African Folktales (The Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library)

by Roger Abrahams

  Don’t sleep lekemo, don’t sleep lekemo,

  You deceiving in-laws, you deceiving in-laws,

  Your child, look at him dying in my hands.

  Look at me dying like this.…

  I WILL SLEEP A YEAR, I WILL SLEEP A YEAR.

  She stayed singing that song. She stayed singing that song. Then that child died in her hands. When that child died in her hands, she herself fell down. She too fell and died.

  For a long time that Big Thing was lying down. The year completely passed and he awoke. When he awoke, he discovered their bones there. He discovered them scattered there, she and her child. When that Big Thing got up, he took a straw broom and an empty dustpan and he gathered those bones we we we. He went and threw them away.

  Therefore stubbornness isn’t good. Whatever you do, whenever a person says, “Don’t do this,” listen to him.

  My story passes to …

  Storyteller II [Mariatu Sandi]: Domei oo Domeisia.

  Audience: Sa konde.

  Storyteller II: Behold these spirits long ago, there were twelve of them in their forest. Then a dance was held in the town; it was a big Sande initiation dance, a dance for getting married. There were two dances being held in one town. Then all these spirits, they all changed into young men. Oh! the beauty of these young men! When all the women saw them, they wanted them, without even getting a present! So they were all dressed up and coming to the dance; then they came and they all made love in the town—these twelve, all of them. They got twelve girls at this dance, and they danced for ten months—there remained only two months for completing one year.

  Then they begged leave, they said, “We are leaving tomorrow.”

  All those small things which they had, they gave to their lovers. Then at daybreak they caught the road. Their pals went along as guides. There was one girl among them who was very stubborn; moreover, she was really seeking a man. (This story I’m telling, I tell it for us fornicators; I’m not telling it for any other people than we who truly commit adultery. It’s our story I’m telling. Also, we whose ears are closed, we who don’t agree to any truthful talk, we closed eared people, and we insatiable fornicators, this is our story.) Then these companions of hers, the eleven girls, they went back. So of these twelve spirits also, eleven spirits all came out from their places one-by-one. They came to their meeting place on the big road; then those eleven went back.

  So he remained alone, he and his girlfriend. So he said to her (this spirit is named Kpana, the girl’s name is Yombo), he said to her, “Yombo—Return! There where we’re going, there it is bad.” He said, “You see all your comrades have returned; you too, I beg you, go back.”

  On his finger there is a beautiful gold ring. When he went like this [turning gesture], it glittered. Really, long ago white people took it and turned it into electricity which shines so today …

  Audience: Kwo!

  Storyteller II: Then he gave it to her and said, “Go back!” She said, “I won’t go back.” She said, “Wherever you go, I will reach there. Your dying place is my sleeping place.”

  This spirit then took out a kola from his trousers (from the small place where we put something—we call it boi, the white people call it pocket—it was on his trousers); then he took out the kola from the inside of the boi and he split it and gave part of it to her. So this girl took it in her hand, and the spirit also took part of it in his hand.

  They went far, they passed one bush; then he said to her, “Yombo, wait for me.” He said, “Let me go into the bush.” He entered the bush but it wasn’t shit he was shooting. The first person he reached was the hairy person. (As you white people there, your hair is now, so too was his hair which he had lent to the spirit.) The spirit’s own hair was really only one strand on his head. Then he took this hair and he went with it.

  He said, “Ee, Hairy Fetingo my dear, I have your hair. Give me my one hair back.”

  So Hairy Fetingo then grabbed his own hair and returned the spirit’s one hair to his head.

  Audience: Kwo!

  Storyteller II: As he was coming out then this Yombo said, “What the hell?” She said, “What’s coming?”

  He said, “Don’t fear me, it’s me Kpana,” He said, “He he he … Yombo, Yombo, your own kola, my own kola—isn’t this it?”

