up and cooked her, and took her clothes and put them on.
When Kiwobe returned he asked his wife if she had killed the sheep, and it replied, “Yes; and I am cooking it now.”
Kiwobe said, “Dish up the food,” and the sheep did so, and the man sat down to eat his meal.
When Kiwobe was eating his son came up and said to him, “Sir, that which brings your food is the sheep, it has killed your wife and cooked her.”
When Kiwobe heard this he rose up, and got his spear to kill the sheep, but it fled away and escaped during the night.
This is the reason why some women never eat mutton.
The Fairy Wife
There were two sons of one mother, one named Mavungu, and the other Luemba. Luemba was a fine child, and grew up to be a handsome man. Mavungu was puny and miserable-looking, and as he came to be a man he was very small and mean-looking. The mother always treated Luemba very well; but she maltreated Mavungu, and made him sleep outside the house beneath the mango trees. Often when he came to her, to beg for food, she would throw over his head the water in which she had cooked the beans.
Mavungu could not stand this bad treatment any longer; so he ran away into the woods, and wandered far away from home, until he came to a river. Here he found a canoe which he used to carry him still further from his town. And he paddled and paddled, until he came to a huge tree, that so overspread the river that he could not paddle any further. So he laid his paddle down, and caught hold of the leaves of the fuba tree to pull his canoe along. But no sooner had he begun to pull the leaves of the fuba tree, than he heard a voice, as if of a woman, faintly crying:
The Woman and Mavungu
“You are hurting me! please take care.”
Mavungu wondered, but still pulled himself along.
“Take care! you are breaking my legs off,” said the voice.
Still Mavungu pulled until a leaf broke off and suddenly changed into a beautiful woman. This startled Mavungu, so that he pulled many other leaves off the fuba tree. Each leaf turned into a man, or a woman; until his canoe was so full that he could not pull it.
Then the first woman told him that she had come to be his wife, and comfort him; and Mavungu was no longer afraid, but was very happy. Then the wife spoke to her fetish, and said:
“Am I to marry a man so ugly as this one is?”
And immediately Mavungu changed into a handsome man.
“Is he to be dressed like that?” she cried.
And straightway his dress was wonderfully changed.
In the same magical way the wife built Mavungu a large house and town for his people, so that he wanted nothing that was needful to a prince. And as people passed that way they were astonished at the change, and wondered where Mavungu had found his beautiful wife. And his mother and brother and whole family came to see him; and he treated them kindly and sent them away loaded with presents. But he had been told by his wife to say nothing to them as to the secret of his happiness. He, therefore, left them in ignorance of that fact.
Then his people invited Mavungu to their town, but his wife told him not to go, and so he stayed at home. But when he had received many invitations he finally agreed to visit them, in spite of his wife’s advice. He promised, however, not to eat any of the food given to him. When he arrived in town his mother placed poisoned food before him and urged him to eat it, but he refused. They then asked about his beautiful wife, and, not thinking, he replied:
“Oh, when I left you I wandered through the woods.”
But when he had got thus far he heard his wife’s voice ringing through the woods:
“Oh! Ma-vu-ng-u-a-a-a!” and immediately he remembered, and got up and ran away home.
His wife was very cross with him, and told him plainly that she would not help him the next time he made a dunce of himself.
Some time after this Mavungu again went to visit his family. His wife said nothing, neither asking him to stay at home, nor giving him her consent to go. When he had greeted his mother and had eaten food, the family again asked him to tell them how he had found his wife.
And he said, “When I left you, because of your bad treatment, I wandered through the woods and came to a river. Dear me! where has my beautiful hat gone?”
“Your brother has taken it, to put it in the sun,” said the mother, “but continue.”
“I found a canoe with a paddle in it. Where has my coat gone?”
“Your brother has taken that also.”
“And I paddled and paddled. Why have you taken my beautiful cloth?”
“To have it washed, of course.”
“I paddled until I came to a big tree. Nay, why not leave me my shirt? And as I pulled off the leaves of the fuba tree, they turned into my wife and her companions. But I am naked!”
