The Story of the Tortoise and the Monkey
Once a tortoise and a monkey made friends, and the monkey said to the tortoise, “Friend Tortoise, come to my home and visit.” So the tortoise went and the monkey cooked food for him, but, wishing to play a trick on him, placed it on a high platform which the tortoise could not possibly reach up to. Then he called the tortoise, saying, “Friend Tortoise, go into the house and eat.” When the tortoise went in expecting a feast he found the food so high up that he could not reach it. So he came out very angry, and said, “Friend Monkey, you have been insolent to me.” So he went home, and brooded over the insult for three days. Then he sent a messenger to invite the monkey to his home, saying to himself, “Yon monkey was cheeky to me, I also will be cheeky to him.” So when the monkey came he found food already cooked and eyed it greedily. But the tortoise said, “Friend Monkey, there is no water in the house, go down to the stream and wash your hands.” So the monkey went down through the burned grass and washed his hands in anticipation of the feast. But in coming back from the stream he had to pass again through the burned grass and his hands were as black as ever. So seeing through the tortoise’s cunning he got angry, and said, “My friend has played a trick on me,” and departed to his own home.
CHAPTER X
FINGER RHYMES AND RIDDLES
Now I have told you four African tales of animals, and perhaps you are tired of such stories. If, however, I can remember a very good one before I am finished writing to you I shall put it into this chapter.
Let me now tell you about the black boys and girls’ riddles, and there are one or two nursery rhymes that I know of. I am sure you would like to hear them, so I shall write them down for you as they are spoken here, and then translate them for you. Here is one of them:—
“Uyu ndi mtecheteche,
Uyu ndi mpwache wa mteche,
Uyu ndi mkala pakati,
Uyu ndi mkomba mbale,
Uyu ndi chitsiru chache,
Tikumenya iwe: Go! Go!”
Can you guess what this is all about? You have a rhyme that means just the same. Well this is what these funny words mean:—
“This is the shaky little finger,
This is his younger brother,
This is the one in the middle,
This is the plate-scraper,
This is an old fool,
I beat you thus: Go! Go!”
It is you see an African finger rhyme. You have all one of your own, but I am sure in it you never call your fore-finger a plate-scraper, nor your thumb an old fool. But if you had to eat without spoons and knives and forks, and wanted to make your plate very clean you would have to use your fore-finger a good deal, and you would then understand why the black children call it a plate-scraper.
This is another finger rhyme for counting up all the fingers:—
“Mbewa zagwa;
Zagweranji?
Zagwera mapira;
Ndikazikumbe;
Ndiopa uluma.
“Mzanga Likongwa,
Ali kukaku;
Amanga mpanda;
Ndikamtandize;
Wata Kale.”
This is the English for it:
“The mice have fallen;
Why have they fallen?
They have fallen for the millet;
I go dig them;
I fear to be bitten.
“My friend Mr Weasel,
He is at the chiefs house;
He builds a fence;
I go help him;
He’s finished long ago.”
Then about guesses. I have tried to pick out one or two just to let you hear what like they are. Many of the answers to riddles I have heard seemed to me to have little or no point in them. So it is with the stories. But when I have failed to see the joke and have not laughed the black boys have not failed. They have their own funny stories and laugh at them heartily. But our jokes they do not understand, nor do they play pranks on one another as white boys do. Let me try to tell you how you can make black boys and girls roar with laughter, and yet to a white man there is nothing to laugh about. If you are telling them about people scattering helter-skelter and say that the people, “nalimenya,” which means go off helter-skelter, the boys will go into fits of laughter. Now I can see nothing to laugh at in this, and I am sure you can’t either, and, if another word had been used, neither would the black boy. But here is the peculiar thing. It is the “li” in the middle of the word that makes it funny to African children here.
“Menya” means “beat,” but “limenya” means “run off helter-skelter.” Again “Sesa” means “sweep,” but “lisesa” means “run off helter-skelter;” and so on with a lot of other words, the addition of the syllable “li” makes them change their meanings entirely, and become “run off helter-skelter,” and so very funny that black boys and girls cannot keep from laughing. Now for the guesses:—
“What is yonder and here at the same time?”
Answer—A shadow.
“I built a house with one post.”
Answer—A mushroom.
“It goes yonder yet remains here.”
Answer—A belt.
“I had a big garden, yet got no food from it.”
Answer—The hair of the head.
“I built my house without any door.”
Answer—An egg.
“My hen laid an egg among thorns.”
Answer—The tongue and the teeth.
I think you will understand these answers to the above guesses, but what do you think of this one?
“In my mother’s house there is money.”
Answer—Baldness.
I am certain you and I would never have thought of such an answer.
Here are one or two of their proverbs:—
“Sleep knows no friendship, has no favourite.”
“If your neighbour’s beard takes fire, quench it;”
which latter means—
“Help your neighbour now, for some day you may need help.”
By means of these guesses the African children while away the time and amuse themselves on wet days or on cold nights round the fire by asking them from one another. Now let me close this chapter by telling you the story of