  Then he pulled this kola from his boi, his pocket; it’s really the one. He said, “Your own kola, my own kola, isn’t this it?” He said, “Let’s go!”

  This now caused a great fright. They went on and they reached Hakawama. Then he entered with two legs. He went and he returned them. Only one leg is under the spirit. He had returned them to him. I say it was like elephantiasis. Then he returned and Yombo feared him.

  She said, “Why is it as we traveled today my father’s legs were two, and now he has one leg?”

  He said, “He he he … your own kola, my own kola, isn’t this it?”

  She said, “Father, let’s go then!”

  This created a great fear in Yombo, All those things God made for mortal men—his fingers, his hair, his neck, everything—this Kpana returned them.

  Then they went and they reached a river. At this water crossing place long ago there sat this fellow at the water’s edge. He crossed the river with people in his boat. His name was Sherbro Man. As they were going then, this spirit told the Sherbro Man that he should cross the water with them. Yombo herself, as she walks beside men she is happy; she sucked her teeth at this fellow, Sherbro Man. Then she sang this song:

  Sherbro Man—Sherbro Man—Sher …

  You all say it.

  Audience:

  Sherbro Man—Sherbro Man—Sher …

  Storyteller II:

  Cross the river with me-o

  I can’t cross the river with you,

  You big fat lip.

  You go about eating dirty broom straws.

  They continued like that, then they went and they reached his hometown. So this Sherbro Man remained sitting at the riverside.

  Thus they reached this spirit’s cement-block houses which long ago this spirit had built. It’s only in America that there is this type of house. In the whole of Freetown, all Freetown, there isn’t a block house of this kind. (If you tell lies, it’s like this you should do it, you should arrange it so): the mirrors of these block houses, it is those which long ago the white people worked over and fastened to their car fronts which go about today on the roads helping people.

  At daybreak this spirit would go to the hunting place. He’d go hunting and catch animals; sometimes he’d catch nine-hundred animals. Of living people, sometimes he’d catch seven people. Then he’d come with them and pile them bushu, he’d pile them bushu, then he’d fall down. He lay there, he was exhausted. He remained lying a long time; the sun would set over there in the sea.

  Now hunger wasn’t troubling Yombo, simply because as soon as they arrived, he gave food to her which would suffice for two days. So Yombo was experiencing fullness.

  He said, “He he, Yombo, Yombo, the smooth or the hairy one, which do you prefer?” (It’s the devil’s voice which is heavy like this.)

  Yombo replied, “As for us, Father, we usually eat the hairy one.”

  Then he said, “Take whatever you like.” (The spirit spoke like that.)

  So Yombo remained taking care of this meat. While she was preparing this one, that one would be spoiling; that one would be drying; that one would be frying; that one would be steaming; that one would be salted. This fellow also put those human beings, all those seven people he had caught, in a place where he would eat them for seven months.

  They stayed like this for a long time, then Yombo became pregnant. She bore a child. The child’s name is Bobo (his father’s name is Kpana, his name is Bobo Kpana). That child stayed there long, then he grew and he became truly handsome. He reached the age of a grown man, this Bobo Kpana.

  So one year passed. Then Kpana went again to the animal hunting place. When Kpana went to this hunting place, he would st
ay there for up to nine years hunting for these animals. He stayed in this hunting place because Yombo hadn’t done anything to these nine hundred animals; some had maggots in them.

  Then one man came and said, “I’ve come, let’s stay together in this place.”

  She said, “Hm-m-m, I agree to this proposal to stay together which you’ve brought, because I’m here alone, the only living person, I and this my small child. She said, “This person who long ago came with me is a spirit. Any kind of food I want, he hunts for it; he puts it in this house; he fills it kooboNG. When it’s there we’ll be eating it, we’ll be playing in it, whatever we want with it, we do. But as you’ve come here, whether from Jericho or from in back of Freetown or from the stone-growing place, from wherever, father’s nose will discover your smell. He’ll come and when he comes, he will eat you yourself!”

