The frog tried to jump away, but found that he was helpless as both of his hind legs were fast. Then the frog promised to cure the people, but begged the cock and the rabbit not to kill him but to throw him into the water to drown, this they agreed to do. The frog then pointed to some leaves growing near and told the cock to gather them, and to squeeze the juice into the eyes of the people and animals, and they would all wake up. The cock and the rabbit then untied the frog and threw him into the river: they then returned and squeezed the juice of the leaves into the eyes of all the people and animals, and they woke up immediately, none the worse for their experience but very frightened.
They all went home and were shortly afterwards joined by the cock and the rabbit. The chief then asked who it was that had redeemed him from death with all his household? When he heard it was the cock and the rabbit, he appointed the cock to be the head man of the house, and gave him power to wake everybody at daylight and tell them it was time to go and work. As a reward to the rabbit, the chief pointed to his farm and said, “you can eat as much as you like of the yams, cassava, and of the palm-nuts which fall to the ground, and take them home and nobody will take them from you.”
From that day, the frog lived in the water, and seldom came to land except for food, and, ever since, the young of the frog have had tails which show that they come from the frog which was made from the tail of a yam.
Told by Ewonkom, an Ikom woman.—[E.D., 22.6.10.]
XVIII.—How the River came into Existence; or, Why a Crab has no Head.
When the Creator made the earth he appointed the elephant ruler of the world. In those days there were no rivers but the Creator made a pond for the elephant to drink out of. One day the elephant told his friends, the hawk and the crab, that he was going to hunt in the forest on a certain day. When the appointed day arrived the elephant and the hawk went off with their bows and arrows, and having surrounded a part of the forest, commenced to hunt.
Now the crab was a poor thing and could not walk fast, neither could he use a bow and arrow, so he took a long net with him into the forest and waited for the animals to run into it. When an animal which had been wounded by the elephant or the hawk ran into the net it very soon became entangled in the meshes of the net. The crab then went up to the animal and killed it with a stick; having thrown the arrow away he would put the animal on one side as his own.
At the end of the day the elephant had killed five buck and the hawk three, but the crab had secured ten animals all much bigger than himself. When the hunt was over the elephant told the hawk and the crab to bring to him all the animals they had killed, but when he saw that the crab had killed ten animals to his five he was very angry and told the hawk to put him down on the ground and cut his head off.
But the crab begged the elephant so hard to forgive him, and offered to give up the animals he had killed, that at last the elephant trumpeted: “Go!” in a very loud voice, and the crab went, leaving the ten animals behind him.
The crab was very angry at losing all the meat, so he thought he would revenge himself upon the elephant. He therefore crawled along sideways to the elephant’s house, and told the elephant’s wife that the place where they had been hunting was very cold and that her husband wished her to make him some good soup and that she was not to forget to put plenty of peppers in it.