VII.—How two friends fell out: the Spider and the Grasshopper.
Long ago the spider and the grasshopper were good friends. Unfortunately the spider was intensely greedy, and this led to much unpleasantness.
Now the spider wanted to go some distance from his house to marry a wife in a strange country, so he called upon his friend the grasshopper to accompany him. They started off together in the morning before the sun was hot, and when they had gone some little way, the spider said to his friend, “While we are away together, I want you to call me ‘Stranger,’ and I will call you ‘Dabi.’ We must not call one another by our proper names, as I do not want the people to know who we really are.” To this the grasshopper readily consented, little knowing what he was letting himself in for.
Shortly afterwards they arrived at the first town, and were welcomed by the chief. The grasshopper said he was called Dabi, and introduced his friend as “Stranger.”
The chief then ordered food to be placed before them, but the spider, whilst thanking the chief for his kindness, said: “Surely the custom of the country is, when a stranger arrives in a town, to first of all offer him ‘the peace dish,’ consisting of dried meat and kola nuts, to show that he is welcome, and that there is peace between them.”
The chief replied, “Yes, there is certainly that custom here, but as I thought you were hungry after your long walk, I ordered the food to be brought at once.” He then told one of his slaves to bring the dried meat and kola, and when it was brought, the spider eat all the meat and kola except two nuts, one of which he returned to the chief, and the other he gave to the grasshopper, saying, “You must wait, my friend Dabi, for your food, as this meat and kola was brought for the stranger, and your name was not mentioned.”
Later on the general supply of food was passed round, a certain amount being set on one side for the strangers. This the spider also eat, saying, “I am sorry, Dabi, but there is no food for you, as this was brought for the stranger, and that is my name.”
The next day they resumed their journey, and when they arrived at the town where the girl lived whom the spider was about to marry, he went to his future father-in-law’s house, whose name was Tawn, and said, “Tawn, I have come to marry your daughter.”
Now Tawn had a wife called Osegi, who was a very good-natured woman, which was lucky for the grasshopper as things turned out.
When Tawn had embraced his future son-in-law, he ordered a cow to be killed to welcome him. And when the people brought the food, they said, “Here is the stranger’s portion.” Immediately the spider said to his friend, “Did you hear that, Dabi? Your name was not mentioned, so you have no right to this food, which is all for me, ‘the stranger.’” But the grasshopper kept quiet and never said a word to anyone, although he was very hungry.
The marriage between the spider and Chief Tawn’s daughter was celebrated the following day. All the people were called together to dance and play, guns were fired off in the town, and Chief Tawn killed four more cows for the strangers who had come from a distance.
The grasshopper longed to eat the food, but did not see how he could manage it, as he was known as Dabi, and his name was never called. The spider therefore ate his own share and the grasshopper’s as well, while the poor grasshopper sat down by himself, feeling very sad, and not speaking to anyone.
When he had finished the food the spider went out to dance and play with his new wife, but the grasshopper did not go, as he was very hungry and weak, and not feeling at all up to singing and dancing.
After he had been alone for a little while, the Chief’s wife Osegi came in, and seeing the grasshopper looking so miserable, went up to him and said, “Why are you so silent and sad at my daughter’s wedding, when all the other people are feasting and dancing?”
At this the grasshopper could contain himself no longer, and burst into tears saying, “Three days ago, when we left our home, the spider asked me to call him ‘Stranger’ and said he would call me ‘Dabi.’ During all this time I have been starving, and I am very hungry indeed, as all the food has been brought for ‘the Stranger,’ and the spider has eaten it because my name is Dabi, and I was never mentioned.” Then Osegi said she would tell the people what their proper names were so that when the food was brought the grasshopper would have his share. Osegi then went out and gave the necessary orders, and told her slaves to be most particular to call the grasshopper’s name the next time there was food so that he should be able to eat. In the afternoon this was done, but when the spider heard his friend’s name called out, he was so angry that he would not eat.
The second day the servants did the same, and the spider again refused the food when it was brought. Early in the morning of the third day the spider told his father-in-law that he was going home, and that he would leave his wife for a time, and come back for her later.
Tawu then said he would make another feast to celebrate their departure, and that he should like to see his son-in-law dance once more before he returned home; so the people were called to another play, and the chief milked one more cow for their food. When the food was ready the spider said to his friend, “Come on, Dabi, let us go and dance.” But the grasshopper refused and said, “No, you go and dance, and I will join you later.” So the spider went by himself, leaving the grasshopper in the room where the food was. Seeing there was no one about, he took his outside skin off very quickly and hung it up on a peg on the wall, making it look just like a living grasshopper; he then went out and joined the dancers.