  He asked “Why?”

  She said, “He eats people. The only people he doesn’t eat are me and my child. He doesn’t eat only us two. Despite all that,” she said, “we’ll stay here.”

  Then this girl cooked food quickly and she gave it to this fellow, to this guest. The guest’s name is Majia. Then she gave it to Majia and he ate it. Oh ya. Then this spirit’s coming-back time arrived.

  A big storm was brewing. It was that very storm that God shared out between the land and the sea. When you are sitting by the sea and you hear it daa daa, it was such a storm; it does that in the sea. That storm would do that long ago, whenever the spirit returned. That very storm by the seaside which you hear daa daa. Oh ya, It started from over there and it reached nearly to the end of the world.

  She said, “Koo, young man, this living together we’ve been doing, my husband’s arrival time (wati) is now approaching.” (White people, you call it taimi, we call it wati.)

  She said, “The time is now approaching. This is what he said he’d do, and he’s coming.”

  Then shit came out of the girl. That very shit, it was none other than pig shit; it came out of her. Oo!

  Then he came. So she picked up the youth and carried him there, to the tenth story of this skyscraper, this many-storied house that he’d laid—so far, poloNG!

  Actually, when this spirit would come, he’d drop down from seven years before he woke up. Just as he arrived, the spirit came and assembled those things. He said, “He, he, he, Yombo, Yombo, the hairy one or the smooth one, which do you prefer?

  She said, “Father, it’s the hairy one we eat, we in our own country.”

  He said, “Well then, take it.”

  This spirit then lay down. His nostrils started doing this, so he said, “Hm-hm, a fresh-fresh person is smelling.” (That one was a spirit.) He wanted to know what the girl had done for those seven years he had been to the flesh-hunting place.

  “Ee,” she said, “I say Father, you know Kpana Bobo is a human being; myself, I’m a human being. You say a fresh-fresh person is smelling; what about these people you came with, aren’t they fresh-fresh people?”

  He said, “He, he, he, he, he, Yombo, Yombo, I don’t know what you’re thinking of. Don’t make a fool of me. I say a fresh-fresh person is smelling.”

  They kept on [arguing] like that for a long time. Then that spirit forgot [about it]. So he arranged all those affairs.

  So this person who had come today, whom Yombo had lifted to the sky, he had a kpafei. This kpafei was the kind twins also have. It was long and thin and small like this; it was inside his hair. All this wealth passing in the world, you white people, that wealth [of yours], it is Yombo who long ago came with that wealth which you white people came with. You who are giving us money, who are partial to our affairs, it is Yombo who brought it. Well, then Yombo gathered up all that wealth and the lover brought out his kpafei for the sake of that one meal she had given him.

  He said, “I have struck the kpafei gba!”

  The spirit was lying asleep because he used to sleep for even more than seven years. He was lying in this sleep.

  He said, “I have struck the kpafei here gba!”

  He said, “The block house, the skyscraper, the zinc roof, anything whatsoever a person needs, bags of rice, a thousand bags of hard rice,” he said they should all enter in his kpafei. He said that a thousand goats should enter into his kpafei. He said a thousand sheep; he said anything whatsoever, a thousand of them—cows, ducks, chickens, all—should enter [the kpafei].

  Then this lover said he would strike his kpafei here and Kpana Bobo should then enter this kpafei. He said his mother also should enter and she entered in. So one year passed tuNG. This spirit was in sleep; he slept, he slept, he slept pu. This fellow hit the road with them. As they were going taki taki taki, they stepped tele and they fell. Ah, then this spirit who had slept for five years awoke from his sleep and he hit the road. There he is hitting the road. Oh, the town is far. When you would be returning, you’d forget the road you had gone on, you would take another road. But this fellow, he knew the road which went to town.

