Folktales from Africa Part 4

"It is my husband!" the girl shouted out gleefully. "Please show him to me immediately!"

They took the girl to where the young man was sitting on a small rock and showed him to her. She was very pleased to see how handsome and strong he was and the father lost no time in telling the young man that he should marry his daughter. The young man said that he was happy to do this, but that he had no house of his own.

"That does not matter," said the chief. "I shall give you some poles and some thatch and you can go and build it."

The young man asked whether it would be possible for him to build his house near the house of his own father, who lived by the Limpopo River. This was some distance away, but the chief agreed that this would be quite all right, as the father of the young man was a well-known chief in that part and he would be able to protect the girl from some of the dangers that were in the Limpopo River and nearby.

The chief spent a day discussing the house and the marriage with the young man and then sent him on his way."Begin the building of the house," he said to him. "In a month I shall send my daughter down to join you at your father's house. Then you can get married."

It was difficult for the girl to pa.s.s the time without thinking constantly of the husband who awaited her. Toward the end of the month, her mother became ill, and she spent much of her time at her bedside, nursing her and encouraging her to get better. The old woman, however, became weaker and weaker, although she was still able to tell her daughter how happy she was that she would soon be joining her new husband. At last the month had pa.s.sed and the daughter was told that she could prepare herself for the journey. The chief fetched an ox for her to ride upon, and then he stood at the gate to bid her farewell. As she rode past him, he gave her a small flower."Watch this flower," he said to her. "If the flower wilts, then you will know that your mother has died."

The girl began her journey, wondering if she would ever see her mother again. By midday, she was halfway there and paused to shelter for a while under the shade of a thorn tree. It was while she sat there that the flower, which she had been grasping in her hand, suddenly withered. At this, the girl knew that her mother had died and she began to weep.

It was important to that girl that her tears should not touch the ground. As the daughter of a chief, this would have been wrong, and so she quickly sought a place where she could weep in safety. Near the thorn tree was a deep ant-hole, and the girl sat next to this, allowing her tears to disappear into the dark depths of the earth. Unknown to her, a strange animal lived in that hole, and he soon felt the warm tears falling upon his skin.

At first the girl was frightened when the strange animal came out of the hole, but when he spoke to her and rea.s.sured her she was no longer afraid. He asked her where she was going and why she was going there, and when she explained to him he quickly suggested that it would be better if he accompanied her on her journey. The girl was pleased to have company, and so she agreed that the strange animal could come with her, at least as far as the hills near her future father-in-law's house.

While the girl rode comfortably on the ox, the strange animal loped along beside her.

"Your clothes are very beautiful," he said to her. "I wish that I had clothes like that."

The girl felt sorry for the strange-looking animal and offered to allow him to try on her clothes for a short period. He was very pleased with this offer and was soon dressed in the girl's clothes, smiling to himself in his satisfaction. After they had covered a short distance, he looked up at the girl and asked her if she was comfortable on the ox.

"It is very comfortable," the girl said. "It is much easier than walking."

The strange animal looked sad.

"I have never ridden an ox," he said. "I shall never know what it is like."

Hearing this remark, the girl leapt off the ox and told the strange animal that he should take her place.

"This is very kind of you," said the strange animal, smiling as he climbed onto the back of the ox. From where he sat, he could see the cattle pens of the father-in-law's village and he knew that they would soon be there.

The father-in-law was at the outer fence, ready to meet his new daughter-in-law. As the ox stopped in front of the village, the father-in-law stepped forward to help the strange animal get off the ox. He frowned as he did so, wondering to himself why his son had said that his new bride was so beautiful when in reality she was so ugly. Perhaps she will seem more beautiful tomorrow, he said to himself.

The real girl tried to tell her father-in-law that the strange animal was only a strange animal dressed in her clothes, but he refused to listen to her, thinking that she was only a servant girl. Telling her to keep quiet, he took the two of them to a hut he had prepared and there they were told to sleep.

The girl soon cried herself to sleep, but the strange animal nosed about the hut looking for things to eat. When he came across the calabashes of sour milk which the family kept in that hut, he drank them greedily, making a loud noise as he did so.

The next morning the family was surprised to find that their sour milk had all disappeared, but everybody thought that the calabashes must have leaked. New calabashes were obtained and these were filled with sour milk and put in the same place as the old ones. That night the strange animal again nosed about the dark corners of the hut and drank all the sour milk, turning the calabashes upside down to empty out the last drop.

The father was suspicious when he found that all the sour milk had once again disappeared and so he called everybody into the meeting area in front of his hut and told them of a plan he had.