When the spider saw the grasshopper had arrived and was busily engaged dancing, being very hungry he stole off by himself to the room where the food was and put his hand into the pot. But, just as he was going to take out a piece of meat, he happened to look up and saw the skin of the grasshopper, which was so lifelike that it deceived him into thinking that it really was his friend on the wall, so he pulled his hand out of the pot and said, trying to laugh, “It is all right, Dabi, my friend, I was not going to eat anything, I just came in to see what the food was like.” He then went out again to where the people were dancing, and to his great surprise he saw the grasshopper, where he had left him, dancing and enjoying himself with some pretty young girls.
The spider could not understand how it was that the grasshopper had managed to get back to the play so quickly, but, as he saw him there, he was too hungry to trouble much about that, and went back again to get the food he was so much in need of. Everything was quiet when he returned, so he lifted the lid again, and took out a large piece of yam, and had only taken one bite, when his eye was caught by the grasshopper’s skin in the same place where he had seen it before. The spider was amazed at this, and thought there must be some ju-ju in it, so he put the yam down and ran out of the house, shouting as he went, “All right, Dabi, I only thought I would like to taste the food to see that it was good.”
But when he got to the dance he again saw, to his intense astonishment, that the grasshopper was dancing away as merrily as before.
The spider then went up to his father-in-law and asked him to stop the dance, as he wished to go home at once. This was done, and they all went back to the chief’s house together.
Chief Tawu then gave both the spider and the grasshopper a dog each as a present, and shortly afterwards they started off together on their-return journey.
After walking a short distance outside the town, the spider was so hungry that he stopped and killed the dog his father-in-law had given, and very soon had eaten the whole of it.
He then tried to get the grasshopper to kill his dog, but he refused, saying, “The dog was given to me by the chief as a present and not for food. I shall take it home with me.”
When the spider had finished eating his dog, he put the skull of the dog in his bag, and asked the grasshopper to go in front of him. Shortly after this, the dog, scenting some game, dived into the bush, and very soon returned to the path with a small bush buck in his mouth. As the grasshopper had gone on in front and had not waited for his dog, the spider took the buck, and, having cut its head off and put it in his bag next to the dog’s skull, he sat down and eat the body.
When he rejoined the grasshopper later in the day, he produced his bag, and took out the buck’s head, and told the grasshopper that his dog’s skull was very clever, and had killed the buck. Although the grasshopper knew quite well what had happened, he did not say anything, but walked on again in front with his dog as he had done before.
That night they slept in the bush, and the next day, when they got near the first town they had passed through when leaving home, the dog again dashed off into the forest, and chased a bush cow which he bit very badly in the leg.
When they reached the town, the spider told the people that the grasshopper’s dog had chased one of the chief’s cows and bitten it very badly. This made the people angry, and they all turned out with sticks to beat the grasshopper, but when he saw them coming, he called out to them and soon convinced them that his dog had not bitten the chief’s cow, but had chased a bush cow and had wounded it badly. He then offered to show the hunters where the place was, and they gladly accepted his offer. The hunters then got their bows and arrows, and having been shown the tracks of the bush cow by the grasshopper, they had little difficulty in tracking it by its blood, and eventually killed it.
The people then carried the meat back to the town and placed the horns in front of their ju-ju. Half the meat was given to the grasshopper, and the remainder divided amongst the people, the spider getting nothing.
When the spider saw this he was vexed, and told the grasshopper that he did not want him for his friend again. He then set himself to make a net of web in order to revenge himself on the grasshopper, and has ever since lived on insects.
N.B.—This story was given to me at Akparabong by a native, but there would appear to be some doubt as to whether it is a local story or not. A native from Cavally on the Kroo Coast affirms that he first told this story which was afterwards related to me, and this boy certainly gave me afterwards the main features of the story, but with a different local colouring.
VIII.—How Ewa Abagi, an Inkum Woman, was Drowned in the Cross
River, and how She was Rescued by the Young Men of Insofan.
In the olden days, Ewa Abagi lived at Inkum. She was very rich and was considered to be a most beautiful woman. She made most of her money by trading in palm kernels and camwood, but, as she was so popular wherever she went with the young men of the country, she also made a lot of money out of them, as, if they did not pay her well in advance, she would have nothing to do with them.
She received many offers of marriage, but refused them all, until one day a chief of Insofan named Awor sent a message to her that he wished to make her his wife, as he had heard what a fine woman she was.
Ewa Abagi then sent word back to the chief that she could not marry him just then as she was expecting to bear a son, but that, some time after the child was born, she would go up the river to Insofan and marry him as she had heard that he was rich and was a good man.
The child turned out to be a girl, and shortly after her birth, Ewa Abagi bought a young slave woman called Mossim to look after her baby, while she herself went to the different markets trading.
When the girl baby had become six years old, Ewa Abagi dressed herself and her daughter up in their best clothes, and crossed over the river to Okuni with the slave woman Mossim carrying her load. They then proceeded to walk overland to Insofan.
On reaching the Abum River which is quite close to Insofan, Ewa Abagi went to bathe, and took her little daughter with her, putting down her cloth and beads on the ground. As the river was very shallow, it being the dry season, they walked and waded down to the Cross River.