  They continued going, then this spirit said, “Aa, Great God, if you took a person and you came with her to your town, and you gave [gifts] to her, and you did everything for her, and then she went and she didn’t even say goodbye to you—oh, oh! It’s me Kpana,” he said. Whatever she wanted I did for her. She stole all my wealth—my cows, my sheep, horses, chickens, ducks, pigs, everything—she went with them. She didn’t even say goodbye to me! Oh Maker, that’s the truth, I don’t see her anymore, she’s not here. Oh let me reach her now.”

  I say, when this spirit arose the distance between them was from this verandah pillar here to the door of that house over there.

  Then that fellow turned and from the inside of the kpafei Yombo said, “Kpo! Buddy, turn around, the spirit over there is coming up behind us.” Then she too said, “Great God, suppose a person comes with somebody’s child and to his own town and doesn’t return with her to her own sleeping place, doesn’t return her to her own sleeping place? This spirit came long ago with me. He met me long ago on love business, he loved me; he said, ‘Come with me,’ but he wants to eat me! Maker, help me so that I might reach my own family.”

  I say, a wind it is that set upon them. They remained going a long time, haaNG, then that spirit slipped and fell. He was to remain four hundred hours in that fall. He was paralyzed, he couldn’t get up.

  They remained going haaNG. At last they reached the outskirts of the town. The spirit had truly failed now, for when he saw the people in the town, then he became afraid. He didn’t go on any further, but he returned. When he returned, there was nothing there, merely an empty farmhouse. He discovered that termites had eaten and finished off everything. All is broken and scattered wojoNG. Food too he couldn’t get; that spirit himself, he could get nothing.

  So that fellow arrived beside that town with these people. Look at the house. Look at the town.

  Then he set them down and said, “We have reached there.”

  Kpana Bobo and his mother, Yombo, got down then, and they greeted all the townspeople. All the people had missed them, but they didn’t recognize them, for she had been just in her youth. She was a lovely, lovely youth when she got up long ago and followed that spirit.

  Her real mother who had given birth to her, she had dried out. They had ground her up and put her in a jar. When her child came back, just then they turned it upside down and they shook her out. So that woman returned, she changed into a living person in God’s Chiefdom. Then she went and saw her child, and they went about greeting people.

  The people agreed when she said, “Hey, give me a place to build on.”

  I say, no sooner was that said, then all of a sudden there was a town like SaloNG over there (like Freetown, where you were recently). So it was that town was like that. At once they were all joined together and cement was smoothed on there and tar was rubbed on and streets were laid everywhere reaching to all the forests, completely finished, seNG.

  It was Yombo who brought the cement houses. It was she who came long ago wi
th riches. She it was who came long ago with cow stables. She it was who came long ago with pig taming. That stubbornness that Yombo one practiced, her own suited her. Ah, Yombo has done this for us today. We who now stay in shiny places that they call “zinc roofed,” we used to put elephant grass on top of our houses. Yombo it was whom that spirit enriched with his wealth. It’s thanks to that food she gave that lover, that is what made wealth come into the world, all that wealth of old.

  I’ve heard that and I’ve said it.

  Storyteller III [Manungo]: Domei oo Domeisia.

  Audience: Sa konde. [Don’t tell a long story, Storyteller.]

  Storyteller III: It’s the ending of jealousy I’m going to explain to you.

  Audience: The story you told yesterday, don’t tell it again!

  Storyteller III: That’s not what I’ll tell. I’ll tell about jealousy; that’s what I’ll show you.

  There was a dance long ago; they initiated a great Sande society in a town. So a great dance took place. Jenge jenge jenge, then the ancestors came out; ancestors, they were spirits, I’ll call them ancestors. Then they came to that dance. They were two only.

  A girl is named Yombo. The bush person who came long ago is named Kpana. He proposed love to her. His mate, his name is Jinabemba, he proposed love to another. So they made love for three days at this dance; then they said, “We’re going.”