"We have a sour milk thief among us," he said gravely. "There is only one way to find out who it is."

In the middle of the village a deep hole was dug. Into the hole four calabashes of sour milk were placed and then everybody was ordered to stand in a line. One by one, the people of the village and the visitors too were forced to jump over the hole. Most landed safely on the other side and were told to stand to one side.

When it came to the turn of the strange animal to jump, he had almost reached the other side before he tumbled down into the hole. When the people looked down to see what was happening, they saw the strange animal drinking greedily. The temptation of the sour milk had clearly been too much for him, and he had given himself away.

The father-in-law lost no time in ordering the hole to be filled in, burying the strange animal from sight. When this had been done, he turned to the girl and asked her to tell him what had happened. She told him how the strange animal had supplanted her and how n.o.body had been prepared to listen to her explanation at the beginning. The father-in-law realized that what she said was true and made it up to her by giving her many presents. When this happened, the girl almost entirely forgot about the strange animal and all the unhappiness which it had caused her.

12

Head Tree

A man who had never done any wrong to anybody else had a great misfortune happen to him. His wife noticed that a tree was beginning to grow out of his head. This was not painful to the man, but it made him feel awkward when there were other people about. They would point at him and say that this was a very strange thing to happen. Some people walked some miles to see this man sitting outside his hut with a tree growing out of his head.

At last the man decided that it was time to do something about the tree. He asked his wife if she would chop it down, but she warned him that this could be dangerous.

"If this tree is growing out of your head," she said, "then you might bleed to death if I chop it down."

The man agreed that this was a danger. So instead of chopping the tree down he went to see a certain woman who was well known in that part for being a woman who could use charms to solve difficult problems. This woman lived in a hut some distance away and so the man had to bear the stares of all the people as he walked to her place.

The charm woman looked at the man and said that she had never seen this sort of thing before, but that her mother had told her that things like this could happen and had given her instructions as to how to deal with it.

"You must have done something bad to have this happen to you," she said.

"I have not done anything bad," said the man hotly. "I have always behaved well."

"In that case," said the charm woman, "you must have been planning to do something bad. If this were not so, then why would a tree grow out of your head?"

The man had no answer for this, and so the charm woman took a special herb out of her bag and gave it to him.

"You must eat this every day for a week," she said. "At the end of the week the tree will go. You must also pay me two cows, for this is a very expensive herb and it is not easy to stop trees growing out of people's heads."

The man promised that he would give the woman her cows once the tree had gone. Then he returned to his home and took the first part of the herb. At the end of the week, when he had taken the last part of the herb, the tree fell off his head. The man's wife chopped it up and they used the wood for their cooking fire. The man was very relieved, and he was now able to walk about without people pointing at him and clicking their tongues in amazement.

"You must give that woman her cows," his wife said. "She has cured you well."

"I shall not," said the man. "She is just an old witch with a sharp tongue. There is no reason to give her anything."

The charm woman heard that the tree had fallen off the man's head and she sent a young boy to tell him to send her two cows. The man listened to the message which the boy brought, but all he did was beat the boy with a stick and send him home.

The next day, when the man was sitting in front of his hut drinking his beer, his wife came to him and looked at the top of his head.

"Another tree seems to be growing," she said. "This time it looks very big."

The man's heart filled with despair. He could not face the thought of having a tree on his head again, and so he went back to the charm woman's house.

"I have come for more medicine," he said. "And I have brought those two cows I promised you."

The charm woman looked at him and shook her head.

"You are a wicked man who does not keep his promises," she said. "If you want me to cure you again and to stop that tree forever, you will have to pay me four cows."

The man stamped his feet on the ground, but he knew that she was the only woman who could stop a tree from growing out of his head. Reluctantly he brought four cows and left them in front of her house. She gave him the herb and told him that he should always keep his promises, even if he thought that he had made a promise to a weak old woman. The man said nothing, but he knew that what she said was quite right.

13

The Grandmother Who Was Kind To A Smelly Girl

A beautiful girl had a very handsome makgabe, which is the ap.r.o.n worn by very young girls. This had been made for her by her grandmother, who was very kind to her. The grandmother had spent many hours weaving this makgabe for the girl.

The other girls in that place were jealous of that makgabe. Their own ap.r.o.ns were fine, but not so fine as the ap.r.o.n that that girl wore. They looked at her makgabe and thought that it would be better for them if they could get rid of it. But how do you take a person's clothes when that person is wearing them? That is a very difficult thing, even for clever girls.