Then Mavungu remembered, and ran away to his town, only to find that it and his beautiful wife had disappeared. And when the people heard the whole story, they said it served Mavungu right for being so silly as
to want to please his people, who had been his enemies all along, rather than please his wife, who had been so kind to him.
The Disobedient Daughter’s Marriage
Effiong Edem lived in a small town. He had a very pretty daughter named Afiong. All the young men of the placed wanted to marry her on account of her beauty; but she refused all of them, although her parents told her not to be so haughty.
Afiong was very vain, and said she would only marry the best-looking man in the country. He would have to be young and strong and lovable. Most of the men whom her parents wanted her to marry were rich, but they were old and ugly. The girl, therefore, continued to disobey her parents. Her disobedience grieved them very much.
The Skull that lived in the spirit land heard of the beauty of this virgin, and decided that he would try to win her. To make a good appearance, then, he went among his friends and borrowed different parts of the body from them, all of the best. From one he got a good head, from another a body, from a third strong arms, and from a fourth a fine pair of legs. These parts made him a complete body and a fine-looking man. He next went from spirit land to the town market to see Afiong.
About this time Afiong heard that some one had seen in the market a very fine man who was better-looking than any of the men of that town. She therefore rushed to the market where she saw the Skull in his borrowed beauty. She fell in love with him at once and invited him to her home.
The Skull was delighted, and went home with her. When he arrived he was introduced by Afiong to her parents, and he immediately asked their consent to marry her. At first they refused, because they did not want her to marry a stranger; but at last they agreed.
The Skull lived with Afiong for two days in her parents’ house. He then said he wished to take his wife back to his distant country. To this the girl readily agreed, because he was such a fine-looking man; but her parents tried to persuade her not to go. However, being very headstrong, she made up her mind to go, and they departed together.
After they had been gone a few days the father consulted the oracle and found out that his daugh-ter’s husband belonged to the spirit land, and that there she would surely die. They, therefore, all mourned her as dead.
The Skull
After walking for several days, the bride and the groom crossed the border between the spirit land and the abode of human beings. Just as soon as they entered the spirit land, first of all one man came to the Skull and asked for his legs, then another for his head, and the next for his body, and so on, until in a few minutes the Skull was left by itself in all its natural ugliness.
At this the girl was very much frightened. She wanted to return home, but the Skull would not let her leave him, and ordered her to go with him.
When they arrived at the Skull’s home they found his mother, who was a very old woman, too weak to do anything but to creep about. Afiong tried her best to help her. She cooked her food, and brought her water and firewood. The old creature was very grateful for these things, and soon began to like Afiong.
One day the old woman told Afiong that she was very very sorry for her, because all the people in the spirit land were cannibals. When they heard there was a human being in their country, they would come down and kill her and eat her. The old woman, then, hid Afiong.
Since Afiong had looked after her so well, the old woman promised that she would send her back to her home as soon as possible, if in the future she would obey her parents. This Afiong gladly agreed to do.
Then the old woman sent for the spider, which was a very clever hairdresser, and had him dress Afiong’s hair in the latest style. She also gave her anklets and other things in return for her kindness. She then asked a spirit to call the winds to come and carry Afiong to her home.
The Spider
At first a strong wind came, with thunder, lightning and rain; but the old woman sent it away because it was too rough. The next wind to come was a gentle breeze. She told the breeze to take Afiong to her mother’s home, and said good-by to her. Very soon afterwards the breeze brought Afiong to the door of her parents’ home, and left her there.
When the parents saw their daughter they were very glad, as they had long since given her up as dead. The father spread soft animals’ skins on the ground from where his daughter was standing all the way to the house so that her feet should not be soiled. Afiong then walked to the house, and her father called all the young girls who belonged to Afiong’s circle to come and dance, and the feasting and dancing continued for eight days and nights.
