[22] "'Tick-'poon" i.e. a stick used as a substitute for a spoon.
[23] "Hush yah," or "as-yah," is the strongest expression of sympathy in the Sierra Leone dialect.
[24] "Wey t'ing do de place far so?" i.e., Why is the place so far?
[25] To an African mind, everything in the least unusual needs to be accounted for. Consequently some solution, however fanciful, must be offered for the slow locomotion of such a pompous appearing character in the native stories as the Chameleon. Raising one foot after the other slowly, very slowly, he puts it down with a meditative precision that leads the people to ascribe to him these words: "I duh walker, mash (take) one step, den odder step. Ef I walker hard I go sink de groun', de groun' go bus', he too sof', en bimeby de wuld go broke. Dat make I duh walker soffle, so I no fa' down."
[26] Native lack of management, and shiftlessness in providing for the future by planting a sufficient amount of rice, cause, for the great mass of the people, an annual scarcity of food just preceding the season of ingathering. Add to this the frequent wars, and the occasional devastations by locusts, and the explanation is afforded for the famines so frequently mentioned in the oral literature concerning the animals, the pathetic sharers in the suffering of their human friends.
[27] The native rope is a vine that grows in the jungle, and which is sufficiently strong to serve the purposes of a rope. Fastened to a large stone it even holds a boat at anchor.
[28] "Put Bundo" signifies to initiate into the mysteries of the Bundo, a powerful secret organization for women.
[29] The initiation lasts for several weeks, during which period the candidates are not allowed to mingle with the people of the town. A supply of food is therefore necessary, and it is this supply that Spider asks the chief to provide.
[30] The native jug for storing palm-oil, is a joint of bamboo, stopped up at both ends, or a gourd.
[31] The customary way for the chief to issue a proclamation is to send a town crier around, after the people have gathered in the town for the night.