When she got there, she washed her daughter and then called upon Mossim to scrub her back. The slave woman then came up behind her mistress, and pushed her into the Cross River, where she at once disappeared.
When the little girl, whose name was Essere, saw that her mother had gone, she began to cry, but Mossim said, “Do not cry. You must call me your mother, and I will treat you well. When we get to the town, you must not tell anyone that I am not your mother, or I will punish you severely.”
She then dressed the child and put on the cloth and beads of Ewa Abagi herself, having just tied up her own clothes into a bundle with some stones and thrown them into the Cross River.
Mossim and the child then walked on to Insofan, and, when they got there, the slave woman went to Chief Awor’s house and said, “I am Ewa Abagi whom you wanted to marry, and this (turning to the little girl) is my daughter Essere.” The chief welcomed her, but was not very pleased, as he had expected to see a much finer woman from all the reports he had heard of her beauty.
When the people of Insofan heard that the chief’s new wife had arrived, many of them went to see her, as she was so well known by name. When they saw Mossim, they were not greatly impressed by her looks, and said so quite freely in very plain terms.
Now, one of the young men of the town, who had been down the river trading, knew Ewa Abagi very well indeed, and, when he saw the slave woman, he recognized her as the servant, so he told Chief Awor. The chief said, “Very well, I hear what you say, and will not marry the woman at present. We will wait for a time, and I will make enquiries.”
In the morning Mossim told the girl to go and get water from the spring, and the little girl went off with the water pot on her head. Essere, however, did not go to the spring as she had been told, but went to the place where she had seen the slave woman push her mother into the water. She then sat down and began to cry for her mother.
When Ewa Abagi heard her daughter crying, she came out of the river and talked to her. She then painted her daughter with okukum,[1] and having helped the child with the water pot, she returned to the river, and Essere went home.
When she arrived at the house, Mossim asked her who had painted her with okokum and why she had been so long getting the water from the spring. The child did not answer, so the slave woman said to her, “Don’t you be so long another time, or you will get into trouble.”
The next day Essere went to get the water at the same place. She called for a long time, but her mother did not come out, as she saw a man making tombo in a tree near at hand. At last, however, as she did not like to hear her little daughter crying, Ewa Abagi came out very quickly, helped Essere with the water pot on to her head, and went back again into the river.
The man, who had been watching, saw Ewa Abagi and recognized her. He therefore came down from the tree and went at once to the chief and told him what he had seen.
The chief then told all the young men of the town to go early the next morning to the place where Ewa Abagi had been seen and to try and get her out of the river. He promised them that, if they succeeded in bringing the woman to him, he would hold a big play and “dash” them plenty of tombo and food.
The chief told Essere that, when she went in the morning to get the water, if she wanted to get her mother back, directly she had got the water out of the river she must take the pot back some little distance into the bush.
When the morning came, the little girl went off with her pot, as before, and having filled it with water, carried it back into the bush some little way from the river, and then sat down, and called for her mother to come and help her.
The young men, who had gone to the place before it was light, and who had lined both banks of the Abum river, by the chief’s orders, were all hidden out of sight, and, when Ewa Abagi came out of the water, they immediately surrounded her and caught her before she could get back to the river. They then carried her back to the chief.
The slave woman was then seized, and tied up to a tree, and, when the morning came, the chief charged her with trying to kill her mistress. She was found guilty, and was ordered to be killed as a sacrifice to the water ju-ju.
Mossim was then handed over to the young men who had rescued Ewa Abagi, and they took her to the place where she had pushed her mistress into the river, and, having cut her head off, threw the head and body into the river. This is one of the reasons why slaves are always killed and put into the grave of their master or mistress when they die, as a warning to other slaves not to try to kill their owners.
Author’s note.
There is a firm belief amongst all the natives in the Ikom district that the slaves who are killed and buried with their master will meet him again in the Spirit Land, where the conditions of life will be the same as they were on earth. The master will recognise his slaves and they will work for him. They also believe that, when a chief arrives in the Spirit Land, accompanied by these slaves, carrying the gin cloth, rods, etc., which were placed in the grave, the people of the Spirit Land-will say, “This is a chief coming. Look at his slaves, etc.”
Some years ago a road was being made through an old compound which had tumbled down and disappeared, leaving no trace of any human habitation. The road passed through an old grave of a chief who had been buried in the house, and many things, including rods, bottles of gin and plates, had been put in the grave. The natives who were working on the road were afraid to touch anything in the grave, but a native foreman, who came from another country where they held different beliefs, opened a bottle of gin and drank some of it. When the natives saw that nothing happened to him, they all rushed in and there was a regular scramble for everything.
Told by Abassi of Inkum.—[E.D., 1.6.10.]
Thomas, District Clerk, Inkom, told me this grave incident, and said it happened in his presence some years ago at Calabar, when he was time-keeper in the P.W.D.