When the rejoicing was over, the father reported to the head chief of the town what had happened to Afiong. The chief then passed a law that parents should never allow their daughters to marry strangers who came from a distant land. Then the father told his daughter to marry a friend of his, and she willingly consented. Afiong lived with him for years, and they had many children.
A Dance
Kindness Misunderstood
A woman went into the forest to seek fish in the streams. Seeing a stream with plenty of fish, she stopped, put her child down on the ground, took her flat basket, went down into the stream, and baled the water out of the stream. When it was dry she picked up the fish.
As she was stooping down to pick up the fish the child cried. An ape, hearing the cry of the child, came and held it in its arms and sang songs to it.
When the woman had finished picking up the fish she rose up to take the child and saw the animal carrying it. The mother wondered. She knew not what to do.
The ape spoke to the mother, saying, “Don’t be afraid. I shall not harm you. I felt pity for your child because it was crying.” And he said to the mother, “Take your child.”
She took the child and went with it into the town, and said to her husband, “While I was picking up fish in the stream, an ape came and nursed the child and sang a song to it.”
Her husband said to her, “That is not true.”
But the wife replied, “Truly, it is not a falsehood. Want until tomorrow, and you will see.”
In the morning the woman took the child and said to her husband, “Come along, let us go.”
The husband took his spear. They walked along until they reached the stream. The wife put the child down and went into the stream, the husband hid himself in the bushes to see what would happen, and in a little while the child began to cry.
The ape, hearing the cry of the child, came and picked it up and sang a song to it. The child seemed to like the song and stopped crying.
When the husband saw this he threw his spear; the ape held out the child (to defend himself) and the spear went into the body of the child.
The ape said, “I felt pity for your child, and you have not killed me, but you have killed your child.”
The Dog and the Leopard
It once happened that a leopard and a dog were very great friends; the leopard was, however, the owner of the house in which they lived; the dog was treated more as a servant than a friend by the leopard.
When the rainy season began, the leopard said to the dog, “Let us go and see our ant-hillocks, whether the ants are about to swarm, because the year is ended.”
The dog agreed, and they went to look at the hillocks and found them showing signs of swarming. They, therefore, got ready and soon caught a large quantity of ants, which they took home. The leopard’s wife cooked them, and they had a very fine meal. Those which they could not eat they fried and dried in the sun.
The leopard afterwards said, “I will take one bundle of these ants we have dried in the sun to my wife’s relatives.”
The dog agreed, and they set the day upon which they should go. Early in the morning of that day the leopard dressed in his best clothes and took his harp, because he was an expert player, and said to the dog, “You carry the ants.”
The Leopard with the Dog carrying the Bundle of Ants
The dog made the bundle into a load, put it on his head, and started off after the leopard. On the way they met some people they kne
w and greeted them.
Their friends asked them where they were going, and the leopard replied, “I am going to see my wife’s relatives.”
They asked him to play a tune on his harp, which he did, and sang, “I have a load of white ants like that which the dog carries; I have a load of white ants like that which the dog carries.”
Their friends thanked the leopard for the tune and song, and took leave of him, and went on their way; and the leopard and the dog went on their way.
After a time the dog said, “Sir, I feel unwell; I must run aside into the grass.”
The leopard said, “All right, go,” and waited in the road for him.
While in the grass the dog ate all the ants and filled the packets with dry grass, and returned after tying them up as before. They then went on their way.
After a time the dog said to the leopard, “Sir, lend me the harp that I may play and sing as we walk.”
The leopard did so, and the dog played and sang, “A load of rubbish for my wife’s relations; a load of rubbish for my wife’s relations.”
The leopard thanked the dog for his song, and said, “You played very well.”
To which the dog replied, “Thank you, sir.”
When they reached the home of the relatives of the leopard’s wife, the leopard greeted them and asked how they were. They also asked how the leopard and his wife and relatives were, but they took no notice of the dog. The leopard’s relatives then brought out their pipes and gave the leopard one to smoke, but they did not give one to the dog.
African Myths and Folk Tales Page 4
