Congo life and folklore

by John H. Weeks

The Hawk ruffled his feathers and went, and as the Frog jumped off, he muttered: “I will never again lend to folk bigger than myself, for if you ask them for the money they are angry with you, and if you don’t ask for it they think you silly and laugh at you.”

XIX

How a Child saved his Mother’s Life

A man, once upon a time, cleared a large piece of bush, and then sent his wife to plant it with cassava. When the cassava was ready to pull, the bush-pigs and other animals visited the farm and destroyed the roots, and it seemed as though the woman would have her trouble for nothing. The wife complained about it to her husband, and he went to dig a large pit in which to trap the wild animals that came stealing in their farm.

While the man was digging the hole an Imp came out of the forest near by and asked him what he was doing. Upon hearing he was digging a trap for animals, the Imp said: “Let me help you.” The man, fearing the Imp would kill him if he refused, accepted his offer. Thereupon the Imp said: “Let us make a bargain. All the male animals that fall into the trap are yours, but all the female ones are mine.” The man agreed to this, and they then finished the hole together, after which they returned to their places.

Next morning they went to look at the hole and found one male pig in it, which the man took according to their agreement. Every morning they went and it was the same--male pigs, antelopes and buffaloes were in the trap, never any female ones, sometimes there were two males and sometimes there were five males. The man laughed, and said to the Imp: “You were foolish to make such a bargain, for did you not know that only male animals go about in search of food? You are very foolish.”

The man took the animals to his town, and all the way home he was ridiculing the stupid Imp. The wife said: “Now we have plenty of meat, but no cassava bread to eat with it. Tomorrow I will go and dig up some roots in the farm with which to make some bread.”

Early next morning the woman took her basket and her hoe, and went to the farm, leaving her husband at home to look after their little boy. When the woman had been gone some time the boy began to cry, so the man picked him up and followed his wife to the farm to give the child to her. As he drew near the farm he heard the Imp gleefully singing: “O my, O my, at last I have a female animal in the trap.”

On reaching the trap the man asked the Imp why he was jumping, dancing and singing in that joyful fashion, and when he heard that it was because there was one female animal in the trap, the man laughed at the Imp for making so much fuss over one animal; but looking into the pit, and seeing his wife there he began to cry, and contended that the Imp was cheating him as a woman was not an animal.

They became very angry in their discussion as to whether the woman was an animal or not, that at last the boy said: “Father, you agreed to the bargain that you were to have all the male animals, and he was to have all the female ones that fell into the trap; we have had plenty of animals out of the hole, but he has not had a single one. Let him take this one.”