There are many modifications in the game. The movements are very rapid and cause a great amount of amusement, and help to train the eyes and render the limbs very supple.
Among other games played were “touch,” a kind of “hunt the slipper,” with a palm-nut as the “slipper”; “tipit” was also played by the boys sitting in a ring and passing a palm-nut from one to another, and the lad in the centre had to catch the boy who really had the nut and they changed places. Hopping the longest on one leg, throwing into a hole, and backgammon were also in vogue at times. A popular game with small boys was to hide a canna seed in one of five little heaps of dirt, and the opponent had to sweep away the four heaps that did not contain the seed and leave untouched the one heap that hid it. Each success counted as a game to the winner, and every failure as a game to the other side.
A never-ending source of amusement for dark nights when they gathered round their fires in the streets, or for cold, rainy nights when they sat in their houses was to be found in their puzzle stories and conundrums. In nearly every town and village were expert story-tellers and propounders of riddles, who were deservedly the recipients of much local praise and fame for their voluntary efforts to entertain their neighbours.
Tonzeka’s town was no exception. Almost every evening, after the meal was over, one or other of these skilled reciters would be called on for a story.
One evening the following wonderful deeds were related, and aroused a great amount of discussion. I must preface this story by saying: The Congo natives think that anything wonderful, anything out of the ordinary injures their social and domestic life, or, as they say, “spoils their country,” and is consequently to be condemned and punished. Hence the appeal in this story from one to another to decide who had performed the most extraordinary feat, and was, therefore, worthy of the greatest blame.
The narrator called it
“The Story of the Four Wonders.”
"A woman gave birth to a child, who on the day it was born went by itself down to the river to bathe. While there a hunter arrived, who fired his gun.
"‘What are you firing at?’ asked the baby. ‘I am shooting the mosquitoes that are eating my wife’s cassava,’[[37]] replied the hunter.
"‘Whoever heard of such a thing before?’ said the baby. ‘By shooting mosquitoes you are injuring the country.’