One morning the girls invited that girl to go swimming with them in a river nearby. When they arrived at the river bank, the other girls said that they would all need to take off their makgabes, as the cloth would be damaged if it got wet. So all the girls did this, including the girl with the very beautiful makgabe.

When they were all naked, they jumped into the water and splashed around for some time. Then they emerged and the leader of the jealous girls took the makgabe of that girl and threw it into the river, near a place where a very large snake lived on the river bank. Then all the other girls put on their makgabes and walked home, leaving that girl crying by the river, saddened by the loss of her beautiful ap.r.o.n.

The large snake heard her weeping and came out to see what was happening. When he saw this beautiful girl, he slithered out and swallowed the makgabe and the girl. Fortunately for her, the snake did not like the taste of the makgabe, and he spat both it and the girl out, leaving them lying on the bank covered with the slime which is to be found in a snake's stomach. This slime smells very bad.

The girl put on her fouled makgabe and ran home to her parents, singing: Mother, open the door for me, I am smelling;Mother, open the door for me, I am smelling,I am smelling very bad.

The mother heard this song and ran out of their house to sing back to the girl before she could come in: Go away, you are smelling,Go away, you are smelling,Go away, you are smelling very bad.

The girl was very upset by this, and ran off to the house of her aunt and uncle. They heard her singing her song as she approached. They ran out, as had her mother, and sang the same song that her mother had sung, telling her to go away because she smelled so bad.

The poor girl then had only her grandmother's house to go to. She set off in that direction, her heart heavy within her. It seemed as if n.o.body wanted to look after her now that she smelled so bad. But she was wrong. When she reached her grandmother's house, the old woman did not send her away, but took her in and washed her, and her makgabe, making everything smell sweetly. Then the girl stayed there and some years later she received a proposal of marriage from the son of a very rich chief. The parents heard about this and asked her to come back to their house and live there. The girl, however, remembered how they had behaved when she had smelled so bad, and so she told them that she would never go back to their house, even if they were her parents.

"Parents must love their children," she said, "even if their children smell very bad."

After her marriage, the girl invited the grandmother to come and live with her in the house of this rich chief and his son. The grandmother was happy to do this, and she was very comfortable there, and very important.

14

The Baboons Who Went This Way And That

There was much unhappiness in a village of small huts. The people who lived there had been happy before, but then wild animals had come and had begun to frighten them. These animals ate all their crops and from time to time they even carried off children who wandered away from their parents. It was not a good place to live any longer, and the people began to think of where they might go to lead a new life.

One family found the answer. Rather than deal with the wild animals who seemed to be everywhere on the flat land, they decided to go in search of food up in the hills. It was not hard to find food there. There were bushes that grew in the cracks between rocks; there were trees that grew at the foot of the slopes; there were rock rabbits which could be trapped and birds which could be brought down with the stones which littered the floor of the caves.

Other families noticed how well the hill family was doing. They saw the sleekness of their children, and they noticed how calm the parents were.

"It is a good life that we lead up in the hills," said the husband. "You should come there too."

Soon the other families abandoned their homes on the flat land and went up to the hills. Each family found a cave to live in, and in this way they were warm and secure. Soon everybody talked about how sorry they were that they had not come to the hills earlier, rather than letting the wild animals eat their crops and drag off their children.

As the children grew up in the hills, they began to get better at the things that had to be done to live in such a place. They became very quick at climbing rocks, and even the youngest could scamper up a face of rock almost as quickly as any rock rabbit. They also became good at climbing into trees to look for fruit, and they could swing in the branches almost as well as any monkey. People who pa.s.sed by and saw the hill people living on their hill wondered whether they were perhaps wild animals, but when they saw their faces and the clothes that they were wearing they realized that they were only people who had made the hills their home.

Slowly, things began to change. The parents noticed that their children were talking less, and that rather than speaking to one another in the language of people they were beginning to use grunts. Then the adults themselves noticed that their noses were getting bigger and that they were growing hairier. Every time they looked at one another they saw that their faces had changed yet more and that their teeth were longer. Soon they spent as much time on four legs as on two, and it was at this point that they became a new creature. This creature, which had never before been seen in that place, was the creature which people now call the baboon.

For a time, the baboons lived happily. They stopped chasing the rock rabbits and started to eat grubs from the ground. They also forgot how to talk, and n.o.body now made any sound other than a bark or a grunt. They took off their clothes and let the rags lie on the ground until they were destroyed by ants. Their legs and arms were now completely covered with dark hair.